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)
Kat tilted her head as Sienna met her eyes. “Sadly, their mom was killed, and the babies were still too young to take care of themselves. A group of us kids each took one and used droppers to feed them for the next several weeks. They all survived, but later, the one Timmy Lauden took would suck on the edge of blankets and clothing and even his own tail sometimes. We all knew him because he had this chronic pointy wet tip on the end.” She looked off behind Kat’s shoulder again, the vision of that tiny cat trying to find comfort in any way it could front and center in her mind.
“That’s both gross and pitiful.”
“It was.” Sienna shrugged. “Other than that, he was a sweet, playful cat. None of the others did that, just him. They’d all been removed from their mother too soon, but for whatever reason, that little guy never adjusted.”
Kat was looking at her knowingly. “Sienna, people aren’t cats.”
She gave her head a small shake, breathing out a smile. “No, of course not.” She paused, picturing that needy cat again. “They’re far more complicated,” she murmured.
The mariachi music played softly over the speakers as they continued their meal, Sienna making a concerted effort to move her mind away from motherless boys and motherless kittens, a line of thought that was less than productive. “Any more information on the dealer on Reva Keeling’s phone?” she asked after a few minutes.
When they’d run him, they’d learned he had been in jail for the past week and a half. Which eliminated him as the killer. Of course: it couldn’t have been that easy. Then again, in Sienna’s experience, drug deals gone wrong never ended with the victim posed elaborately under an overpass. The scene didn’t fit that particular crime, and she wasn’t surprised it had turned into what was most likely a dead end.
“He’s a low-level dealer, in and out of jail since he was fourteen. Mostly possession, a few stolen cars. No violent crimes on his record, though. When he’s not dealing, he’s out getting women pregnant. He has four kids from three different women and doesn’t pay child support on any of them.”
Sienna sipped her tea. The fertile women of Reno who might be—inexplicably to her mind—attracted to that guy were better off with him behind bars, even temporarily.
“We can plan to have a word with him when he gets out, which should be in the next few months, but my bet is there’s no connection at all between him and what happened to Reva Keeling,” Kat said.
Sienna nodded.
“What did you find out about the house on Allegra Street?” Kat asked.
“It belongs to a bank,” Sienna said. “Before that it was owned by a woman who died with no known relatives. Unfortunately, there aren’t any neighbors on that block to ask whether they remember her. Almost all of the houses on that street are foreclosures. There was some talk about a strip mall a few years back that never came to fruition.” She paused as she took a bite of food, chewed, and swallowed. “I think we can assume it’s simply an abandoned house chosen because of its deserted location among other abandoned houses. It must have been easy for our suspect to enter, swap out door hardware, plant evidence for us to find, leave, and not worry about being caught on any cameras in the area or having some vagrant find what he’d left there before we did.”
“So another dead end,” Kat said.
“It appears so.”
“Damn.” She paused for a moment. “Any new insight about what Decker was able to give you as far as the notes?”
Sienna shook her head but removed the copies of the notes that Gavin had marked with highlighter.
“He only saw these two minor things.” She’d said as much to Kat and Ingrid when she’d gotten back from meeting with Gavin the day before. Since then, she’d read the notes about a hundred times, and though there were a few things that sort of stuck out to her, on their own they didn’t mean a thing.
Kat wiped her hands on her napkin and pushed her plate aside. “Let me look at those again, and with a full night’s sleep.”
A full night’s sleep. Well, that makes one of us, Sienna thought. She handed the copies over and picked at the last of her burrito as Kat read through the notes one more time. When Kat was finished, she set the two pages Gavin had marked side by side. “Texas Hold’em without the e,” she murmured as though to herself. “Do you recall any other misspellings in any of his notes?”
Sienna thought about it, wiping the corners of her mouth. “No. But I’m not the world’s best speller. I could have missed one or two.”