Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 135696 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135696 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
The door to the observation room opened and Harry was there.
“Cade, Doc, with me,” he said.
Then he disappeared.
They all looked at each other again, before Cade and Riggs walked out.
Harry was following Polly, his assistant and overall mom to the department (and half the town) down the hall, and they followed him.
They hit the main bullpen and headed through it to one of two conference rooms at the back, both of them having one wall of windows, the one that faced the bullpen.
And in one of them stood a tall, straight, handsome man with sandy-brown hair and the unmistakable look of a Whitaker.
A man Riggs had seen in town years before, when he was still a boy.
Rus was already in with him.
Harry didn’t look back, but Cade and Riggs exchanged glances before they hit the room.
Rus closed the door behind them and dropped the blinds.
“Dr. Truman Whitaker?” Harry asked.
The man jerked up his chin and cast his intelligent hazel eyes through the rest of them.
“I’m Sheriff Harry Moran. You’ve met Lieutenant Zachariah Lazarus, my chief deputy. This is Cade Bohannan, former FBI. And Andrew Riggs, who lives in your old house and is one of the victims in this scenario. You can ask for him to leave, but considering all that’s happened to him and his family, and that he had to get out of his bed at three in the morning to chase your brother and your uncle’s old assistant through his woods tonight, it’s unorthodox, but I believe he’s earned the right to stay.”
Truman Whitaker gave Riggs a once-over before he looked him dead in the eye and surprisingly said, “I agree.”
“Let’s have a seat, then. Coffee. Water?” Harry offered.
“I had coffee at the hospital,” Truman told him, pulling out a chair and folding into it.
“How’s Jefferson?” Harry asked, doing the same, as did everyone else, with Rus on Truman’s side, the other three men across from them.
“He’ll live,” Truman answered, like he didn’t care either way.
And there might be something behind that indifference coming from the good doctor, seeing as Jefferson was the youngest Whitaker child, and he’d been arrested, then taken to the hospital after Gia did a number on his leg.
“I’d like to video this conversation if you don’t mind,” Harry put in.
Without hesitation, another surprise, Truman jerked up his chin.
Harry reached out and hit a button in a console in the middle of the conference table and a red light came on. Riggs looked to the corner to see the camera there had a red light illuminated.
“Record to reflect, Dr. Whitaker agreed to be videoed for this interview,” Harry announced to the room, and to Truman, “Right, Dr. Whitaker, please tell us why you’re here.”
“You can all me Tru. I don’t even let the nurses call me Dr. Whitaker, not even in front of patients. Dad taught me no man or woman is above another, to the point he felt it was at the root of society’s ills. Even over money, though it’s usually having money that makes people think they’re better than others. I understand my patients need to feel I have the respect of the staff, but they also need to feel comfortable sharing candidly with me. In that scenario, the latter is preferrable.”
Cade shifted in his chair, his interest even more piqued, and yeah.
Tru hadn’t said much, but what he said was seriously telling.
“All right, Tru,” Harry replied. “And you’re here because…?”
“I’m here because Kennedy is a mess. She’s hysterical. She had to be sedated. She was in no place to make a considered decision about what I’m about to do, but I think her screeching at me, ‘Enough with the secrets, Tru!’ fifty times, I get the gist. However, I agree with her. Because Dad deserves it. So does Mom. But mostly…Lincoln.”
It was Riggs shifting at that, Harry, Rus nor Cade gave away that Cade had called it about their family situation.
“Dad” was Roosevelt to Truman Whitaker, the eldest Whitaker child. And Lincoln was “Lincoln.”
“Do you know what happened that night outside your father’s cabin?” Harry asked.
“I know what Lincoln told me. I think part of it he figured out. Part of it, Jeff told him. And the last of it, he knew, because he was there,” Tru replied.
“And what did your uncle tell you?” Harry asked.
“Do you know that from what I said? That Lincoln was my uncle. Or do you know it because Sharon told you?” Tru asked back.
“It was our working theory that your parents had an open marriage of sorts, from Cade Bohannan, who was an FBI profiler,” Harry told him.
Tru looked to Cade. “That’s always fascinated me. I was going to get into psychiatry with an emphasis on the criminal mind. After what happened, I changed course and went into emergency medicine.”
There was something off about this guy, Riggs just couldn’t put his finger on it. He didn’t know if the man was emotionless, or keeping a lock on it so he wouldn’t fly apart or give anything away.