Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 59849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 299(@200wpm)___ 239(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 299(@200wpm)___ 239(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
“Not surprised,” Kathryn—or Kat as the four of us call her—sighs. “But at least you got a free trip out of it.”
“Right?” I zip up my other boot, so happy to be here with my three best friends. Kat and I met three years ago in a support group and became instant best friends once we realized we’d gone through a lot of similar trauma…and both had retired racehorses. Throw in the fact that her horse is named Loki and mine is Thor and we decided it was fate.
“Who am I riding today?” Zara asks Elsie, who has two horses here at the barn.
“I rode George pretty hard yesterday, so he’ll appreciate an easy ride,” she says with no hesitation and we all laugh. She swats Kat, who’s sitting next to her, and then laughs, too. “Okay, I totally handed you that one.”
“So,” Zara asks after we’re all ready to go get our horses from the pasture. “How do you break the news to your client?”
“I’ll tell her in our session this afternoon,” I explain. “Most of the time, when you get to the point of needing someone to spy on your partner, you already know.”
“Yeah, how sad.” Elsie, the forever hopeless romantic, shakes her head. “But at least she’ll know and can move on to finding someone who deserves her.”
“Yeah,” I say, dreading having to tell her already. As a therapist, I know what to say and how to react. But as a woman, it kills me a little bit more inside each and every time I have to deliver news like this. Which is probably why being a therapist by day and an amateur PI by night isn’t typically recommended. It’s mixing professional ethics in a sense, but it’s a hill I will die on.
Because I did almost die and it’s only by the grace of God I got out alive.
Chapter
Two
MASON
“They’re getting sloppy. We’ll catch ‘em soon.”
“No,” I tell my partner, Diego, shaking my head as I look at the body on the ground in front of us. Both arms are broken to the point of being able to be tied together in a knot in front of the dead guy’s chest. This is the third body we’ve found just like this in the last thirty days, a calling card of the Moretti family, who have had deep roots in organized crime here in Chicago for decades. As FBI agents, this case has been pissing the both of us off like no other. “They know we can’t.”
Diego crouches down, looking at the body. “How do you think they broke all the bones this time? Cinder blocks again?”
“Maybe.” I shine my flashlight on the guy’s arms. “There’s minimal blood. It was a slow process and definitely done while he was alive.”
“Wonder what this guy did to piss them off.”
“We’ll find out,” I say with my usual confidence, but I can feel the frustration building. I’ve been working on this case for over a year now and am not any closer to getting it solved. The Morettis have ties to a lot of powerful people and have been almost untouchable for years now. They run a sophisticated operation, using low-level henchmen to commit the actual crimes—like this. We’ve caught a handful of them before but haven’t gotten anything close to a confession out of them that will link them to the Morettis since they’ve all thought their rich and powerful boss will follow through with the lies that they can get them out of jail.
Stepping back so the crime scene photographer can take a few more shots, I look back at the teen girl who found the body halfway hidden behind a dumpster in an alley. She’s rightly shaken up—just seeing a dead body is jarring and unnatural, but seeing one whose hand the bones in his arms crushed enough to make them limp sacs of bone dust will mess you up for a long time.
“Let’s see if the cops pulled the CCTV footage.” I motion for Diego to follow me and we go on with our investigation. It’s like going through the fucking motions all over again. The body was dumped out of the trunk of a Lexus that was reported stolen from Hinsdale two days ago. The guy driving it was wearing a mask and an oversized hoodie, same as the guy who got out and pulled the body from the trunk.
The arms were already broken and tied, which confirms my suspicions that the dumpsite was only a dumpsite. But why here? Is there significance? Did they just want the body to be found within a few hours so send a message?
And similarly to the other footage we’ve got, the car drives into a parking garage, picked out on purpose of course because that’s where we lose it…and where the car is found, completely wiped clean. Which is what we’ll find again, I’m sure. The dead guy’s DNA will be all over the trunk, and maybe—maybe—we’ll get lucky enough to get something to ID the drivers, though even if we do, it’s not like they’ll talk.