Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 68006 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68006 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
I swallow, and it lands like a brick in the pit of my stomach.
Yuck. I throw the rest of it in the trash, and then I take my water and head back to the bedroom. First though, I take a quick walk around the rest of the apartment. I know Leif checked it all out, but I just want to be sure.
Something’s off.
Something doesn’t belong here.
And then I zero in on it.
There’s a white envelope sitting on the table by the door.
8
LEIF
Blood.
So much blood.
I’m no stranger to blood.
But Brindley…
So young…
Already such a hard life, growing up in the system, and then being captured and sent to that horrific island…
And now…
My bowels clench.
I’ve seen death.
I’ve caused death.
But it never gets any fucking easier.
Officer Powers is on the floor, passed out cold. Apparently he’s never seen death. Every officer does at some point. He’ll never forget this moment once he comes to.
I look at Brindley’s lifeless body.
Blood seeps through the comforter.
Yet her face is serene.
Yellowish pale in death, but still serene.
I remove the cover, and then I nearly lose the contents of my stomach.
The source of the blood…
Between her legs.
I have a knife and a penis, and one of them is going inside you tonight.
God…
Oh my God.
Even though I know she’s dead, I instinctively touch my fingers to her neck.
No pulse, but something surprises me.
Her neck is still warm.
Not full living human warmth, but not the ice of death.
Whoever did this… Whoever did this is nearby.
Perhaps still in this apartment.
Self-preservation kicks in, and I step over Officer Powers’s body, my gun drawn, to check the rest of the place.
It’s clean, and I already checked the fifth floor earlier. But I didn’t check inside Brindley’s apartment. I did, however, lock the doors to the stairwell and disable the elevators. So it’s possible whoever did this is still somewhere on the fifth floor. If he was still in Brindley’s apartment when I did my first check, he could still be anywhere else on the fifth floor. Except…
Damn.
I was so anxious to get to Brindley, I didn’t relock the door to the stairwell. If he was trapped on the fifth floor…he’s most likely gone by now.
I didn’t secure any of the top floors. Buck and Aspen are the only ones who live higher than floor five, and they’re not currently here.
So he’s either somewhere on the top floors, or he made it down. But he couldn’t have. I locked the doors to all the other floors lower than five.
I return to Brindley’s bedroom where Powers is finally coming to.
“You okay?” I ask him.
“Yeah. Sorry about that.”
I feel for him, but maybe he’ll leave his cowboy attitude at the door now.
I offer him a hand, but he shakes his head.
“I’m okay. But thanks.”
He gets to his feet and then turns to regard Brindley’s body in the bed.
“Damn,” he says. “How old was she anyway?”
“I don’t know. Early twenties.”
“After all these girls have already been through.”
“I know it.”
“What happened to her?”
“Sure you want to know?”
“For God’s sake.” Powers pulls off the cover, and then lets out a gasp before passing out again with a bigger thud this time.
I take the opportunity to call Reid.
“Leif? What’d you find?”
“It’s not good news.”
“Nothing will surprise me at this point.”
“You sure?”
“Just tell me what you found, damn it.”
I clear my throat, nearing puking. “Brindley’s gone, Reid. She’s dead.”
Silence.
“Reid?”
More silence. Then, “Fuck. How? How could any of this have happened? We worked so hard to protect these women. “
I’m not sure what to say. It’s my job to protect the women as well. Especially Kelly, but all of them. Reid isn’t the only one who failed here. We both did.”
“This is going to kill Zee,” he finally says.
But his voice says more. His voice says it’s killing him too.
I swallow hard against the nausea. “And Kelly. Because I think…”
“What, damn it. What?”
I gulp down the acid in my throat. “I think this is a message. And I think it was meant for Kelly.”
Another pause, and in my mind’s eye I see the look of horror on Reid’s face.
Finally, “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Kelly got another text. A really nasty one. What happened to Brindley…”
“Just tell me. I’m on my way up, if I can get through the cops guarding the stairwells. What the fuck happened to her?”
I flash then.
I flash to everything I saw during the worst times of my tours overseas.
And I realize I have to be blunt with Reid.
“Someone shoved a fucking knife up her cunt,” I say. “Violated her in the worst way, and she bled to death.”
Wolf’s screams permeate me.
We knew this was a possibility. That insurgents would do whatever it took to get information out of us.
But they don’t know Navy SEALs.
We never talk.
We know what could happen, and we don’t talk.
So I wait. Willing the strength to my legs to stand, to ease the pain in my wrists and arms and shoulders.