Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 114419 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 572(@200wpm)___ 458(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114419 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 572(@200wpm)___ 458(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
“Giving you clues in the notes?”
“Yes.” She looked slightly incredulous but also excited. She sat back in her chair, her knee stilling. “If it is a zip code the cards represent—which, it’s too coincidental not to be, right?—then what the hell am I supposed to do with it?”
Gavin set the cards aside and went back to the note, reading through it for the second time. Something had stuck out to him, but he hadn’t been thinking the way she obviously was—as though there were clues contained within . . . whatever this was. And not just clues using numbers but—“This,” he said, tapping the line with his index finger. “His mother says, ‘You might think I look better than I play, lover, but oh, you’d be wrong.’ It’s a phrase. In cards, you call a hand that looks better than it plays an Anna Kournikova.”
“An Anna Kournikova? The . . . tennis player?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. So what does that mean? She looks better than she . . .” Understanding came into her expression, and she gave an exaggerated eye roll. “Well, that’s rude.”
He let out a small chuckle on a shrug. He agreed, but he hadn’t coined the phrase.
“The real question is, What does that have to do with—” Her mouth made an O, and she went still. “There was a tennis ball at her house.”
“Whose house?”
“The victim’s.”
“There was a tennis ball at the victim’s house?”
She looked distracted as she nodded, picked up her phone, and punched in a number. Her knee started up again as she obviously listened to it ring, and Gavin watched her, his lip twitching, wanting to smile. She was clearly in her element, and an onslaught of something he wasn’t sure what to call rushed through him: joy, relief, rightness, the knowledge that the terrible thing he’d done so long ago that had caused them both to suffer had been for good. He was sitting front and center, watching the result in real time.
He continued to observe her, living simultaneously in two separate decades—equal parts a boy and a man. Yes, what he was feeling contained joy, but there was sadness too. It had come at a price.
“Dammit, Kat,” she muttered. She dropped her phone in her briefcase. “I have to go back to that apartment,” she said. “I need to go get that tennis ball.”
He handed her the copies from in front of him, and she dropped them into her briefcase before leaning over to zip it closed. “I’ll come with you,” he said.
“No. You’ve been very, very helpful, and I’m grateful. But this is police business.”
“What if there’s something at that apartment I can help with? Whoever this person is, he’s obviously one step ahead. I’m not only an ex–professional card player, but I’m in security. Maybe I can spot something you wouldn’t. Also, if this does have something to do with me personally . . .”
Sienna hesitated, obviously considering. “This might be a wild-goose chase. The zip code thing could be a coincidence, and the Anna Kournikova line might be nothing.” But he could tell by the shine in her eyes that she didn’t believe that.
“It might be.” He paused. “And it might not be.”
She hesitated a moment more, then stood. “Fine. Come with me and take a look around. See if you spot anything out of the ordinary. But you can’t touch anything unless I say it’s okay.”
He stood too. “Yes, ma’am.”
Gavin caught her small eye roll and grinned. “I mean it,” she mumbled.
“I’ll do whatever you tell me to do, Sienna. You lead, and I’ll follow.” And he showed her he meant it by walking behind her out the door.
CHAPTER TEN
Sienna dialed Kat’s phone number, but again, it went to voice mail. She and Kat had split up so Kat could meet with the computer tech guys looking at Reva’s phone while Sienna met with Gavin. She must still be with them. She shot her partner a text letting her know Gavin had spotted something in the note and they were headed to the victim’s apartment. Luckily, she still had the key they’d gotten from the landlord. She’d used it to collect some clothes and accessories for Trevor once they’d secured a spot at the group home where she’d dropped him.
At the passing thought of Trevor, her heart gave a sudden pinch. She pictured him now, sitting in some strange place where nothing was familiar, little was comforting or safe, trying to process the knowledge that he’d never see his grandmother again, after he’d already lost—in some form or another—both his mother and his father.
Her grip tightened on the steering wheel. But she had to remind herself that it was better than sitting alone in an apartment waiting for someone who’d never show.
Yes, the knowing was better. Then you could move on. And she had to hope and pray that the adults who were now tasked to care for him would take their job to heart.