Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 108849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 544(@200wpm)___ 435(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 544(@200wpm)___ 435(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
Uma leaned forward. “I was hoping I could also talk to you about your father.”
“We can’t get into personal matters here, Ms. Carrington. I’m sorry.”
Uma focused fully on Laurel. “No, really. He cares about you deeply and wants a relationship with you. He doesn’t understand why you won’t see the good in him.”
Laurel pushed back her chair and stood. “That’s because there isn’t good in him, Uma. He’s a predator and he harms women. He’s a narcissist and probably a sociopath.”
Uma stood and wrung her hands together. “You’re wrong.”
Laurel stared at her dispassionately. “Do what you will with the information I’ve given to you. But if you’re as smart as you appear, you’ll run fast and hard in the other direction.” She showed the woman to the door and then returned to her office, her mind clicking travel arrangements into place. She called her mom’s warehouse and spoke to the employees before phoning her local travel agent.
“What’s going on?” Agent Norrs asked, walking inside and dropping into a chair. “Did I hear you making plans to head to Asia?”
Laurel rolled her shoulders, unsure of how much to reveal. Norrs seemed to be a good agent with poor taste in women, and he didn’t have her trust. She missed her team, flashing back to being a child prodigy—all alone amongst her peers. “I’m rearranging a planned buying trip for my mother so she leaves tomorrow.”
Agent Norrs kicked out his legs. “Sounds like a good idea. Is it because the killer is murdering blondes?”
“That might be a coincidence since we only have two victims.” Hopefully they wouldn’t get any more. “I’m more concerned that Zeke Caine wants to speak with my mother. With both of us rejecting his overtures, he could become even more dangerous than he obviously is right now. A malignant narcissist or sociopath with his kind of ego can’t take such disrespect, and I’m concerned he’ll strike out at her.”
Norrs rubbed his smooth-shaven chin. “You think he’d actually hurt your mom because she doesn’t want to talk to him?”
“Without question,” Laurel said. “He has no moral compass, and I want her safe while I track his movements of the last few years. There’s a reason he won’t share where he’s been, and I have no doubt he’s victimized more people. I also need to figure out a way to talk to the female members of his congregation without being shut out. We haven’t hit on a method for doing that yet.”
Norrs whistled. “I spoke to your sister, and she truly doesn’t like your father. At all. She’d really like to meet us for dinner tonight.”
“I am unavailable this evening,” Laurel said.
He sighed. “I’m going to keep trying. For now, that was quite the scene outside with Haylee Johnson. The news keeps streaming it.”
Laurel pressed the palm of her hand into her eyebrow and gently rubbed it, hoping the increased supply of blood to the area would ward off her oncoming headache. “Yes, Haylee Johnson needs help. Make sure we have somebody on her at all times.”
“Fish and Wildlife is trailing her, but their resources are limited,” Agent Norrs said. “Do you think she’s in danger?”
“We all are, Agent Norrs.”
* * *
Nester called in early that afternoon with news that he had tracked down the mayor in Montana and was working with the Montana field office to get the man on a plane back home. “There’s a storm preventing the small plane from flying right now, but the mayor said he’d head out tomorrow morning and meet you at his house late afternoon.”
“Make sure agents escort him to his plane, and also be clear that if he doesn’t fly right here, I’ll have him arrested for hindering an investigation,” she said.
“No problem, boss.”
Finally. She had a few choice words for the mayor. She and Huck could practice breaking ice on the rivers in the morning, and then she would interview the Bearings. She believed his son, the attorney, would also be present. “Have you found anything else about Mrs. Bearing’s movements?” She placed her phone on speaker.
“No, and I can’t find any spa where she had a reservation,” Nester said. “I’m thinking she just lied to her husband and never made reservations since she planned to stay with Pastor John for a couple of days and go on that snowmobile trip. They certainly weren’t hiding their affair.”
Laurel sipped her herbal tea. “Have we found anybody to corroborate Pastor John’s alibi that night?”
“No,” Nester said. “So far, we haven’t found anybody who saw him that night, and we don’t have any CCTV that far out. I’m still working on it, though. He said he was home alone, so tracing his path to and from the church isn’t going to be easy.”
The pastor seemed to blur the lines between his professional and personal lives too often. Of course, Laurel was dating Huck. But an FBI agent and a Fish and Wildlife officer had a different relationship than a pastor and his parishioner. “What else have you discovered?”