Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 127715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 639(@200wpm)___ 511(@250wpm)___ 426(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 639(@200wpm)___ 511(@250wpm)___ 426(@300wpm)
And no matter how Dern tried to wear her down, both of Lillian’s interviews held up. There wasn’t the slightest deviation in her story, or how it corroborated her parents’.
For some reason, Dern and/or the Dietrichs had targeted them.
What Harry needed to know was…why?
Did he think he could punish Avery not responding to his attentions by fucking with their lives?
Or was this something uglier, shadier, deeper?
Something that had to do with the Dietrichs, who were very clearly in on it, as they immediately pointed the finger at Sonny.
The statute of limitations may have long since expired on the robbery, but considering it wasn’t investigated at the time, it had not expired on insurance fraud, and the Dietrichs had seen a big check after that robbery.
And murder had no statute.
Harry heard them coming before they arrived at the open door to his office, which had Harry reaching to his mouse and clicking to another window he’d opened earlier on his screen.
He quickly scanned his bank balance again, before he closed the screen.
And then Jason and Jesse Bohannan walked in.
He’d called them because a sixteen-year-old crime he couldn’t move forward in any tangible way, one where there was no violence or loss of life, was not something he could, in good faith, spend his department’s resources investigating.
At least, not until (or if) those bodies were identified and tied to a robbery in Misted Pines.
But he could spend his personal resources on Jace and Jesse investigating it.
What Harry knew was, whatever was going to happen, he was damn sure going to get a head start on it.
Seemed it turned out to be good he’d lived a shadow of his life, spending his money on his mortgage, gas for his truck, food that kept him healthy, dry cleaning for his uniforms, and a new pair of jeans and a few shirts every couple of years, because he had a good amount saved up.
Cade Bohannan’s boys were just barely in their early thirties, but considering their father was their mentor, they were still the best in the business.
And they cost a whack.
They were twins, and Harry had learned a long time ago how to tell them apart.
Jesse was cocky as fuck and wore that like a badge of honor.
Jason was so confident, he didn’t have to bother with any badge.
Other than that, they were identical.
“You called,” Jesse drawled after he’d folded his long body in one of the chairs in front of Harry’s desk, Jace doing the same in the chair beside him.
Harry flipped the Dietrich file closed and shoved it across his desk at them.
Jace leaned forward and took it.
“Robbery. Sixteen years ago,” he began. “Clear evidence Dern was trying to frame a couple for the crime. He had a thing for the wife, she only had a thing for her husband. Could be, Dern didn’t like that much and intended to show her who had the power.”
Jace’s lips got tight. Jesse’s eyes got hard.
Like all of Fret County, the twins hadn’t been shielded from Dern’s corruption.
“They hightailed it and haven’t been heard from since,” Harry continued. “Until the cops in Coeur D’Alene ran the serial number on a gun they found in a grave alongside two sets of remains. That gun was reported stolen in that robbery.”
“Fucking hell,” Jason muttered.
“This have to do with Sonny and Avery?” Jesse asked, and Harry’s back straightened.
“Did you know them?”
“Know their girl Lillian was the hot number in school,” Jesse said. “She graduated before we got there, but her legend remained.”
Harry could see that.
“And Dad dug Sonny,” Jace shared. “Dad’s a do-it-yourself kind of guy, but he’d call Sonny every once in a while, if he needed an extra man on a job he was doing around the house. It was a long time ago, you’d have to ask him, but think they’d share a drink on occasion.”
“I do know Dad thought shit was off when they ghosted,” Jesse added.
Harry scratched a conversation with Cade on his to-do list, but that already said a lot. Cade Bohannan was known as one of the best criminal profilers in history. If he had Sonny anywhere near his land, that meant Sonny Rainier was solid as a granite.
“Do you know Lillian?” Harry asked.
Jesse smirked.
Jason watched him closely.
Harry wasn’t surprised at these reactions.
She was an attractive woman. He had a dick.
And these two shared one brain, but they both used far more of that organ than the vast majority of people. They were sharp, shrewd, and between their ex-cop, ex-FBI profiler father’s tutelage and their natural God-given ability, they read practically any situation like it was typed in a book.
“Know her, know her, no,” Jesse eventually answered. “Seen her around, absolutely.”
“She got hooked up with Willie Z. Shocked the shit out of everyone. Then she took a half a breath and got shot of Willie Z, which no one found surprising,” Jason put in.