Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 114820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 574(@200wpm)___ 459(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 574(@200wpm)___ 459(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
After that he took his shower.
He was shaved and in jeans and another long-sleeved tee when room service showed.
That day, coffee, granola, fruit, yogurt, toast and cold-pressed juice, something, at a taste, he knew had apple, ginger and kale.
He did not pull out Brittanie’s file.
He didn’t open his laptop and check email.
It wasn’t that Sundays were rest days. He’d had one lifetime of that, and now he didn’t let anyone tell him what to do with his days.
It was that he learned, sometimes you needed to step away from a case in order to see that case.
If you immersed yourself too fully in it, you missed things.
This had worked for him when he’d found the father who’d abducted his daughter, then killed her, because, for some fucked-up reason, that was preferrable to letting her live with her mother.
And it had worked for him when he’d found another guy, who’d grabbed his girlfriend and her little sister, because he’d gone off his meds, and he’d holed up somewhere with them and no one could find them. Until Rus found them.
And it had worked for him on a serial rapist case, and another serial murderer, both who he’d help stop before they’d notched too many victims on their lists.
The only time it hadn’t worked for him in an intricate or intense investigation was CK.
His mind had been taken up by the music he listened to while exercising.
But now, eating, with nothing but the view of mist on the lake and clinging to the pines to take his attention, he let everything crash in.
Was he right with what his gut was telling him about Ezra?
What were they missing? What drew Brittanie to that motel?
Who was Ezra’s partner, and was he wrong to think there was one? Is this guy a guy who could have acted alone?
To-do list material:
Circling back to Thea for names of her colleagues who did the “more extreme” stuff. Running through them to see if Ezra made contact, and possibly finding his partner. Ascertaining for certain Thea knew what was coming and advising she plan for it if she was outed for what she did for a living when all of this went down. Intensifying the search for the one missing boyfriend they hadn’t found, and ruling him out…or in. Following up with his team on Brittanie’s bank statements, cell and laptop.
He gave time to wondering about how Jace was holding up.
And more to what he’d do next since he’d made the decision to leave the FBI, and rethinking that decision since he had responsibilities.
He had five years before he could officially retire.
It was lunacy to quit now.
But if he requested it, could he be reassigned to the Seattle office?
Which of course brought to mind the sound of Lucinda’s laughter, and her defense of him.
Which further brought to mind something he’d never thought about because he’d convinced himself, or maybe Jennifer had convinced him that he owed her something.
She’d saved him from the cult. He’d told her that more than once. He’d been grateful for her love and support, also her parents’, and he’d shared that often.
But that didn’t mean she owned him or his time, like Pastor Richard thought he did.
He now worried he’d gone from thinking that was what he had to give to one entity in his life, then, maybe out of habit, he gave it to another.
But it was fucked up what she did. She knew he was coming home. She knew when.
And she was fucking some guy who looked like him precisely so he’d walk in on them.
He thought that was on him because she told him it was.
But it wasn’t.
What Lucinda said made sense.
It was on Jenn.
Now, they were over. She’d moved on. But they shared kids, and he did not call her to shoot the shit and ask what was going on with her life because, for the most part, she acted like she was entitled to be a bitch to him because he’d betrayed her.
When it was the other way around.
Rus had emotion around this. He was pissed about it, and the significance of that anger, he had an urge to tell Jenn he was feeling it.
However, at this time, he wasn’t sure it would serve any purpose.
What needed to work for their kids worked, and he should let it go.
Further, he wasn’t certain even if he shared she would rethink what she did. That was how deep she was in feeling she was warranted in her actions, which was part of why she’d done such a bang-up job of convincing him this was true.
But the fact remained, if she was done with trying to make him the husband she needed, she should have walked away.
Instead, she did something else, and it was Rus who’d been holding the weight of that, not Jennifer, and it had started digging under his skin.