“She might not pull through this, we might not have saved her, but remember that Zach will never be able to hurt anyone like her again.”
“I know. I promise I do.”
The door opens and I look up as a man enters. He hesitates when he sees us.
“Are you Nadine’s brother?” I ask.
“I am. Jared. Are you friends?”
I shake my head as I step over to greet him and shake his hand. “We’re actually detectives. We were here talking to the doctor and thought we’d stop in and see her.”
“She’s…” He watches her for a moment. “I’m just not sure she’s going to wake up, you know? I feel pretty shitty about it. I haven’t seen her in months… since I moved to Utah. I kept meaning to come back since I knew she didn’t have the money to toss toward a plane ticket, but I just… got caught up in my life and now here we are. Finally bought that plane ticket but a week too late.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say.
Jared gives me a soft smile as he slumps into the remaining chair. “Thanks. Were you the ones who found her?”
“We were,” I confirm.
“Thank you. I just… I really want to thank you. And if she wakes up… please stop by because she’ll want to thank you too.”
“Of course,” I say.
“And I promise if she wakes up, I’m never going to push off our visits ever again.”
“I really hope she does,” I tell him before I nudge Liam and head for the door.
NINE
Liam
My sweet Gabriel is off at his sister’s, and I am doing what I enjoy doing best while he is gone… stalking.
It gives me a warm little tickle in my body as I watch the person scurry off with absolutely no idea that I’m watching them. They have no idea their freedom is close to an end.
My question is… are they the accomplice?
Or the killer?
The two involved don’t meet at the zoo. No, that’d be far too risky. They meet at a dark park where they think no one will notice their late-night rendezvous.
But I do.
I even join them. They just don’t know it yet.
It’s almost disappointing how easy this was. It should have been harder. It should have been impossible to deduce, but here I stand, not even forty-eight hours after being tasked with the job and already being bestowed an answer.
They’re talking in hushed whispers. It’s impossible to hear them without getting closer, and I’m not yet sure I plan to doso. It really doesn’t matter what they say to each other out here in the park, but I have to assume by their body language they’re both pissed at the other for not doing this well enough.
Boy, do they not realize how poorly it was done.
I get bored of this far too quickly as I think about what to do next.
Should I report it? Walk right up to Michaels and tell him exactly what happened?
Or take matters into my own hands?
Gabriel would really frown on me killing one of them, especially since I’m not yet sure which one did the killing, even though I have a pretty damn good idea.
