Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 147967 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 740(@200wpm)___ 592(@250wpm)___ 493(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147967 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 740(@200wpm)___ 592(@250wpm)___ 493(@300wpm)
“So you don’t know why Vince would escalate?” Detective Reeves asked her.
“I really don’t,” she replied.
“You know that Dad can’t bury this, right?” her brother asked. “He’ll have to take hard evidence seriously. And this is arson and attempted murder. He cannot make excuses for Vince.”
Maya swallowed heavily. She couldn’t help but feel like he’d try, though.
“We don’t have enough evidence yet against everyone who is corrupt in the force,” Detective Reeves said. “But Vince could be what we need. He’s obviously played a big role and he likely knows who the key players are. If we can find him, we could turn him. But we need to do that before he’s taken out.”
She stared at him in shock. “You think that someone might kill him because of what he knows?”
“If I was a corrupt cop and I wanted to keep that secret and there was a loose cannon out there who knew . . . that’s what I’d do,” Detective Reeves said.
“You’re talking about our dad,” she said, her gaze flicking to her brother. “You think that Dad would have Vince . . . killed?”
“I don’t want to think this about our own father. But I’ve seen the evidence myself. And there have been some witnesses that have gone missing in the past couple of years. So . . . I guess if he saw him as a threat, he might,” her brother replied.
“You don’t think that Dad . . . that he told Vince to . . . to get rid of me?” she asked, that thought just occurring to her now.
She was going to be ill. She felt Tank press close to her on one side and Matthieu shifted closer to her on the other side. She took strength and comfort from them both. Big Berry snorted and shuffled in next to Tank.
She really was the best pig.
“No.” Her brother shook his head. “I don’t think that. Seems our dad has a huge amount of faults, but I don’t think he’d have one of his own kids killed. There would be no reason for it. Especially not when he hired someone to protect you. Although that did surprise me. I think that for some reason, Vince decided to do this on his own. Now he’s in the wind and we need to find him. Once we do, we may get the answers we need.”
“You haven’t gotten anywhere in the investigation of who is threatening the Chief?” Brody asked.
“No.” Her brother frowned. “And it’s frustrating. The threats are sporadic and we’ve no idea who is sending them. There are too many suspects at this point.”
“So you’re going to tell Dad? About Vince and what he did?” she asked.
Her brother nodded. “We’ll go there after this. He already knows someone set your place on fire. But he doesn’t know about Vince. We did think about hiding the video footage until after we had Vince in custody but we have to be careful to do this aboveboard and to not tip anyone that we’re onto them.”
“We’ll keep working on tracking Vince too,” Ink told them.
Her brother and Detective Reeves shared a look. “It would be better if you didn’t,” her brother warned.
“He tried to kill someone under our protection and one of my men,” Ink said. “We’re not as tied up in following the law and procedure as you are.”
“And if you find him first? You’ll hand him over?” Detective Reeves asked.
“Eventually.”
“We need to get that information legally,” her brother said. “We can’t use it if we don’t.”
Ink nodded. “Understood. I won’t compromise your investigation.”
Maya stared at her brother for a long moment. It was like she’d never met him. She couldn’t imagine how it would feel to investigate their father.
“Is there anything else we need to talk about?” Matthieu asked. “Maya is exhausted.”
“There’s one thing,” Detective Reeves said then he turned to Maya. “Do you want to be there when we show your father the video footage?”
She hadn’t expected him to say that. “I don’t . . . should I be there?”
“Dad’s been asking where you are,” her brother said. “Apparently, he’s been calling you.”
Right. She had seen those missed calls. She drew her phone out of her pocket where she’d put it before. “It’s dead.”
She should charge it. She needed to message Millie and tell her thank you for taking her girls. Maybe she should ask her to take on some more of her babies if they had to go to a safe house. But she couldn’t imagine being without them.
“There’s a spare charger in the safe room. I think it’s best you all stay there tonight,” Ink told her.
“It’s too late to drive anywhere,” Matthieu agreed.
“Okay.” She was too exhausted to argue, not that she really wanted to. She just wanted to be safe. For her babies to be safe. And to not have to think for a while.