Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 91423 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91423 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
I will not see my brother’s coffin reach the end of its journey, and for that I am grateful. I have seen enough. Too much. I have carried enough impotent grief. Following this woman gives me something to do.
I am good at this sort of thing. I keep a good distance, and I do not walk right behind her. If she happens to glance around, she will likely not notice me. I stay at a right angle behind her, triangulating her movement. It allows me to keep her in sight and over a little bit of distance, draw even with her and even get in front of her.
I am closer now than before, and can see her face from time to time. She is pretty. Very pretty. She has wide eyes that give her a perpetually innocent expression, and a full mouth that speaks to sin. She is young. Perhaps around Teddy’s age. I wonder if she was a friend. Or something more.
Levin men do not date much. Aiden does not have time, I am not often able to find a woman who can match my intellect, let alone my interests, and Luke, well, he is likely the exception, though he keeps quiet about it.
I am not so simple as to assume that any woman hanging around a grave is necessarily a girlfriend, however. Teddy was popular. He was liked by a lot of people at college. I suspect if this was one of his school connections, the cemetery would have been inundated with coeds.
It’s very possible that this cute little blonde with the short bob and the snub nose is something else altogether. Something closer to a spy. Plenty of people use attractive young women as runners. They are overlooked as potential threats usually. Traditionally, nobody would dare touch a woman, let alone use her in this way, but it’s 2026, and a lot of the old rules are changing in response to a world that doesn’t play by many, if any, anymore.
She looks over her shoulder repeatedly, nervous. I can practically feel her anxiety as she hurries away, head down. I wonder if she can feel me close. Some people have good prey senses. She certainly looks like she wants to go to ground as soon as possible.
It’s too late for her, though. She is on my radar. I have her scent, and I will not leave her tail until I know everything there is to know about her.
If she is known to Teddy, then she knows she shouldn’t have been at the cemetery. We, the family requested privacy and showing up to stand ominously at a distance is not really the definition of privacy. At the very least, she has been a naughty girl.
She seems to have a pretty figure, though it is hard to tell under a coat. I like the way it seems to flare out around her bust and hips. There’s something a little old-fashioned and classic about it. The coat looks expensive, too.
Either this young lady has impeccable fashion sense and a very generous clothing budget, or someone has dressed her. Strange thought to have about an adult, but there is something about the level of polish I’m seeing in her attire that makes me think she either is a designer, or has one.
It’s the bob, I decide. It’s too classic to be contemporary. Or maybe it’s the hat. A dark beret set at an angle far too jaunty for a funeral. The shirt beneath the coat has broad lapels. She could have stepped right out of a vintage era. She is wearing brown leather boots, also well shined, also vintage.
Interesting.
She walks far longer than I expect her to, several blocks through the city. At one point, she pulls out her phone and loses herself in it for a moment, but the streets are too busy to do that for long before she almost walks into someone and is cursed at roundly.
“Sorry,” she says, her head low. She holds herself much like the incarnation of an apology for a few steps before straightening again. An actress of sorts, then.
I do not really think she had anything to do with Teddy’s death. A girl like this is much more likely to have been a friend, perhaps a girlfriend, perhaps someone who wanted to be a girlfriend, but never caught his eye. Women are capable of all kinds of quiet madness when it comes to adoration denied.
I am beginning to doubt that following a pretty young woman is going to get us any closer to Teddy’s killer. To find him, we are going to have to look into any number of cartels, shadow governments, or general assholes. The police investigation has gone nowhere. Teddy was found dead in an alley, left like so much trash. I don’t like to think about it. None of us do. But the fact of the matter is our brother is dead and we do not know who did it. This woman is the first lead we have had since the terrible event happened a week ago.