Total pages in book: 54
Estimated words: 50653 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 253(@200wpm)___ 203(@250wpm)___ 169(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 50653 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 253(@200wpm)___ 203(@250wpm)___ 169(@300wpm)
Am I getting married tomorrow? Seems like a stupid question. Everything is so tiny and pointless compared to what I’m living right now. Harley is dead. She’s fucking dead. There will only be a veil worn of grief and torment tomorrow.
Silence blankets the car as I type two words back to Tyler.
Me: Harley’s dead.
My finger hovers over the send button. I should tell him in person…
Send.
I silence the ringer as his incoming call lights up the screen and take a deep breath. We’re here.
The car stops at what looks like a side door to a square concrete building.
“If, at any time, you need to take a minute or two, just let one of us know, okay?” Reed tells me, helping me out of the car.
It’s odd seeing this side of the police. Growing up, we were so used to Daddy being a criminal that Harley and I would duck anytime we saw a police officer on the street. Daddy thought it was cute. Only…now, at this moment, it dawns on me how fucked up that was.
I follow the detectives to the entrance, my thoughts straying to earlier with Bear. The smirk imprinted on my brain—Kings of Sin VP. I wonder if he had to identify their president.
Cold. There’s no heat left in my bones as they walk me down the dull grey corridor, our shoes tapping against the cream-tiled floor. Coming to a halt at the door with a plaque stating Viewing Room, my insides stir and my head buzzes.
We step inside, squinting from the blinding white walls illuminating the room. A large window with drapes drawn across it takes up most of the back wall. My heart gallops like wild horses trying to crack through my ribcage and flee.
“Are you sure you can do this?” the woman detective asks, her brow pinched. My eyes flit to her hip, where she has a badge clipped. Detective Hope, isn’t that what her name was? Ironic. I want to tear the badge from her, shove it down her throat, and watch her choke on it. Rage is ugly, and I’m overflowing with it.
“I need to,” I bite out, turning back to the glass window.
Reed pushes an intercom and speaks through it, but the rushing of my pulse blocks his words.
The drapes slowly open, taking parts of my soul with them.
Willing my legs to hold me, I step toward the glass. A white sheet outlines the silhouette of a woman’s body on a table.
I force myself to breathe.
“Ready?” Detective Hope asks, her hand touching my arm to comfort me. I’ll never be ready.
“Do it.” I nod to the man standing at the head of the table in a white lab coat.
Lowering the sheet from her face, he rests it over her chest as mine cracks wide open.
Harley. No.
Picturesque pale skin stark against the long, dark lashes fanning her cheeks, eyes closed, resting. Harley. Sleeping beauty.
She always had a spark. Shone from within, lighting everything in her presence. Our Firefly. That glow has been snuffed out.
Snap.
Gone.
A bird with no song.
I wish I could reverse time and keep her with me. Memories will never be enough to sate the ache she leaves.
I stroke my hand down the glass, hating the barrier between us. My gaze falls on her blonde hair pulled back from her face, hanging loose off the table they have her on. “Her hair is wet,” I murmur. Was she in water?
“The coroner washes and prepares the body after the autopsy.” Hope informs me.
The body.
Just another fucking body to them. Everything to me. Harley would hate that these strangers stripped her, washed her, touched her. She looks cold, so cold. Doesn’t this stuff usually take time?
“When was she found?” I whip my gaze to the detectives, my brow furrowed.
Reed flips through the papers on a clipboard he’s acquired and says, “Nineteen hours ago.”
I bristle at his answer.
What?
“When was the last time you saw her?” He tilts his head, studying me, his tone inquisitive.
I close my eyes, filtering through my thoughts. “Yesterday.” At the clubhouse, another party. I left early to pick up my wedding dress from my aunt, who was doing last-minute alterations. Harley mentioned going to a nightclub. She was drinking heavily. I should have taken her home. I failed her.
“Doesn’t an autopsy take time?” I’m sure we waited days when Grandma passed.
“When it’s a homicide, they take priority. It helps with the investigation to get the facts straight away.”
The facts are someone killed my sister. I want to die, too.
“Miss Stewart.” Detective Hope’s voice penetrates the self-hate in my mind. “Can you confirm the body is that of your sister, Harley Stewart?”
My eyes spring open. I inhale a shaky breath and reach for the glass again. The blue and purple bruises around her throat register for the first time.
My heart booms, scraping and clawing at my chest, but it has nowhere to escape. “She was strangled,” I choke out, my body heaving with the effort it’s taking to draw breath.