Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 71949 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 360(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71949 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 360(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
“Excuse me,” I say. “I’m Hawk Bellamy. My sister is Raven Bellamy, the lady of the house. Mind if I look around?”
“Just don’t touch anything,” one of them says.
“I want to see the note Belinda left.”
The officer gestures to the desk, where the note is covered in a clear plastic bag.
I crouch down since they told me not to touch it. The font is generic. Looks like Calibri to me, maybe eleven or twelve point.
“Belinda didn’t write that,” Daniela says. “She’d have used an emoji somewhere. Or a fancier font.”
I nod. The guilt is acid in my throat. “If I’d picked up my phone—”
“Don’t.”
“If I’d been here—”
She slams her hand against the doorframe hard enough that the officers glance over. “You don’t get to make this about you!”
The words land like a slap. She’s right, of course. It isn’t about me. It’s about a missing child and a predator who knows exactly how to hurt Daniela.
Still, I can’t stop thinking that everything spiraled because I wanted something that wasn’t mine to want.
For a second, my hands shake. I shove them into my pockets. Breathe in. Breathe out.
I leave Belinda’s bedroom and head back downstairs. I need to wrap my head around all of this. Rather, I need to get out of my own head and focus on what’s important.
Daniela.
Belinda.
Eagle.
“What now?”
I stop at the bottom of the stairs. Daniela is on my heels.
“I have to figure that out.”
She gulps. “I’ve already figured it out.”
I widen my eyes and grab her arm more harshly than I intend. “What are you talking about?”
She bites her lip. “I know—at least I think I know—who’s behind the freaky gifts to me, and who probably took Belinda.”
Anger curls at the back of my neck—the kind that feels like a snake slithering under my skin. I inhale slowly, hold it, let it out. “Tell me,” I say as calmly as I can.
“A man who worked for my father.” She swallows. “He was his chef.”
I swallow down my reaction, steady my nerves. “Then we start there.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean we find out if he’s even in the country.” I pull out my phone. “What’s his name?”
“He goes by Gordon Brown.”
Shit. Gordon Brown. That name popped up when Vinnie was looking into people with consistent connections to Daniela’s father. I figured it was one of his disgusting friends. It never occurred to me that it could be one of his employees.
I was too busy chasing dead ends that I never gave the guy a second thought. His name is so generic, anyway. Finding him would have been a needle in a haystack.
I tap on the phone screen. “Then we track his name, his passport, any aliases. I’ll do whatever it takes to track him down.”
“And if you do?”
“Then he won’t be cooking anymore.”
She gives a broken laugh that isn’t really a laugh. “You think violence fixes everything.”
“No,” I say. “But it stops it sometimes.”
Daniela wipes her face with the back of her hand. “This is all so unreal.”
I nod. “Did the police pull Belinda’s printer log?”
She swallows. “Yeah. At least, I think they said they would. It’s all a blur.”
“I know they don’t want us touching anything, but I’ll have my own techs pull the printer log. Or Vinnie can have his people do it. I trust them more than the cops.”
She swallows hard. “You really think she’s alive?”
“Yes,” I say, and I mean it. “Because if she weren’t, he wouldn’t need to leave you a note.”
Her gaze softens for the first time, just barely. “You sound sure.”
“I have to be,” I tell her. “It’s the only way any of us makes it out of this.”
Daniela exhales shakily. “What do you need from me?”
“Details,” I say. “Anything that might connect Gordon Brown to this house or anyone near it. Faces, names, deliveries. Anything that felt off.”
She nods again, starts pacing, muttering pieces of memory—florist, nanny, spa setup, delivery van at six, black SUV on the frontage road. I jot them all down on my phone, line by line.
The pattern’s there. It has to be. I just can’t see it yet.
I start calling in every favor I’ve got left.
Because she’s right.
This isn’t about me.
But I’m the only one who knows how to fight monsters like this.
After all, I’ve been fighting my own father since I was twelve.
4
DANIELA
The police have left, promising to “keep us updated.” Whatever the hell that means. They don’t care for that little girl like I do. They have nothing driving them to take every step to ensure she gets home safe and sound. The house has gone quiet again. Raven’s upstairs lying down and Vinnie is in his office making phone calls and tracking leads.
Hawk is in the kitchen on his phone.
I should be helping, but I can’t.
My brain keeps looping through the same thought.
She’s gone. She’s gone. She’s gone.