Page 101 of Breathe Me In

“Right.” I shook my head unimpressed. “You can’t defend yourself because you have no idea.”

He grimaced as if my words hurt him. He swung his head to look at me. “Killing someone with a simple poison is lazy. There’s no art in that, no creativity.” I didn’t react. “Ford’s powder process is flawless, better than what Johnny got into. The trick is making sure that every piece is a tiny flake, nothing that can get caught up in the lung or nasal cavity. It’s smooth like butter going in. After it’s in your system, it releases the poison that stops certain parts of your brain while it attacks other parts. They’re like a drunk walking as they fall into a sleepy death. There’s very little pain.” He seemed pleased by that. “The club was the perfect place. Always packed, everyone on top of one another. It’s so simple to puff a little powder that you can barely see. The girls looked drunk, and no one’s the wiser.”

“We found traces in their nasal cavities and lungs. The process wasn’t flawless.” Bree turned her nose up at him. “You’re disgusting.”

I cleared my throat. “However you look at it, Hank, or Zach, or whatever you call yourself, you seem happy enough to do the dirty work for the devil.”

“I’m not a monster, Brad. I’m simply doing what was needed.” He grabbed the marker that was tucked in my folder, swung the file folder around, and wrote, six–nine. “I can’t give you any more than that.” He pushed the folder back and rolled the marker to me. “But you’ll be getting more.”

“And men accuse women of playing games.” Bree rolled her eyes. She pointed to the number he’d written. “Whatever this is, we’re not playing.”

“I want my lawyer.”

“Right.” I nodded and pretended to jot down some notes. “Oh, one more thing. Just before you blew their life away, did you ever look straight into their eyes and think, I’m about to end everything you’ve worked so hard for and destroy everyone you love just because I’m a sick, twisted man?”

“As I said, I killed them, yes. It was necessary.” He moved his gaze over to the pictures again. “A means to an end. I’m just part of the whole. Such a pretty girl.” He touched Sophia’s photo. “Like I said, I had nothing to do with that. It was unfortunate but did provide an interesting twist.”

Bree huffed.

“I want my lawyer,” he repeated.

I nodded a few times. “Yeah, it’d better be a really good one.” I gathered up my things. I left the photos of the dead women face up in front of him, but he didn’t bother to glance at them.

“Mr. Hank Brown?” a voice asked. His lawyer had arrived. She carried a briefcase and an armful of paperwork and sat down in front of him. “Sorry I’m late. I had meetings across town.” She handed him a pen, and I noticed Hank hesitated before he took it. She put the paperwork down, and I scanned what she had. I noticed the file number, but she flipped it over when she caught me looking, and I frowned.

“Do me a favor and sign here and here.” She pointed, and I noticed Hank stayed quiet.

Everything happened in slow motion. Hank’s gaze moved up to mine, he jumped to his feet, and he shoved the table forward, sending Bree and me backward in our chairs. We both hit the floor, and I scrambled up quickly as he held up the pen. His thumb spun something around the top, before he swung an arm around his lawyer’s neck, pulled her in close, and then jammed the pen into her shoulder. An audible click sound could be heard as a tiny puff of green powder released in their faces.

“No!” I cried, not wanting our last suspect on this case dead. I shoved Bree behind me without a second thought.

“What the hell!” His lawyer cried, then she started to cough before he released her, and she dropped to her knees. I went to help then, but he raised a hand, and I froze.

Hank struggled to keep his composure as he kept his focus on me for another brief moment, then he started to shake and turn blue as he clutched his throat. I saw the life drain from his eyes and knew he was gone. I couldn’t believe this was happening. Why would he do this?

I whirled around and grabbed Bree’s hand, and we quickly shimmied back against the far wall. So many things flickered through my head, but the biggest one was making sure Bree was safe. I glanced over and saw that her expression matched the horror in my own. We knew exactly what had happened. I pulled her up as the guard opened the door, and we dashed out.

Once we were outside of the room and I knew we were safe, I grabbed Bree’s head and made her look at me.

Her eyes were wide. “I’m good. Are you good?”

“Yeah.” The grip around my heart loosened when I saw she was all right. I slowly let her go as the enormity of what had happened sank in.

“Detective Stone”—the guard removed the piece of cloth he had covering his mouth—“they’re both dead.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and cursed internally. What a fucking shit show! I fought the urge to punch the wall and instead kicked a chair down the hallway, making Bree jump.

“Sorry.”

She ran a hand through her hair. “Okay, so was the lawyer in on it?”

I didn’t answer her as my anger spiked to a dangerous level. Once again, we were left with so many unanswered questions.

As we stood there in the aftershock, Cap and Kennedy ran toward us. They’d been watching through the two-way mirror.

“What the fuck, Stone?” Cap shouted as an alarm went off. “How am I going to explain this?”

“He shoved the table at us. He made sure we didn’t inhale it. Shit, he even stopped me from helping the lawyer! He wanted me to know what he was doing when he held up the pen right before.” I looked at Cap. “Why would he do that? Why let us live? Why take down the lawyer? Was she in on it too? I mean, she did give it to him.” My head spun in multiple directions as I ran my mouth. “They both went down so fast, way faster than the girls did.”