Chasing Redemption by B.A. Chayut

Author:B.A. Chayut
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: B.A. Chayut

Chapter Twenty

PEYTON

I spotted Betty walking into our office in the reflection on my monitor. She stopped, surveyed the room, them came straight toward me and knocked on my desk. I debated leaving my headphones on and ignoring her. I was in the zone. She could get someone else to work on whatever she needed. Anyone else.

Betty leaned a hip on my desk and flicked the plastic over my ear. Shit. She wasn’t going anywhere. I pulled my headphones off and leaned back in my chair. “Yeah?”

Maybe I shouldn’t have been so cranky, but I couldn’t help it. Over the past week, my world had been flipped upside down. I couldn’t stop thinking of Reaper, and I couldn’t shake the dark cloud that loomed overhead.

“You’re with me,” she said when I finally gave her my attention.

I eyed the code that was finally coming together on my monitor, then looked back at Betty. “I’m working. Can’t you take one of them?”

Tyler was at her desk for the first time in a month, but instead of handling the mountain precariously balanced paperwork, she had her chair leaned all the way back and was trying to balance a pencil on her nose. Adrienne was one desk over, reading a book in French. I had no idea where the others were.

“No. Lyle Lowenstein’s going to be here any minute. I agreed to a meeting.” All three of us sat up straight at that. “Don’t know if he’s coming alone or not. I’d ask Jessen, but she’s up at State, interviewing that killer. Chris drove her.”

After saving the code, I followed Betty to the conference room, where we waited. One minute turned to two, and two turned to five. I stayed in my spot against the wall.

Footsteps shuffled down the hall, and Leanne’s voice carried inside the room just before she opened the door. “Betty’s waiting for you inside.”

My hands clenched into fists, and I had to consciously relax them as Lyle Lowenstein stepped into the conference room. Everything about him was carefully curated, down to the bags under his eyes. He was shorter than I expected. Smaller in general. Even in his tailored suit, hair combed just right with too much gel, and proud jut of his chin, he didn’t really have much presence. For all his bluster, I’d assumed he would fill a room with more than just his person.

Maybe he did and I’d simply grown immune to men with oversized egos.

“Thank you for meeting me on such short notice,” he began.

Betty shrugged. “I was in the office.”

If the muscle twitching in his jaw was any indication, her nonchalant attitude bothered him. “Right. I’m not sure if you’ve paid attention to the news, but my wife and son were stolen from me a few weeks ago.” Stolen. Like they were objects that he owned and not people. “I had a tip from this area saying that …” He paused and cleared his throat, like he wasn’t sure how to describe the call he’d gotten from Hell’s Spawn.

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