A Means to an End by Lissa Marie Redmond

Author:Lissa Marie Redmond
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: lissa redmond;lisa marie redmond;cold day in hell;cold case mystery;cold case mystery series;mystery;mystery novel;mystery fiction;mystery series;police procedural;pi;private investigator;lauren riley;cold case investigation;cold case series;buffalo;new york
Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide, LTD.
Published: 2019-08-15T15:01:46+00:00

24

“You expect us to believe that you just happened to get jumped in the park by some mystery assailant?” Cam Bates asked, his voice full of contempt and disbelief.

Lauren’s jaw clenched. “Are you saying I made this up?” She held her palm out, an inch from Bates’s nose so he could take a good look. “Did I make this up too? What about this?” She pointed to the faint ring around her neck.

She had called Kencil from the district house to let him know what was going on and he had delayed the morning briefing until she got back to the office. Now they were all clustered in the conference room, where Bates and Perez were dissecting her story, looking for gaps.

“Isn’t it more likely you were the victim of a random mugging?” Perez asked. “You said yourself you’ve been walking that out-of-the-way path for three months now.”

Three hours after being ambushed, Lauren thought, I’m standing in the task force office, trying to convince my so-called co-workers something significant actually happened to me. Un-fucking-believable.

“Which is further proof that David Spencer is tracking my movements.”

Bates snorted aloud while shaking his head. “I can’t work with this woman. She’s delusional.”

Lauren lunged forward and grabbed the front of Bates’s green polo shirt across the table with both hands. The fabric of the shirt bunched up in her fists. She pulled herself so close she could see his crooked lower teeth, pushed back in a jumbled mess from years of chewing tobacco. “You smart ass motherfu—”

Nolan and Perez jumped in and pulled them apart while Kencil hollered from the head of the table, “Both of you are way out of line!”

Nolan had Lauren around the waist as he dragged her toward the white board. Perez was practically sitting on Bates to keep him down.

“You want to put your hands on me, I’m warning you—I hit back,” Bates spat out, thrashing against Perez.

“Good,” Lauren snarled as she wrestled to get out from under Nolan’s grasp. “At least then it’s almost a fair fight.”

“Enough!” Kencil thundered, silencing everyone in the room. “We’re all supposed to be professionals here. Lauren, there is no doubt you were attacked. And Cam, it doesn’t matter who she thinks did it. We can’t deny it could be related to the cases we’re working on.” He waved his index finger between the two of them. “Keep your hands and your opinions of each other to yourselves. This is beyond unacceptable.”

Lauren relaxed, and Nolan loosened his grip.

“I’m cool. I’m all right,” Bates told Perez. Perez let him go and Bates immediately straightened out his shirt while mumbling under his breath.

“Are we good, kids?” Kencil looked around at his detectives, eyebrow arched. “I hope you both got that shit out of your systems because we all have work to do.”

“You want to get out of here?” Nolan asked, nodding towards the exit. Bates was still fuming across the room, Perez standing by his side like a sentinel.

“Yeah,” she said, glaring at the Garden Valley detective.

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