Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 108242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 541(@200wpm)___ 433(@250wpm)___ 361(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 541(@200wpm)___ 433(@250wpm)___ 361(@300wpm)
The pleasant smile turns fox-sly, and the welcoming blue eyes go cold. “I guess as president, you’ll fix it.”
“If I make it that far, I’ll try, but you won’t be around to see it.”
“I was really looking forward to seeing our girl today.” He sighs, shrugging philosophically. “Killing her will have to wait since I suppose the cops are on their way.”
My caustic laugh echoes in the dank little underground alcove. “Cops? You killed my brother, and you tried to kill my girl.” I nod toward the bomb. “Three times now, if we count the car bomb.”
“Oh, let’s do count the car bomb. Killing your brother was some of my finest work.”
Every muscle in my body screams in protest when I don’t move, longing to lunge for him, to tear his throat out. Control is the friend urging caution.
“Peacefully in a jail cell after another fifty years is not how you die, Keene.”
“So what?” Gregory folds his arms over his chest. “The future president of the United States is gonna kill me in cold blood? You can’t.”
“I deeply regret that you’re right. I can’t risk it.” I turn my head to find the shape of Grim carved into the shadows. “But he can.”
Gregory Keene never sees Grim pull the trigger. His head doesn’t explode. The bullet leaves a large hole in what I’ve heard Grim call the T-box, dead center between the eyes. All the trauma is inside, a death shot that destroys the lower brain stem and all the processes necessary for life.
Gregory never had a chance.
The fatalism lands like lead on my shoulders, and I stare into the sightless eyes of the man whose life held so much promise. A genius. Stanford. Harvard. All thrown away because bitterness consumed him, eating its way through his morals and decency like parasites. He lost himself to grief.
Twice.
I know what that darkness feels like, how it crowds out all the light and makes you do things you would never consider before the loss. I wish things could have been different. I wish Gregory could have met Owen out on the campaign trail, aired his grievances, seen how O would change things.
Pain always carves out two paths. We all have pain. The difference is where it takes you. Gregory followed it down a path of vengeance that killed my brother and would have taken Lennix from me. I can feel no remorse for his death and still think what a shame, what a waste.
“King, go.” Grim’s words snap in the tomb-like quiet of the basement. “Rick’s waiting in the back alley.”
“Does he know?”
“No one knows but you and me. Didn’t want to risk it. The rest of the team is standing down and awaiting orders upstairs.”
“So the body—”
“I got it.” He nods toward the shadows he occupied just minutes before. “Go through there and up to the main floor.”
“And if they ask—”
“They won’t. Go.”
I follow the dark, narrow stairwell up to a door leading to an alley behind the building. Rick waits there, just like Grim said he would be. His inscrutable face reveals no more interest than usual.
“You ready, sir?”
“Uh, yeah.” I pull out my phone to look at the screen saver. It’s a girl and a guy kissing in a field of tulips, a freeze-frame of love in bloom. They look young and happy and unconcerned, no idea what the years ahead will bring, but it doesn’t seem to matter. He’s holding her like she’s the whole world in his arms, and she looks glad to be there.
“Where are we going?” Rick asks.
I smile, glancing up to find the spire of the State Capitol pointing toward the sky.
“We’re going to witness history.”
CHAPTER 51
LENNIX
“This day has been a long time coming,” Senator Jim Nighthorse says, spreading his pleased smile around the crowded room in the Oklahoma State Capitol building. “The number of missing and murdered indigenous women each year is staggering, an epidemic that has been overlooked, underreported, and unaddressed.”
Mena and I stand behind him, holding hands, smiling, even as we both brush away our tears.
“I’m so proud of the bipartisan effort and commitment behind this groundbreaking legislation facilitating more efficient communication between tribal and local authorities. If we care, we’ll keep searching, and we’ll keep saying our sisters’ names.”
He glances over his shoulder, smiling into my teary eyes.
“This bill is the namesake of a national MMIW activist who lost her life in the field, in the fight. It is my honor to sign the Liana Reynolds Act into law today and to have her daughter, Lennix Hunter, here with us as a witness.”
I step forward to sign along with several other witnesses and legislators, architects of the law. Looking out over those assembled, I find my father and Bethany in the crowd. He nods, approval and love and the same inevitable shadow of sorrow in his eyes I know he sees in mine. My hands are shaking so badly I can barely hold the ceremonial pen. Tears fill my eyes, and the words on the page blur.