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)
“Stop threatening her, Mom,” Gavin said.
“Oh, quiet.” Mirabelle shooed him with a wave of her hand.
Sienna smiled. “I’m looking forward to it,” she said. And sure, there were a few topics she hoped not to discuss on her first visit to Mirabelle’s house, but in all reality, she couldn’t wait to tell Mirabelle about her life. About college, about her first job, about the pride she felt when she put her talents to use and helped someone in a way she knew had an impact and was perhaps even life changing. She was a long way from the little girl with tangled hair and worn-out shoes that Mirabelle had taken under her wing, giving her the first taste of home that she’d ever known. She wanted to share her new self with the woman she’d considered a mother figure, and she also found that she was willing to ponder the ways in which she was still the same, which was an interesting realization, considering she’d thought she’d spent the last decade completely shedding the person she used to be. But less than half an hour with the people who’d been her surrogate family, and she felt that girl surfacing. Strangely, it didn’t feel like a negative but rather like a sort of merging, perhaps long overdue. She’d left and returned years later with an open wound. Somehow, that wound was healing, one gentle step through her history at a time. And to move forward, I need to heal completely. Maybe that’s why I never fully have.
Gavin held the sliding glass door open for her, and she stepped through, out into Mirabelle’s oasis. She stood there for a few moments, taking a sip of wine as her gaze moved from one beautiful detail to the next.
Forget miles away . . . this place felt like a different planet than the trailer park she’d sat in front of only weeks before. And she was happy for Mirabelle that she got to enjoy this luxury. But Mirabelle was still the same woman she’d been when her backyard had consisted of nothing more than cracked dirt and tumbleweeds. A place didn’t define you, not if you didn’t let it. Seeing Mirabelle here was a reminder of that, and a wonderful one.
“I bought this house for her right after I won my first big tournament,” Gavin said from beside her, breaking her from her admiring reverie. She looked over at him, watching as he squinted into the dying sunset.
“That must have felt good.”
“Yeah,” he said, still looking at the sky. “It did. It felt great.” There was a sad note in his voice that she didn’t entirely understand, but she wanted to ask him about a different house.
“Gavin.”
He turned, his eyes moving over her face, expression unchanging. He looked at her the same way he’d just gazed at the glowing sky. “What is it?”
“The guy who’s committing these crimes put together a set of clues that led us to the house we rented. The one we were going to live in after we were married.”
His expression faltered. “Bluebell Way?”
Sienna nodded. He’d remembered. “We found a body there and . . . some other things.”
His face expressed utter confusion, his eyes wide with concern. “Wait. I don’t understand. How did this guy know about Bluebell Way?”
She’d thought about calling him with the news about the house as it pertained to the case, but she’d wanted to look in his eyes when she brought it up. She’d planned to ask if he had any guesses about why and how she might have been led to that particular address, but that was unnecessary now. She could clearly see that he was as taken aback as she’d been. “We don’t know. One guess is that he learned my name as one of the detectives on the case, which wouldn’t be overly hard.” He could have done it in any number of ways, and it wasn’t as if it was classified information. “And then he did some sort of background check on me.”
“Background check . . . how—”
“We don’t know exactly. Those are just guesses. Anyway, the house is bank owned, just like the other property on Allegra, but he had to have known my connection to it. As you know, he’s already called me out by name on other pieces of evidence. The only other address I lived at here in Reno was the trailer at Paradise Estates, and that’s likely occupied. Maybe the house on Bluebell Way served a few purposes. It’s a nice abandoned property to dump a body and the perfect way to call me out again.” She paused. “But your name is tied to that house too. Not to mention your connection to the cards in the original victim’s hands that then led to your fan club president.”