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“I met the witness who was with David the night he died. He handed over a flash drive before that guy killed him. Clementine doesn’t know and I’d like to keep it that way.”
“You don’t trust her?”
“I need to do this.” For the first time, Harris sounded dead serious. “She’ll pull me off the case, and I’ll be learning everything secondhand. I couldn’t live with that, Cassie. I can barely sleep at night as it is.” She took a deep breath. “David was hiding something from me. I need to know what it is. Are you in?”
Cassie looked down at the letter in her hands. It had raised more questions than it had answered. Part of her wanted to fulfill David’s request, no matter how much it hurt to walk away from the mystery mounting in the wake of his death. But another part didn’t care. David was dead, and he’d left her and Harris behind to deal with the aftermath. How could he ask her to forget about him? To let the person who’d killed him walk away?
He should’ve known better when he wrote the letter.
“I’m in.” She felt a thrill saying it out loud. “Where to?”
“Pack your winter coat.” Cassie could practically hear Harris smiling through the phone. “We’re going to Chicago.”
Cassie Quinn returns in Concealed in Shadow! Pre-order your copy now, or read on for a sneak peek:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09CDWZNHT/
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The Cassie Quinn Series
Path of Bones
Whisper of Bones
Symphony of Bones
Etched in Shadow
Concealed in Shadow
Concealed in Shadow
A Cassie Quinn Mystery (Book Five)
by L.T. Ryan & K.M. Rought
Copyright © 2021 by L.T. Ryan, K.M. Rought, and Liquid Mind Media, LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced in any format, by any means, electronic or otherwise, without prior consent from the copyright owner and publisher of this book. This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places and events are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.
Concealed in Shadow: Chapter 1
Joseph Arthur Zbirak did not consider himself a picky eater. He did, however, take his steak seriously. It needed to be well-seasoned and medium rare. Warm and pink in the middle. Delectably juicy. Anything less than a perfect cut would not enter his mouth under any circumstances.
So, it was with an apologetic smile and a soft voice that he sent his steak back to the kitchen. Medium rare, he had said, emphasizing the last word, hoping the young woman serving them would relay the message to the cook. She was a bubbly girl, with her dark hair in a ponytail and a smattering of enamel pins attached to her waist apron. Zbirak would give her a hearty tip, regardless of the mistake. It wasn’t her fault, after all.
“Hope you don’t think I’m going to wait for you,” said the man sitting across from Zbirak. He was a rotund, ruddy-faced individual with a bad comb-over. His mustache was untrimmed, and years of sweat stained the armpits of his shirt. Shoving a third of his burger into his mouth, the man talked around his food, spraying as much as he swallowed. “I never knew you had such delicate sensibilities.”
Zbirak wanted to glower, but he refrained from taking the bait. Despite sharing the same first name, he and Pisano had nothing in common. Where the other man was fat, rude, and incapable of thinking for himself, Zbirak was lean, quiet, and clever. Genetics had blessed him with an average face and enough brains to know when to take action and when to sit back and bide his time.
Pisano, however, was all bluff. It had carried him through forty-two years on the police force, but not unscathed. In his youth, his fists sealed the deal when his words failed to do their job. Now it was merely arrogance. For someone who couldn’t throw or take a punch without wheezing, he sure was a cocky son of a bitch.
“I like what I like.” Zbirak shrugged, a playful smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. He wouldn’t let this man get under his skin. “And when I make a request, I expect it to be fulfilled.”
For the first time, Pisano revealed the disquiet Zbirak instilled in him. “Look, it wasn’t my fault.” He shoved the
rest of his burger into his mouth and licked a bit of mustard from his pinky finger. After draining his beer, he dove into his fries, shoving them into his mouth three at a time. He didn’t even make fleeting eye contact. “But I’m taking care of it.”
