Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 84871 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84871 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
I’m tempted to call Dempsey on the way to the apartment complex, but since he’s already had an altercation with Lenny and Trevor both, I don’t want to make things worse. I’ll be protected because I have a weapon. Hopefully, it won’t come to that. If Lenny put his hands on Trevor, I’ll call it in and get that prick arrested.
The trip goes by in a blur and all too soon I’m at the building, storming inside. When I reach the apartment door, I try the knob. Locked. Softly, I rap on the door.
“Trevor?”
Footsteps thud toward the door and the lock disengages. Trevor slowly cracks open the door, his entire body slumping with relief when he sees me.
“Aunt Sloane!”
He throws himself at me, hugging me so tight I nearly lose my breath. “Thank God you’re here.”
I squeeze him back, cringing at how frail he feels. Whatever he’s been mixed up in is bad for his health. The last time I’d seen him, he’d been stocky from playing basketball with the neighborhood kids. Now he’s a waif.
“Tell me what happened,” I say, gently pulling away from him. “It’s okay.”
He shrinks away from me and slowly walks into the apartment. I close the door behind me, surveying the space. It’s still a mess from earlier, but Lenny’s missing.
“Did Lenny do something to you?” I demand, unable to keep my anger in check.
He shudders and shakes his head. “No, uhh…you better go look for yourself.”
Trevor points toward the bedroom Rhiannon and Lenny share but makes no moves to go that way. I withdraw my weapon and turn off the safety, unable to shake the sinister feeling crawling up my spine. This time, with Lenny, I won’t be caught unaware. I’ll shoot his ass in the kneecap if I have to.
I prowl toward the bedroom. On the other side of the bed, legs stick out on the floor. Bile creeps up my throat as I approach. As soon as I see the body, my heart sinks. Not because of whom it is, but because of how he died. Lenny, eyes wide open and tongue lolling out, has had his throat slit and now lies in a huge puddle of dark, sticky blood.
Despite my hatred for this man, I snap into police officer mode and carefully approach to check for a pulse. His skin is cold, firm, and rubbery to the touch. No pulse. Time of death must’ve been hours ago—sometime between when we left and now.
Who all came here in that time?
Just Trevor?
Sickness roils in my gut as I rise to my feet. He stands in the doorway, a horrified expression marring his once-handsome face that’s now littered with scabs.
“What happened?” I ask, voice even and calm.
He stares at Lenny’s feet. “I came home to get some stuff and…and I found him like that.”
Trevor’s hands don’t have blood on them and he appears to be terrified of entering the room. I believe him, but I’m not sure if that’s the aunt in me or the cop.
“It’s okay,” I assure him. “I just need to call this in. You can explain everything to the police—”
“The police?” he hisses, stepping back with his palms raised. “You are the police, Aunt Sloane. That’s why I called you.”
As much as I want to take the lead on this, I can’t. I’m too close to this case and Tanaka would can my ass. If I want Trevor to have any hope of getting out of this unscathed, everything needs to be by the book.
“I’ll be here the whole time,” I say gently. “We’ll explain it together and get to the bottom of what happened.”
He shakes his head in vehemence. “N-No. They’ll arrest me. I’m an adult now. I don’t want to go to prison.”
“But you didn’t kill him, though, right?”
“What? No!”
“Then you don’t have anything to worry about, hon.”
His eyebrows scrunch together as he mulls this over, then without warning, he turns on his heel and bolts. It takes me a second to snap into action. By that time, he’s already out the front door and racing down the hall. I chase after him, calling his name over and over. He’s much quicker, though, and tears out the door into the night.
I can’t abandon the crime scene to chase after my nephew.
Dammit.
Trotting to a stop, I fish out my phone and make the call. This whole day is the biggest shit show of my entire life and that’s saying something because my life has been hell since the day I was born.
After I place the call, I make my way back inside the apartment, not closing the door all the way. The detectives are going to want this place dusted for prints and the less I contaminate the scene, the better.
It feels like an eternity later, but officers begin arriving and taking over. When the detectives—two colleagues I speak to every single day—show up, the realness of this situation begins to set in, especially when I’m immediately relieved of my Glock that’s bagged and tagged into evidence.