The Bear: A Suspense Thriller (A Reed & Billie Novel Book 7) by Dustin Stevens

Author:Dustin Stevens [Stevens, Dustin]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Published: 2019-03-30T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Forty-Three

A vein stood out along the left side of Carver Ecklund’s forehead. With each beat of his heart, it could almost be seen throbbing, threatening to come bursting out from beneath the surface.

His entire face was stained bright red with a heavy flush of blood, his lips curled back in a sneer.

Sitting on the opposite side of his desk, he had the appearance of a principal about to explode on a pair of students who had just been caught in a prank. With his fingers laced in front of him, it seemed he was aching to fire himself forward, ranting for all to hear.

An eventuality Reed almost hoped would happen.

After his dealings with police brass the last couple of weeks, he’d had his fill not only of the extreme self-importance but also of their refusal to see what truly mattered. Why their job existed in the first place.

Back in Columbus, that had meant ignoring the fact that Della Snow had been found alive, the focus solely on the bad press that had emerged once the underlying motivations for the crime were uncovered.

Here, it was Ecklund’s continuing disavowal that anything nefarious had befallen Serena Gipson and his preference for all to believe that the girl had simply decided to slip away for a while.

The call from Ecklund had arrived a moment after Reed and Wyatt pushed themselves away from the side of the car. Armed with marching orders for the afternoon, they were about to be on their way back to Warner when Wyatt’s phone had erupted.

Thirty minutes later, here they now sat, enduring an unnecessary tongue lashing and wasting time they didn’t have.

“Imagine this,” Ecklund said, each word punctuated by his chin and shoulders all jutting forward an inch. “I’m just sitting here, enjoying my lunch, when a call comes into the switchboard.

“They ask for Officer Wyatt. Corey tells them you’re not here until this evening, and do you know what they said?”

There was no need for the question, the sole purpose of it to force one of them to respond. A classic power move, one Reed had seen many times from people just like Ecklund. There was no way in hell he would ever stoop to giving the man the satisfaction.

But he wasn’t in the unfortunate position of having to work for him, either.

“What?” Wyatt asked, his gaze never lifting from the desk.

“They said to ask you if the meeting about Serena Gipson could be pushed back until later this afternoon,” Ecklund said. Leaning forward at the waist, he gripped either armrest of his chair, pretending they were the sole things holding him in place.

As if fear and common sense didn’t tell him that both men across from him had twenty years and thirty pounds on him.

Or that Billie would have him torn apart before he made it even halfway there.

“I said to Corey, ‘Now that can’t be right, because Officer Wyatt wouldn’t be foolish enough to go trying to create a case where there wasn’t one,’” Ecklund said, leveling a stare on Wyatt.

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