Reagan set the duffel bag on the floor and retrieved the medicine ball. It was a misshapen leather sphere weighed down, we suspected, with lead. Gyms had them, too, but the dojo’s was unique. It looked like Dr. Chitose himself might’ve sent it over from Kumamoto, back in the day. It was no longer spherical, if you wanted to be picky about it, and it was crisscrossed with dozens of Frankenstein-worthy seams that were probably sewn with fishing wire. It had been in the dojo as long as I could remember.

She threw it at me. There was no way to catch it without absorbing some of the blow with my body.

“Okay, you’ve got some sense of self-preservation,” Reagan observed.

I tossed it back. Reagan was five four, but she had a lot of muscle, and she caught the ball easily. “My sister trusted me,” I said. “She sent me this message asking for help.”

“Caroline could’ve sent your father a message too. Have you talked with him?”

I almost dropped the ball. Sometimes Reagan seemed to have ESP. There was no point hiding any detail from her, because she’d drag it out of me. “I went to the company that forwarded the message. They were assholes, but one guy tried to help me. Caro sent a message to our father, but I don’t know what it said.”

“You could ask him, you know.”

“Ha ha. And there was a third message.”

“To her friend Jude?” Reagan guessed.

I set the ball on the floor. I’d guessed Theo, but I’d been wrong. Jude was a much better guess.

“I don’t know,” I admitted, retrieving the page from my bag. “There’s no name, just an X. This was the message.”

Reagan took it in quickly, and her eyebrows shot up. “This is nuts. Is that Jude’s email? It looks like a random string of numbers and letters.”

“It’s not the one I have for her.”

“This is getting crazier by the minute. Who else was your sister tight with?”

I shrugged. “I can’t think of anyone.”

“Maybe the police can figure that part out.”

“I don’t have a lot of faith in cops.”

“Fair enough, based on your experience,” Reagan said. “Promise me one thing. You will go to the police. You will not try to get revenge on Theo by yourself.”

“You think I can’t take him?”

“Dee, listen to me. You can’t do this alone,” Reagan said. “If we’re going to get justice for your sister, we need the police to be involved.”

“We?”

“Yes. We,” Reagan said. “Dummy.”

There was a hard lump in my throat. “Okay. I’ll talk to the cops before work tomorrow.”

CHAPTER 9 DEIRDRE

CHAPTER 9

DEIRDRE