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My terms.
Swallowing hard, I push out a quiet, “yes, sir.”
“That’s a good girl.” He places a soft kiss on my lips before releasing my chin.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE
DETECTIVE MICHALE
When I first joined the police force of Adelaide Cove, this place was the type of perfect little town where television shows took place. The type of quiet oceanfront town where people slept with their doors open. For years, the most exciting things that happened around here were petty shoplifting from bored kids and an occasional bar fight from the summer tourists.
Things began to change when those tourists slowly started to move here, turning Adelaide Cove into their full-time residence. Now the picturesque town I love has become a cesspool of filth and crime. The most frequent of which are women disappearing and claims of sexual assault.
I hate what this fucking town has become.
…and the rich entitled assholes and the expensive as hell attorneys they all have on retainer.
Everything started with the sudden disappearance of four women—Madeline O’Rourk, Cameryn Weathers, Paisley Allen,and Chloe Wilson. Their missing persons reports rolled in days to weeks apart, but they all had one thing in common. Every last one of them had told someone close to them they were going to some life-changing event.
And poof. Each of them was gone without a trace.
All of them except Paisley. A now-recanted eye-witness report was given about two months after her disappearance was reported with information stating she was seen at the home of Edmund Parker.
In the days it took to convince a judge to sign a search warrant for his home, she was gone.
Just like the rest of them.
Unable to get the rest of the department to look past their prestigious facades and continuous generous donations to our little town, I’m the joke of an officer who refuses to let this go.
They’ve become my obsession, slowly ruining my life. My career. My marriage. My relationships with my children. All of them dwindling from existence like the women of this town.
The moment Mia Dillon came forward to press assault charges against Samuel Millington, I thought I finally had my in. The small sliver of evidence that was going to cause their perfect little worlds to implode. But once again, they were two steps ahead of me. Leaving everything she owned behind, Mia disappeared with her son in the middle of the night.
Not a trace, just like the rest of them.
Unable to let this one go, I’ve been attached to Samuel Millington almost twenty-four hours a day for the past couple of weeks. Excluding the barrage of willing women passing throughhis gates daily, nothing has happened that even remotely helps my case.
Parked down the block from the entrance to his estate, I’m about to fall asleep when I hear the motor of the gate kick on. He pulls through it, and I shield my face as he drives past my unmarked car.
Quickly flipping on my headlights, I slip the car into drive and make a U-turn. I keep my distance and follow a few car lengths behind him through town. Reaching the outskirts, I drop back further when he begins to travel down desolate country roads.
I’m going to fucking lose him…
Accelerating and risking being seen, I round a turn revealing a vacant straightaway.
“Fuck!” I slam my fist against the steering wheel as I accelerate. Speeding past it, I almost miss the iron gates tucked into the tree line. They are closing, and I can faintly see the taillights of his sports car in the distance.
Continuing several yards past the entrance, I park my car between the trees on the opposite side of the road before cutting the engine and turning off the lights.
I consider grabbing the handle to open the car door, but hesitate when I see headlights rounding the turn. Momentarily blinded by them, I immediately recognize the face behind the steering wheel—Edmund Parker. He no more than passes through the gate when another car approaches—William Cattaneo and Elizabeth Beaufort.
Son of a fucking bitch.
Stepping from the car, I immediately duck behind it when I hear a roaring engine in the distance. A sleek, black Bugatti squeals to a stop at the gate—Grant fucking Geyer.
I hit the fucking lottery.
