“That I’m not sure about.” And I wasn’t. She was either being used or playing me. Either way, she was the one in over her head.
The buzzing of my phone interrupted the conversation.
“Who is it?”
“Speak of the devil. Detective Abbott,” I said, curious as to what she would have to say. While I might not appreciate her style of handling cases, I’d never thought she could be corrupt.
“Kendrick. I got the picture you sent and, well…”
“Well?” Her hesitation told me everything I needed to know.
“I have a dead body in the morgue, a Jane Doe. I’m so sorry, but I think it’s Briana Murphy.”
CHAPTER 24
Reese
“Thank you for stopping for clothes. For buying them. For caring about me.” I barely remembered going into Marshalls, needing his help to find something appropriate to wear. What did one choose when heading to see if your sister had been murdered in cold blood? I had no idea. The skirt and top were fine. I guess.
Without a doubt, I was a mess, incapable of thinking clearly.
All I knew was that he’d had to come into the dressing room with me, helping me put on clothes. Like I was a child incapable of doing so.
“Of course I care about you, Reese. Very much.”
Darkness swirled all around me even as the bright lights of the city streets created flashing waves in vivid colors across the dashboard.
I’d heard all about the stages of grief from disbelief to anger. I’d already experienced every one of them before Kendrick had all but carried me to his car.
Now I was numb. Not hot. Not cold.
I felt nothing, as if my entire being had dropped into a haunted abyss where I’d free float for eternity.
With my head lolled against the headrest, an array of past events in my life paraded in front of me, taunting me into remembering my sweet sister. Meanwhile, a constant ticking sound tickled my eardrums, as if hands of a clock were counting down time.
Until what I wasn’t certain.
“What lengths would you go to in order to provide justice?” I asked quietly. We’d been in the car for over ten minutes, the silence churning my mind into shattered pieces of myself.
“What lengths?”
“Yes. Is there a line you won’t cross if necessary?”
Exhaling, Kendrick rubbed his finger across his lips. “No.”
A single word. A definitive word.
“Even murder?”
“Even murder.”
He wasn’t lying. I could feel it in my bones, sense it in every synapse of my brain. Some might call him a monster like the others if he was willing to take another life. In my mind, he was the very hero that he refused to accept.
Brave and honest. Caring and wise. Yet refusing to allow criminals to win.
My respect for the man continued to grow.
So did a deeper, more intense set of feelings that I wasn’t capable of rationalizing. At least not right now. Not with what we were facing.
