Total pages in book: 54
Estimated words: 51825 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 259(@200wpm)___ 207(@250wpm)___ 173(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 51825 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 259(@200wpm)___ 207(@250wpm)___ 173(@300wpm)
“What about the phone number I gave you?”
“It’s a burner phone. It’s not registered.”
“Where was it sold?” I ask.
“A gas station right by the Nashville airport, a year ago. It’s going to be almost impossible to track it down.”
My brows dip. “Who is calling him on a burner phone they bought a year ago?”
“The question of the decade,” he replies.
“What about the diner? You were looking into why Murphy had that card.”
“It’s the pie, Lilah. I mean, what the hell else is there?”
“That’s what you’re supposed to tell me, Lucas. Obviously, I need Tic Tac. He doesn’t sit there with his mouth open and wait for me to feed him.”
“That’s a low blow.”
“It’s the truth. I shouldn’t have let you get involved in this.”
“Speaking of, do I even have a job now that Murphy’s dead?”
“You aren’t going to have a job if I kill you. Focus, Lucas. Maybe he met the person who called him on the burner phone at the diner. Check the camera feed.”
“Do you know how long that’s going to take?”
“He hasn’t been in town that long, and you have my brother there to help you. He excels at boring. Call me when you know what is what,” I say and I hang up and dig the card out of my bag, and stare down at it.
Murphy was staying here in the city, but assuming the diner card was left in that desk for me to find, and I believe it was, he’s leading me back to the Hamptons. And the Hamptons is where this gets personal for me, which is exactly what Murphy wants me to know.
Chapter Twenty-One
I sip my coffee and thrum fingers on the counter, thinking about strawberry pie, the diner that serves it, and that business card I found in Murphy’s desk.
While I have no real clue how the diner connects to his murder, maybe it’s some way of telling me that my father or Pocher had him killed. Which, granted, strawberry pie that leads to that conclusion is a stretch, but this is the city where my mother is buried, where he declared his love for her to me.
Okay, pie, and the diner that sells that pie, still don’t equal Pocher and my father murdering Murphy.
Do they?
I blow off the diner and pie and focus on the theory.
If Murphy really was trying to take my father down, what if he’d closed in on him enough to be a threat to his governorship? Or I could take this another entire direction. What if Kane’s father is on the diner cameras? Now I’m really reaching, and my mind returns to Murphy’s most logical enemy and my father’s campaign.
It’s still hard to imagine a decision to take Murphy out would be a risk worth taking right before the election. But…neither my father nor Pocher have contacted me about a murder that could rock our city and country when my father wants to be President one day. The two of them are normally all about the power grab and being insiders to all. They know something, I think. Maybe they know a lot more than something.
And what about a press conference? What is going on in the world in relation to this event? Kane’s father being alive threw me off my game. I search the local and national news and find nothing. My cellphone rings with an unknown number. I’m not a fan of the unknown—after all, my entire life is making the unknown known—which is why I answer.
“Special Agent Love-Mendez.”
“Special Agent,” the man on the other line greets. “This is interim Director Calvin Adams. I think we should meet.”
In all my demands for information, I didn’t push for the information I requested from Lucas on Adams, nor do I know anything about him. Okay, I know one thing. His voice doesn’t irritate me. That’s always a plus. I usually know right away when someone is going to rub me the wrong way. “When and where?”
“I’m from Texas. You tell me.”
“So, you’re one of those people.”
“What people?”
“All Texans think there’s no place like Texas and no one like a Texan.”
“What’s the problem?”
Not one with Texas, but maybe many with him. “What part of town are you in?”
“Near the police station. I stopped by to meet with Chief Houston, who has a lot to say about you, by the way.”
“He mostly doesn’t hate me,” I say, “so that probably wasn’t very exciting. I’ll text you the location. It’s as New York as you can get, which is what you deserve for being Texan.”
He laughs. “Yeah, well if this job sticks, I’m going to Washington. I should probably get used to being miserable.” He pauses. “Based on your investigation, how likely do you think it is that we’re targets?”
“If they wanted us all dead, most likely, there would have been a coordinated attack last night, but it depends on the assassin’s orders. If they were told to make us squirm, we could be walking, talking targets. Still want to meet in a public place?”