Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 69582 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69582 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
I couldn’t help but shake my head.
This kid really was a sociopath.
I jerked my head toward Gentry.
He followed me out until we were far enough away from the kid that he couldn’t hear us.
“Black’s shit-faced. You’ll have to take him home,” I murmured.
Gentry nodded as our gazes went to the couch where he was consoling the mom.
“I’m going home to my girl,” I said.
His face blanked.
“Maybe you should stop being so stubborn and go for yours.”
He snorted. “Never thought I’d hear you give me dating advice.”
I slapped him on the shoulder. “Life throws you curveballs all the damn time.”
The house was dark when I arrived back at Constance’s place.
I disarmed, then rearmed the alarm, and headed straight for her room.
I found her asleep in the middle of the bed, asleep with her damn hands resting underneath her face like an angel.
I shook my head, disbelieving.
Then she burst out laughing and sat up. “Gotcha.”
“Little shit.” I chuckled. “Were you waiting up for me?”
She sat up and watched as I shucked my clothes and shoes.
When I got to my underwear, I left them on, then crawled up the bed to her.
She waited for me to arrive and said, “You forgot to take off your underwear.”
I tackled her to the bed, then pulled her down to me and yanked the covers over us.
“Your kid going to get freaked out when she finds me in here with you?”
“I had a talk with her,” she answered, her fingers once again going to play in my chest hair. “She understands that you’re going to be here for a while.”
“Good,” I said.
“Tell me everything.”
So I did.
I didn’t leave anything out.
“Who’s going to be the doctor now?” She tugged my chest hair.
I winced.
“I, uh…”
“Do you miss it?” she asked.
I swallowed hard. “Like I’m missing my own heart.”
“You have a lot of good in you, Odin,” she said. “No one said you have to have a good bedside manner, but I think the people of Jesper County deserve to have you take over. And I know you’re bored at the medical examiner’s office.”
How had she known that?
“Plus, you can do both, can’t you?”
She had a point.
The area was small. Less than fifteen thousand people. Twenty-five if you counted the surrounding area.
Pendelton saw five patients a day, max.
On top of my current caseload, it wouldn’t take much to add in seeing Pendelton’s patients.
“I’ll think about it,” I said.
She squeezed my torso.
“Do you think that the kid killed Errol?”
I shrugged. “I have no clue. I mean, he admitted to all the others. Why wouldn’t he admit to that one if he did it?”
“True.” She paused. “What was it that you were saying about it looking professional?”
“Something Gentry said,” I answered. “He said that he was shot execution-style in the back of the head with a forty-five. I’ll confirm when I get to the office in the morning.” I groaned. “Now that I have two murder cases to comb through, I should probably be there right now.”
She tightened her hold. “Do you have to?”
I shook my head. “There’s nothing that I can find tonight that I won’t find tomorrow. His murder was too long ago. I’ll be lucky to find anything useful.”
“I’m not upset if you don’t,” she admitted. “He deserved to be dead. Mackey’s parents…” She trailed off, her breath hitching.
“What is it?”
Her chest hair petting came to a halt.
“His parents said something once,” she said softly. “Mackey’s dad in particular.”
“About what?” I asked, curling a few loose strands of her hair around one finger.
“That Nepal didn’t have extradition to the United States.”
My lips quirked. “You think his parents hired a hitman?”
She sat up and reached for her phone.
She typed in a number and waited, her breathing slightly accelerated.
A woman answered with a worried, “Constance. Is everything okay? Wendy okay? I know it’s the middle of the night there.”
A worried grandmother.
“Everything is fine,” Constance promised. “More than fine. I wanted to tell you the good news.”
There was a quietness to her tone before she said, “I’m glad, honey. If anyone deserved it, it was him.”
Silence.
“He was found in an old RV just outside of town,” she said into the darkness. “Really close to Wendy and me.”
More silence and then, “I know.”
My grin kicked up at the corner.
“Thank you, Mrs. Jones.” she paused. “Did you hire me a bodyguard?”
There was a long, drawn-out sigh. “He wasn’t supposed to be seen.”
She giggled. “I’m glad he’s gone. Thanks for the assist.”
“He deserved it,” she whispered one more time before she hung up.
I pulled Constance back into my arms. “One less psycho in the world.”
“One less psycho,” she agreed. “Now, about those underwear…”
Twenty-Nine
Not everyone is going to think I’m pretty. And that’s okay. They’re wrong, though.
—Constance to Wendy
Constance
I was at a huge biker bash, and I wasn’t afraid at all.
My parents were somewhere with Wendy at the same party, and I was looking around for the one man that had been missing from my life for almost a full forty-eight hours.