AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Understanding washed over Jax, but it was clear he had questions. I waited a bit, because I knew it was coming.
Sure enough, he finally asked, “Alright, so why are you so upset about this? Isn’t it good news that you know, at the very least, who might be a person of interest?”
I looked down and hissed, “Fuck.”
“I feel like I missed something.”
Returning my attention to him, I shared, “I’ve started seeing her. We had lunch together one day when I spotted her heading into the post office as I was going to Mallory’s deli to grab some food. We exchanged numbers afterward, spent some time getting to know each other, and things sort of became official between over this past weekend.”
“Well, now your reaction makes sense, but are you telling me that she didn’t mention any of these murders when you were around her?” he asked.
She hadn’t, but I can’t imagine why she would have. Hanna had a difficult time talking to me, as it was. I’d never met anyone as shy as her. Of course, that had all started to change the more she was around me, but there was no question she was a timid woman.
Unless…
No. No, there was no way it was all a front for something else.
“She didn’t say a word, but it wasn’t like she knew I was working on this specific case,” I reasoned.
Jax’s brows shot up. “People she knows have died, and not from natural causes, Leo. I would imagine she would have had some kind of reaction to that, don’t you think?”
The murders were brutal.
Hanna knew these people. There was no way she didn’t know what had happened to them.
How could things have gotten to the place they had with us without her showing me an ounce of sadness over the loss of these people? Granted, Archie had just been killed, but Jimmy was married to her mother. My guess was that he wasn’t her father based on the fact that Hanna had a different last name, but given how long ago Jimmy and Suzanne had gotten married, he had to have been in the role of stepfather.
Of course, it was entirely possible that Hanna had nothing to do with Jimmy or Suzanne. Perhaps she’d lived with her biological father; there was no doubt her mother and stepfather weren’t exactly the best role models based on what I did know about them.
And that seemed like the only logical explanation for another reason, too. Hanna had mentioned that the money she’d gotten to build her tiny homes had come from an inheritance. Maybe it was her father who’d left her with a healthy sum of money.
If that was the case, if she’d been living with him all along, it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that Hanna didn’t know about anything going on in her mother’s life.
The last thing I wanted to do was start digging into her, pulling up things about her past that I would have much rather preferred hearing directly from her. Something unwelcome settled into the pit of my stomach. I didn’t want to think that Hanna was, in any way, tied to what was happening in this case.
Because if she was, it was possible that Hanna was going to be a target.
So, with no other choice, I declared, “I’ve got to figure out if there’s a connection between Hanna Briggs and Xavier Pope.”
“And if there is?” Jax retorted.
I shook my head. “I don’t know yet. I think it might depend on what that connection is.”
Jax immediately asked, “Okay. So, I assume you’ve already done a lot of digging on Xavier. Nothing had connected them before. Are you planning to see what you can find on her?”
“I don’t want to do that,” I confessed. “I don’t want to learn everything or anything there is to learn about this woman because I decided to investigate her. I need to come at this from the other side. I need to figure out how Xavier links to Hanna, if at all.”
Jax cocked an eyebrow. “Are you sure that’s wise, Leo? I mean, I get what you’re trying to do, being noble and all. But you’ve got to know that a fresh look, doing it by digging up what you can on her, might get you answers much faster.”
Nodding my head, I insisted, “I know. But I’ve got to try it the other way first. At least there’s a new angle to go at this from. That might help.”
“What can I do?” he asked.
I let out a sigh of relief. I had been hoping that he’d be willing to drop the idea of me doing any research, at least for now, on Hanna.
Then again, I should have expected nothing less. Jax was the kind of guy who liked a challenge. If he thought we could find what we needed by not needing to do something that went against what I wanted to do, there wasn’t a doubt that he’d do what he could to help me.
I took in a deep breath before I replied, “Xavier Pope is pretty much a ghost. I’ve had such a difficult time trying to dig up anything on him. He hasn’t gotten himself into any trouble with the law, and his lineage is confusing at best.”
