Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 114419 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 572(@200wpm)___ 458(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114419 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 572(@200wpm)___ 458(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
Sienna turned away from Gavin. “Hey, I’ve been calling you.”
“Sorry. I turned my phone down while I was with the computer tech guys. I’m headed to my desk now.”
Sienna wandered into the kitchen and stood on the other side of the wall. “I figured. Did they find anything?”
“Yeah, and it points to exactly what Reva’s boss thought.” Sienna heard a door close, and the echoey nature of Kat’s voice became normal. She must have left the stairwell. “She was in regular touch with a dealer.”
“Okay. Well, that could be a lead, right?”
“It could be, only it doesn’t look like she’d made any specific plans to meet up with him the day she was murdered,” Kat said. “The other thing that points away from the dealer,” she went on, “is that if it was him who murdered her and then fed Trevor, why didn’t he take the phone from her apartment? His information and specifics as to his line of work is all right there. He’d have to know that.”
“Except her phone was in the bedroom,” Sienna said, thinking for a moment. “Then again, if it was him who killed her, he’d know it wasn’t on her person. He’d know to at least look around her apartment for it.”
“Exactly. Anyway, I’ll run him, and then we can bring him in and see what he has to say. What were you calling me about?”
She focused back on where she was, what had occurred in the last hour or so. “I have an address we need to check out. I have no idea what to expect, if anything. Can I explain when I pick you up?”
“Sure, that’s fine. See you soon.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“I don’t even know what to think about this,” Kat said after Sienna explained how she and Gavin had arrived back at Reva Keeling’s house and pried apart a tennis ball that was apparently a prop left by the person she could only assume was the killer.
“I don’t either,” Sienna muttered, turning left where the female computerized GPS voice instructed her to. They pulled into a block of clearly abandoned houses and empty lots littered with garbage and likely used syringes. She spotted a mattress in one of the yards and looked away, choosing not to note the details of what was certainly a stained, infested health hazard.
“I’m glad we asked Gavin to consult,” Kat said, her gaze focused out the window. “How are you feeling about that?”
“It’s been fine,” Sienna said. And that was true. Sure, his presence prompted memories to surface that hadn’t in a long time, but she was a professional, and, per usual, when she was focused on solving a case, it tended to completely preoccupy her mind. Which was a gift and, according to Brandon, an annoyance. “And I never would have caught that phrase as relating to cards in any way,” she said, voicing the thought she’d had earlier.
If Gavin hadn’t recognized that particular wording, she wouldn’t have pictured the random tennis ball . . . likely the apartment would have been bagged up, trash taken to the dump, and the clue would have been lost forever. She was still shocked about that. It was both eerie and confounding that the killer had placed it there for them to find. Specifically, me.
Sienna came to a stop in front of a dilapidated house, half the roof caving in and the front porch sagging. It appeared that the lawn had once featured desert landscaping—rocks and cacti—but now was weedy and trash strewn, the cacti nothing more than shriveled husks. Which went to show that sometimes even that which was right where it belonged withered with neglect.
Kat and Sienna got out of the car, squinting at the house for a moment, the lowering sun creating a molten halo. The juxtaposition was beautifully brutal, and Sienna got that strange tingle down her spine again as though someone was watching them. She looked around, but all was quiet and still. If people used this place, they did so once the sun went down and they could operate under the cover of darkness.
They both donned gloves and then made their way up the cracked pathway to the door, testing the portion of porch that looked stable before putting their full collective weight on it. The window to the side of the entry was open a quarter of an inch or so, and when Sienna looked at the door, it appeared the knob was new.
“Someone accessed the house and changed the front door hardware,” Kat murmured, obviously noticing the same thing Sienna just had.
She held up the key she’d taken from the tennis ball and inserted it in the lock. It worked, as she’d somehow known it would, and she met Kat’s gaze as the door swung open on a loud squeak. The person who’d led them here had installed new hardware, ensuring the key would fit this lock. The skin on the back of her neck crawled, and she looked behind herself. Wouldn’t someone who had gone to so much trouble want to see his game play out? There was no movement anywhere, though, and few places within viewing distance to hide.