Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 75015 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 375(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75015 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 375(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
In a matter of seconds, she answered. It was interesting seeing her out of uniform. She wore jeans and a graphic T-shirt with an ice cube wearing sunglasses. The words TOO COOL were above it. “Come in,” she said, stepping back.
I walked past her, and the smell of baked chicken and spices flooded my senses. A candle was lit on the center of her glass dining room table. The rug in her living room was furry and black. Her furniture was suede brown. A corgi mix circled my ankles, sniffing at me.
“That’s Pinto,” Kennedy said after locking the front door.
“Hi, Pinto.” I squatted, giving the dog a rub on the head. He sniffed my hand then chuffed before twisting around and trotting away.
“You really think something bad has happened to her, don’t you?”
I faced Kennedy, who had her arms folded and an expectant look on her face.
“I really do,” I admitted. “At first, I thought it was just Eve being Eve. She can be flaky and sometimes she just flat out ignores people. But this time it’s different. She’s too quiet about it.”
Kennedy dropped her arms and shook her head as she walked past me. “I used to have a friend like Eve. Do you want something to drink?”
“Um, just water is okay.” I watched as she opened the fridge. “What do you mean, you had a friend like Eve?”
“The flaky, self-absorbed kind,” she said, plucking a water bottle out and carrying it my way. “We’re no longer friends.”
“Oh.” I accepted the water when she offered it to me. It wasn’t until I took a few chugs that I realized how thirsty I was. The bottle was nearly empty.
Kennedy laughed as she returned to the kitchen, grabbed another bottle, then handed it to me. “When was your last full night of sleep?” she asked, making her way to the stove to stir something in a pot.
“Not sure, honestly. Two nights ago, maybe.” I shrugged, finishing my first water then opening the next. I hadn’t slept much with Jayson last night in the hotel either, though he’d slept like a baby. I envied how calm he was, how none of this was truly his concern.
“You should rest. Seriously, you can’t get anything done running on empty.” Kennedy turned off the stovetop and sat on the sofa. “Come on, sit. Tell me about these journal entries you found.”
I sat with her, placing my purse on my lap to dig the laptop out. Once I’d signed in, I started to hand the journal to her.
“Oh—hold on.” She shot back up and returned to the kitchen to retrieve a box from one of the cabinets. When she returned, she was sliding her fingers into a pair of latex gloves. “Evidence.” She sighed before taking the laptop from me and pressing a finger to the mousepad.
“She wrote in there a lot,” I said as she scrolled and clicked. “But there’s this one entry about them that sort of surprised me. May I?”
She nodded, turning the laptop my way. I clicked on the entry about Eve spending time with Alex and Damian then turned it back to Kennedy.
Kennedy’s brows furrowed deeper with every line. “Wow,” she finally said.
“Right?”
“Are you sure this actually happened?” She lifted her gaze to mine. “How do you know this isn’t fabricated? That she didn’t make it all up as some sort of fantasy in her head?”
“I don’t think she would. Eve is very promiscuous and loves sex. I wouldn’t count it out.”
“So, she had a threesome with the brothers, and they killed her because of it?” Kennedy raised a brow. “Sorry, I’m just not making sense of it.”
“I can’t piece it together either, but if that’s all they did, why are they being so secretive about it? And why did they have her purse? Eve makes pretty good money doing what she does. What if those guys did something to her and took her purse so they could try and use her cards or drain her accounts or something?” I was reaching now, but I needed Kennedy to side with me on this and get the same sense of urgency I had. Every passing hour left a colder trail.
“The purse thing is odd, yes, but it’s not enough, Rose.” She handed the laptop back to me after closing it. “Nothing in this can be used as full-blown proof, at least not enough to spark an investigation. Unless we find Eve or discover a body or blood—something—there’s nothing I can do.”
I swallowed my frustration.
“But like I told you, I spoke to the district attorney. She’ll likely give me guidance on the matter. It could take a few days but—”
“Are you kidding me?” I tried my best not to frown. “We don’t have a few days, Kennedy. She could be trapped somewhere or even dead!”