Gone Too Soon by Kate Gable

Author:Kate Gable [Gabl, Kate & Gable, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-05-30T16:00:00+00:00

18

I leave Steve Hildebrand's house with a profound sense of sorrow and loss. This man is wrecked, completely broken by what happened to the woman that he had fallen in love with. I could tell how much regret he has over not protecting her, showing up earlier, pressing the matter more. I wonder if he has any regrets about the fact that life just didn't work out for them earlier, that maybe if they had been together this whole time, it would have been different. I should head back to the hotel, talk to Luke and make some sort of plan about Donald, but this case wears on me.

The sadness runs deep. I'm just thankful that neither her son nor her boyfriend saw her up there in that tree like I did. That would be a terrible way to remember a loved one, and images like that get ingrained in your mind forever. I know because I saw my father's body in my parents' bedroom, surrounded by blood from the supposedly self-inflicted gunshot wound.

To this day, even though it has been years since that happened, I keep thinking about it. Whenever I think of him, that's the first image that pops in my head, not him teaching me to ride a bike, not him taking me skiing or kayaking on the lake, but that bloody, gory image of his legs laying limp beside him, his head scrunched into his neck, a shell of who he was as a person when he was alive, and all the blood everywhere. When you get shot in the stomach, you can bleed out for a very long time, you suffer. It could be hours before you actually pass away. When you finally do, you do so in pure agony. I hate that those were the last breaths that he took, in pain like that.

My heart goes out to Steve and Anthony because they have lost a loved one too. Her death should have never happened, but I would place all the money that I have in the world on a bet that it was not Steve who had done it.

I reach over to my phone and look up the directions to a new address. It takes me to a fancy, upscale neighborhood with tall, shiny new homes and expensive cars in the driveways. I parked my rental in front of the house and make a trek up the flagstone path laid into the manicured lawn. Here, a knock on the front door won't do, you have to ring the doorbell in order for people to hear you. The house is probably over 3,000 square feet, if not more.

A few moments later, someone comes downstairs. Melinda Rydell is a petite blonde with a big, bright smile and pearly white teeth. I introduce myself, and her face immediately falls.

"I'm so sorry that that happened,” she says, avoiding using Cora’s name.

"Is Theodor around? I really need to ask him a few questions." I had introduced myself as a Detective Kaitlyn Carr, but not clarified who I really was like I did with Steven.

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