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)
That happening right then.
It looked like a rustic mansion.
He had no idea how it could serve as a burlesque theater, but as he slowed to a halt under the overhang, he was about to find out.
He’d left the Crystal Killer file with Bohannan and Moran.
Before he’d done that, Rus and Moran decided on a game plan with input from Bohannan. Moran declared he was going to be Rus’s local partner, a decision that Rus would make if he was in Moran’s boots. So the kickoff was Moran going home and getting some sleep so he didn’t fuck anything up by being dead on his feet after being awake for twenty-four hours.
Moran didn’t fight this, another indication he had his head straight, not up his ass or thinking with his balls. However, he was going to look through the file before Bohannan took it with him.
After Moran got some shuteye, he and Rus were going to do interviews with the mother and brother.
They’d also agreed his deputies were going to dig deeper, as quietly as possible, talking to the motel owner and staff and knocking on some doors.
The motel was just outside the town, on a lonesome lot set in a mountain, but up and down from it there were businesses and homes.
It was a longshot, but no stone unturned. You never knew when you were going to catch a break, and since this was a new entity he was dealing with, there were no givens.
Anything could happen.
Rus had learned prior to his arrival it had been reported by the desk clerk that Brittanie had checked in herself, and when she did, she did not seem distressed. The clerk had assumed, since she was known in town (and so was her mother), that she was there for a tryst, although to the clerk’s recollection this had never happened before.
They did not see anyone meet her in her room.
This, too, was not the MO of the Crystal Killer. He checked in himself, always in disguise at accommodations he ascertained beforehand didn’t have any security cameras in the lobby.
So, yeah.
Anything could happen.
While all this was going down, Rus was going to take their advice and go meet Lucinda Bonner.
He looked around as he exited his SUV, seeing there were only a few cars.
Considering it had just gone one, and they probably didn’t offer matinees, this didn’t seem out of place.
But Polly had set him up with a detailed who, what and where (he was correct: Polly was very short, wore a skirt and sweater set that was reminiscent of the fifties, and had a professional attitude that was liberally mingled with a friendly, I’m-the-second-mom-to-all-who-work-here feel that said she was not only down with that, she nurtured it).
She’d also shared that she’d booked him a room in the Pinetop Lodge that, “Has an amazing view of the lake, real close to Bohannan’s compound, which will be convenient for you.”
News Bohannan had a compound didn’t faze him.
Rus didn’t have the money to set roots in a town in the middle of nowhere that had amazing scenery, but if he did, he’d do it on his own compound.
Gates. Lots of fence. All of it electrified.
There was shit that went bump in the night, and Rus didn’t want it anywhere near him.
His ex, Jennifer, had remarried, and he still woke up in a sweat that something would happen to her when he wasn’t there.
Same with his kids, who were both in college, something he knew they needed to do to get on with their lives. But it messed with his head, because campus life aggravated pretty much every fucked-up scenario that could happen to your kid.
His son, Acre, could handle himself (he hoped).
His daughter, Sabrina, probably could not. She was more girl than any girl he’d ever met.
He loved it.
And it might kill him.
He had plans to meet up with Moran and Bohannan at Pinetop that evening to compare notes: Jace and Jesse coming with Bohannan. Jace, because Rus wanted to talk to him, Jesse, because Rus was intrigued about a set of twenty-eight-year-old twin PIs who were also the spawn of a legendary FBI profiler.
He hadn’t rounded his hood when one of the double doors to Bon Amie opened and a woman wearing a masculine-style black suit, black shirt and a black tie, came out. Her hair was severely pulled back from a side part into a bun at the nape of her neck, and not a stroke of makeup was on her fine-featured face.
She was average height, average build, and even though Rus had seven inches on her, kept fit and had been trained to take care of business, he knew it’d be a crapshoot at what might happen if he was stupid enough to mess with her.
Female security.
Now Rus was even more intrigued than he’d already been about Lucinda Bonner.