Abduction Destruction: Blue Moon Investigations Sacramento Book 8 by Alex Gates & Steve Higgs

Author:Alex Gates & Steve Higgs [Gates, Alex & Higgs, Steve]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-07-05T00:00:00+00:00

Double-Date Night. Tuesday, October 31st. 1313hrs.

It was a dark afternoon, covered by gray but harmless clouds. They stood thick in the sky, content in their fullness. With them came a breeze and a sharp chill.

Detective Kyle Vanek and I sat on a park bench and watched the pedestrians hunch against the cold and hurry past us, and we watched the vehicle traffic rush to lunch and back to work.

I held a steaming cup of coffee with one hand, the other stuffed deep into my coat for a hint of warmth.

Vanek picked at what remained of his barbecue chips. “Malone received permission to close the case. He believes there’s enough evidence to convince a jury of Olivia’s guilt. The prosecutor agreed. They’re setting a trial date.”

I raised my coffee to my mouth, but removed it before taking a sip.

They had convincing circumstantial evidence against Olivia, but nothing incriminating. Unless…

“They found more evidence, didn’t they?”

Vanek ran his hand over his face, pulling at his skin. “After Ethan’s interview, Malone sent a team to investigate the alleged cabin in Solano, the one owned by Olivia’s family.”

“What did they find?”

“It doesn’t look good.”

I stared into the distance for a while, losing myself in thought as the world moved forward.

After the interview with Ethan, my perspective on the case had taken a one-hundred-eighty degree turn. I went from believing Olivia was behind the cruel incident to backpedaling from that thought. She affirmed my suspicions of her innocence after I met with her.

Should I have had trusted my initial reaction? Had I seen false gold and chased after it blindly? What was the alternative to Olivia’s guilt? Her innocence, obviously…but how? If not her, who?

The only reasonable answer that fit within the boundaries provided by the timeline and the evidence was an alien. So, was Olivia guilty, or had an alien plotted the entire sequence of events?

Detective Vanek respected my silence. He allowed me to dwell in thought for a moment.

Once I felt more lost than ever before, I resurfaced into the present. I needed to know all the information.

“What did they find in the cabin?”

“Too much to deny her guilt.”

“You’re convinced they’re making the right call? You believe with certainty that Olivia is guilty of murdering Ethan Chambers and Jennifer Mitchell?”

“Until proven guilty in a court of law, she’s innocent, right?”

“Kyle.”

He crumpled his chip bag and sighed. “If I were a juror, I would find her guilty for every felony brought against her.”

“Convince me of her guilt, then. What did they find?”

“We’ll start from the beginning, as the prosecutor will do in court. Olivia has schizophrenia, which causes her to hallucinate when she’s off her medication. Not only that, but she has a history of violent behavior when suffering the effects of her disorder. We can prove she’s been off of her pills.”

I removed my hand from my pocket and ran it through my hair. “You can prove that?”

“Nothing in her blood work. That will be the prosecutor’s foundational argument. It gets much worse.”

I shook my head, thinking of Olivia as she sat across from me in the interrogation room.

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