When She Wasn't Looking by Helenkay Dimon

Author:Helenkay Dimon [Dimon, Helenkay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Suspense
ISBN: 9781459227644
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2012-05-02T01:16:42+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

Cade sat on the hood of his rental car and let the heat from the metal warm him from the wind whipping across the Siuslaw River. He blew out long breaths, trying to restore his heart to a consistent beat.

The call had come in less than an hour ago. The county sheriff hit Redial on Paul’s phone and called Cade. At first, Cade kept it all business, ready to deliver the cover he’d created for Paul’s trip. Then came the news. The sheriff filled Cade in as a law-enforcement courtesy.

Paul was dead. Killed in the hospital room.

Thinking about his friend’s slashed throat made Cade gag again. He’d thrown up twice since he got off the phone. Wiping the sweat off his forehead, Cade counted to ten as he opened his mouth and gulped in fresh air.

He’d been right there in the room.

He’d dragged Paul into this mess.

Cade rubbed his hands up and down his pants legs but his skin wouldn’t warm up. The cold penetrated every cell. Whether it came from reaction or shock, he didn’t know. The result was the same. Someone murdered his friend. The same unknown someone managed to get the jump on a trained FBI agent.

The impact would reach everywhere. Color everything. Destroy so much.

Cade inhaled again, trying to keep the clog in his throat from coming up. Watching the blue water lap against the bank and the gray sky move in, his thoughts moved from one death to another.

Tad Willis had collapsed under the weight of the accusations. He didn’t fight. He gave in. Ann or Courtney, or whatever her name was these days, picked him as the killer and told everyone. The reporters called day and night. Neighbors painted words of hate on their garage door. Kids taunted.

The past Cade’s father tried so hard to hide boiled up and became an explanation for how he could wipe out an entire family. Being short on cash no longer stood as the household’s most devastating problem.

Cade’s regular world had exploded when his father’s name appeared in the papers. After a raging fight at the dinner table, he skipped out on school the next morning, snuck home and found his dad’s body in the bedroom.

The gun. The blood. The shocking red covered everything. The way it dripped down the wall, Cade thought it had to be paint. It signaled the end of his innocence and his father’s life.

Now there was more blood. Cade looked down expecting to see it drip off his hands. Paul had an ex-wife and a new fiancée. He’d had a life.

Cade’s thoughts wandered back to Courtney. He could trace every piece-of-crap thing in his life back to her. He brought Paul to town but Courtney, or something related to her, killed him.

She’d taken enough lives. She had to be stopped.

* * *

JONAS SAT at his dining-room table and tapped his pen against the wood. The rhythmic clicking soothed him. Exhaustion tugged at every bone in his body, but he fought it off. He needed answers.

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