AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Where is she?” I asked, struggling to my feet. I realized now that the pain I’d felt had been the impact of hitting the ground, thanks to Wick’s quick reflexes.
Apparently, the man had taken a bullet for me.
The answer to my question came in the form of a long look, and I followed his gaze to the ground, just on the other side of my desk. There, on the ground, was Amanda.
Just as I’d seen her in that awful dream – with a jagged hole in the middle of her head. Only now, the hole in her head was accompanied by two in the chest, as well.
Continuing the trend.
Everyone who could give me some answers… died.
Policemen pulled me aside to take my statement, and I was beyond relieved to see Sam Turner’s face when he came through the door, with Chloe not far behind. The new assistant, Tarra, was visibly shaken, but still met my eyes as I was led out of the office. She took a break from bossing people around just long enough to give me a comforting nod that said she had it.
Chloe had been the one to recommend her, so I believed it.
“Will you just stay still, so they can stitch you up?” I asked, earning myself a scowl. I wasn’t surprised, not really, that Wick was a difficult patient, butdamn.
He was worse than a small child.
“It’ll be fine if I just leave it alone. Pour some vodka on it, and bandage the shit. It’ll be fine. I used to do the shit all the time back in the day.”
My eyes got big. “Okay, well… this isnotback in the day, so how about you just let the people do their job?”
“Why?”
My eyebrows shot up. “Why?Why?!” I repeated, not believing that was a serious question. But since I knew it was, I took a deep breath, recognizing that the logical reasons for properly treating a gunshot wound wouldn’t appeal to him right now. I looked him right in his eyes as I spoke, making sure he knew I was serious. “BecauseMinesaid so. Got it?”
The scowl he’d been wearing faltered a bit, before he broke into a smile he couldn’t help.
“Never going to let me live that down, are you?”
I scoffed. “Are you kidding? Why would I ever?”
Instead of waiting around for the process of them stitching up his arm – which was more involved than I’d expected, and ended up requiring a little sedative for the delicate work of reconnecting veins and nerves – I slipped out. As soon as he was off for his induced trip to la-la-land, I went searching for someone who could tell me what I needed to know.
I found Sam.
“You know he suspected something?” Sam asked me, when I spotted him in the waiting area in the hall. “He knew that Asher was a creep, but he just… had a feeling. He was sure something was off… that something was wrong. That’s why he was all over you. He wasn’t sure this was really over.”
I shook my head. “He didn’t tell me.”
“Probably didn’t want to scare you. But… as wacky as it is for this girl to show up out of the blue after two years, with a fake identity… it makes sense.”
“It does?”
Sam nodded, running a hand over his bald head, then raking it through the salt and pepper of his beard. “Yeah. It makes everything fit. Psycho motherfucker with an equally psycho partner.”
“Maybe.” I pushed out a sigh. “It still just feels so weird, to think of Amanda… like this. It’s so far from the girl I knew.”
Sam shrugged, then stood. “Maybe you didn’t know her like you thought you did.”
“I guess not. That’s just a hard thing to accept, when it comes to someone I thought of like… a sister. But I guess I have to, right? And I can be grateful that this is over… even if I don’t get all the answers.”
“Keep the faith, Ms. Stuart. We’re looking into her now. And who knows… maybe once we’ve searched wherever she was staying, dug into her background… maybe it’ll give you what you need.”
I gave him a dry smile. “Yeah. Maybe. Thank you, Sam. And please – call me Monica.”
“Will do, Monica,” he said, giving me a little salute. “You’ve already given your statement, but now I have to go in here and talk to this knucklehead. You good? You need to call someone, need a ride?”
