Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 70940 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 355(@200wpm)___ 284(@250wpm)___ 236(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70940 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 355(@200wpm)___ 284(@250wpm)___ 236(@300wpm)
“Her body,” I go on, my voice flat. “They dumped her body at the club.”
He nods.
“She had been dead a few days,” Alarick says, his voice careful. “So if you’re thinkin’ it’s because you went to the police station, it ain’t. Her body looked water-logged, like it had been dumped and somehow dragged back up again. No fuckin’ idea, but it wasn’t fresh. There was a note in her pocket that warned us to keep out of it. That was it.”
I feel like I’m going to vomit.
I grip my stomach and wince as the pain of acid burning my throat has me clenching my eyes shut for a second.
“I’m sorry,” Alarick tells me. “Know this is fuckin’ hard for you.”
I nod, keeping my eyes clenched shut, and then after a few shaky breaths I open them and say, “I want to be part of this. I want to find whoever did this to her. I will follow your lead, do as you wish, but please let me be part of this.”
“That’s Mykel’s call,” Alarick tells me. “He’s the one who makes the calls in regard to this shit. He’s the Sergeant In Arms.”
I look to Mykel, and for a moment, he looks confused. Like it’s the worst idea he’s ever heard of. I get it, I really do. He doesn’t think I can handle it, hell, I don’t even know if I can handle it, but I also know that I can’t sit back and do nothing, either.
I need to do this for her, for Magnolia.
“Okay,” Mykel says, his voice a little hesitant still. “But you do every single fuckin’ thing you’re told, one instance of you not doin’ it, and you’re out. You hear me?”
I nod.
“Where ... where is her body?” I ask them, a question I’ve been dreading since the night they took her away.
“It’s at the morgue, honey,” Kendric says, finally speaking. “We took it there because we wanted you to be able to bury her properly. A full service.”
“Doesn’t that mean the police are now involved?” I whisper, my eyes burning with unshed tears.
I didn’t think I had any left.
“It does,” Alarick answers. “But it’s nothin’ we can’t handle. You don’t need to worry about that side of it. We weren’t goin’ to dump her or bury her somewhere else. She deserves a proper burial and you deserve to give her a funeral.”
I make a low, sobbing sound and then step forward, wrapping my arms around Alarick’s middle section. He responds quickly, putting his arms around me and hanging onto me tightly.
What he did. Risking his club and all the questions that will follow, just so I could do the right thing by Magnolia, means so much to me.
It means the damned world.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
“Anytime,” he murmurs.
I pull back just as Karen walks into the room with a cup of tea. She gives me a little smile and hands it over, and I take it with a small thank you.
“Where do we go from here?” I ask.
“We try and find out her last movements, try and figure out where she was and who dumped her here. We can rule out Constable Bennett because she was most certainly dead before you went and spoke to him. Doesn’t mean he ain’t involved, it just means that we can assume you talking to him didn’t trigger this.”
“What if it did, though?” I say softly. “What if he knew where her body was and wanted to make a point ...”
Everyone falls silent, probably because they know what I’m saying rings true. If I did make things worse by going to Constable Bennett then he may very well have pulled my sister’s body from wherever she was dumped and delivered it to us. That’s what those sorts of people do, right? They make a scene. They let us know that they’re not going to be messed with.
“She has a point,” Samson murmurs. “There is a chance that it was still the cop.”
“Look into it,” Alarick orders Cohen. “See what you can find, the sooner the better. He shouldn’t be out there roamin’ the damn streets if he’s doin’ this shit.”
“On it,” Cohen says, turning and walking out of the room.
“I’m goin’ to start askin’ questions, see if I can find out if anyone had seen her,” Samson says, nodding at Kendric who follows him out the door.
I look back to Alarick and he exhales, running a hand through his hair. “We’ll go and talk to everyone you have spoken to already—someone knows something and they’re simply not tellin’ us.”
I nod. “Okay.”
“I’ll ask a few of Magnolia’s friends, I know a heap of them, see if anyone will give any new information,” Karen offers.
“Thank you,” I say softly.
My head is pounding.
Every thump reminds me that I’ve got a tumor that needs to be dealt with. I know I should be doing it now; I was putting it off until I found Magnolia but I have found her now and there is no reason for any more delays. The appointment is in a week, and nobody knows yet that I’ve even got a condition.