Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 94220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 471(@200wpm)___ 377(@250wpm)___ 314(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 471(@200wpm)___ 377(@250wpm)___ 314(@300wpm)
“I’m gonna see if I can bring you with us,” I tell Leif, then approach her and ask.
Her gaze wavers. “Zane, no. Not for this. And I think we need to have a chat.”
I turn back to Leif, shaking my head, and he nods.
Roth doesn’t say more. She guides me through the building until we’re in her office. But the moment she shuts the door, she lays into me, “What the hell is going on, Zane?”
“I’m freaking the fuck out right now, that’s what’s going on.”
She paces toward her desk, then spins back around to me.
“I need to know what makes you so confident that body isn’t my brother.”
“Do you think I’m an idiot? I’ve met that kid. And I know why you really reached out to him, so what is he doing in my office?”
“That kid is my boyfriend.”
She puts her hand to her forehead. “Why do I feel a migraine coming on?”
Fine by me after the stress she put me through.
“Roth, my brother,” I press.
She searches around the room, like she’s sifting through so many thoughts that she doesn’t know what to address first.
“Couldn’t have given me a heads-up?” I ask, hoping she’ll focus on why I’m here.
“I was told it wasn’t going to print until tomorrow. I thought I had time. But apparently, someone in the department wanted this information out, for whatever messed-up reason, and now here we are.”
“But there’s still a body you thought at some point might be Mike, which for all I know right now is Mike.”
She closes her eyes and takes a measured breath. “When we found the body, there were identifying features that lined up with Jason Kilbourne, not your brother, which is why I didn’t reach out. We’ve been waiting for confirmation.”
“Then why the hell didn’t you let me know right then? I told you that case was connected.”
“Can you just sit down? You standing there is stressing me out.”
I don’t feel like fucking sitting, but I accept that making her comfortable is the best way of getting more details from her. After my ass hits the cushion of the chair in front of her desk, she says, “I want to remind you before I tell you what happened that I never had an obligation to tell you anything. Everything I shared with you before was because I saw a grieving kid who was trying to find his missing brother. And I sympathized. I knew I should have had more boundaries. I shouldn’t have entertained your visits as much as I did, but I cared, and I realized that I enabled you.”
“Do we have to get into what you and your therapist have been chatting about?”
“I’m only trying to let you know that even right now, what I’m about to tell you, I tell you because I understand why you’re distressed.”
“You don’t understand.”
“You’re not the only one who’s ever lost someone, Zane,” she snaps, and that shuts me up. “There’s a reason I chose this job, and just because I don’t talk about it doesn’t mean I haven’t had my own shit to deal with.”
I quiet.
In all the times I’ve spoken with her, she’s never mentioned this.
She shakes her head. “Over the weekend, a hunter’s dog came across the body along the shore of a creek not far from the dam. It was weighted with rope and cinder blocks. From what the coroner has been able to make out, the state of the body suggests it was submerged for at least a couple of months. There was a storm last week that we think caused enough of a stir in the creek to shift part of the body out of the rope so that it surfaced.
“Because of how much of the body had decomposed by this point, we knew it’d be hard to get a positive ID off just that. A skeletal and dental examination suggested the age we were looking at was right for Jason Kilbourne and Mike.”
“That couldn’t have been enough for you to think it might be them, though.”
Her gaze wavers. “While searching the area, we discovered ashes nearby. Among them, there was a bit of plastic, and one of the officers on the scene recognized the style because it reminded him of his son’s WCC student ID.”
Fuck.
“The body didn’t have any wisdom teeth,” she says quickly, as if trying to chase away my concern. But that’s not fucking happening. “Kilbourne’s records show he’d already had his removed, but Mike didn’t, which ruled out Mike to my satisfaction. I didn’t broadcast this information around the department because in the past we’ve had an issue with leaks from people with political motivations. Given the nature of the crime, we didn’t want anything out until we knew what we were looking at.”
It’s hard to miss how she said that last part. “What do you mean by nature of the crime?”