Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 80176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
My eyes turned to the dark, dangerous looking man in the corner. The one who had come here to help Evander with his revenge.
He knew where I’d been, yet he wasn’t saying anything either.
“He was with me, on his bike…doing stuff,” I said, a blush suffusing my face. “I was upset, and he and I were talking.”
Travis grunted something and Walter growled.
“Where were you?” he asked. “It’s not going to be enough if you don’t have some sort of proof that he was with you.”
I turned to Travis.
“What’s the time frame?” I asked, digging through my purse. “We stopped two towns over and got some food. I have the receipt right here.”
Thank God we’d stopped closer to home.
“About two hours ago.”
“There’s still a possibility that he could’ve made it home,” Walter snapped. “That’s not good enough.”
I gritted my teeth. “Well, when I got home, my chickens had all been slaughtered, which you already know. We took about twenty minutes cleaning that up and ensuring that none of them were suffering before we went to the clinic, where we sat for another half an hour waiting to be seen. That’s about four hours right there that he has an alibi for, and the night before that, I was with him sleeping in our bed.”
Walter growled. “I’m not trying to be an asshole here, Kennedy. I’m trying to tell you that it’s not going to be good enough. Not with his prints found at the scene.”
“Circumstantial,” I said.
I’d watched enough CSI to know that finding prints at the scene was nothing like finding a murder weapon in Evander’s car.
“How was the woman done?”
That came from the man I’d never seen before.
“Who are you and why are you here?” Walter mumbled, looking away.
“I’m Brock,” Brock announced. “And I work here. Why are you here?”
Walter looked at me. “She said I didn’t care about him. I’m here to prove that I do. I’m supposed to be at work right now. Instead I’m here, trying to fucking help.”
I narrowed my eyes at him.
“Your chance to help was a long time ago.”
“Kennedy,” Travis sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Not helping.”
I shut my mouth.
He was right. It wasn’t.
But I couldn’t help myself.
I took a seat, though, and crossed my arms over my chest.
“You wanna know what I think?”
That was Rafe.
“What?” Travis groaned.
“I think that the chief is corrupt. I also think that shit’s going down in this place that y’all have no fucking clue about.”
Rafe’s words, although impassive, were unnervingly correct.
“That officer hurt me, and he didn’t need to,” I agreed, lifting the sleeve of my t-shirt up and showing the room at large. “Evander’s going to lose his mind when he sees this.”
Breaths were drawn as they saw the bruises.
They looked pretty gnarly, that was for sure. Dark black and purple splotches in the shape of a handprint about the size of one particular police officer’s hand.
“What I think is that Balthazar has people in this town in his pocket.”
My brow lifted in surprise.
I hadn’t actually witnessed anything first hand, but I’d heard about him through Evander. I knew that he was targeted by this man. I knew that, more than likely, this Balthazar character had dirt on everyone and was either blackmailing those people into helping him or those individuals were just as dirty as him.
If that were the case, then I was a little confused and a whole lot more suspicious as to why Walter was even here.
It was more than obvious that there was no love lost between these two brothers, but maybe there was still some loyalty towards each other left. Walter had to feel something for his brother, even if it was just mutual respect.
Rafe’s words about the town being in Balthazar’s pocket weren’t all that surprising considering the way things happened here.
And suddenly I was mad all over again.
Crossing my arms over my chest, I squared my shoulders and sent a rather impressive—at least I thought so—glare toward Walter.
“Can’t you do anything?”
My words were simple, but the meaning behind them couldn’t be denied…not by anyone in the room.
I’d pretty much implied that Walter was no good here if he wasn’t going to do anything about his brother being in jail.
Walter opened his mouth to reply when someone’s phone rang.
I looked in the direction it’d come from, and stared as the new guy, Brock, lifted the phone to his ear and said, “Yeah?”
I studied his features.
He was quite eye catching.
He had dark brown hair that had hints of red in it when he turned just right and the light caught it. His eyes were a muddy brown that, at first glance, weren’t all that impressive.
What was impressive, however, was watching that color change before my eyes.
So not brown eyes, but actually hazel.
He was strongly built with large, muscular arms. His shoulders were wide, and from what I could see of his waist that was above the table, it was trim and taut.