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Chapters (61)
  1. Rake
  2. Dedication
  3. Book Description
  4. Praise For Helen Hardt
  5. Also By Helen Hardt
  6. Warning
  7. Prologue
  8. Zee
  9. Reid
  10. Zee
  11. Reid
  12. Zee
  13. Reid
  14. Zee
  15. Reid
  16. Zee
  17. Reid
  18. Zee
  19. Reid
  20. Zee
  21. Reid
  22. Zee
  23. Reid
  24. Zee
  25. Reid
  26. Zee
  27. Reid
  28. Zee
  29. Reid
  30. Zee
  31. Reid
  32. Zee
  33. Reid
  34. Zee
  35. Reid
  36. Zee
  37. Reid
  38. Zee
  39. Reid
  40. Zee
  41. Reid
  42. Zee
  43. Reid
  44. Zee
  45. Reid
  46. Zee
  47. Reid
  48. Zee
  49. Reid
  50. Zee
  51. Reid
  52. Zee
  53. Reid
  54. Zee
  55. Reid
  56. Zee
  57. Reid
  58. Zee
  59. A Note From Helen
  60. Acknowledgments
  61. About the Author

“Thank you. And…goodnight.” She leaned toward me and brushed her lips over my cheek. “Goodnight,” she said again and then disappeared through her doorway like a flash.

The spot where she’d kissed my cheek stayed warm as I rode back to my hotel.

After dealing with the boner Zee had left me with, I sat down at my computer. It was nearly two a.m., but we had people working around the clock, and I wanted to see what Rock’s phone records showed.

First things first, though. I reserved a spot for brunch at ten thirty.

Then, onto business.

Sure enough, a phone call had gone into Rock’s Montana landline at the exact date and time Nieves had recorded.

And—

I gulped.

It had come from my business landline at the office.

I had not made that fucking call.

Which meant…

Someone who had access to my office had.

The call had come in during the day. Okay, easy enough. Where had I been that day? I traveled frequently, so there was a good chance I hadn’t even been in New York, in which case I could easily prove I hadn’t made the call.

I wrote a quick email to Terrence for him to check my whereabouts on the date and then rattled off another email to my siblings about the findings.

We hadn’t had any idea our father was about to be murdered. If we had? I don’t know what we would have done, but we hadn’t known, so the question wasn’t of any consequence.

Unfortunately, I still needed the rest of Nieves’s story. I’d asked Rock to contact her, as he knew her better than I did, but I hadn’t heard yet if he’d been successful. She was no doubt tending to her sister at the moment.

Who next?

Rock’s biker friends, Hoss and Manny, came to my mind. Rock had sworn they were good guys, but I wasn’t buying. They both skated between the lines of good ethics, especially Hoss. We’d already established that. I had a hunch they were involved in this mess more than we knew.

Then of course, there was Father Jim.

Disgusting and psychopathic Father Jim.

Obviously, he couldn’t be ruled out. Derek Wolfe had no doubt taken care of him over the years, but was the priest in a position to order a hit?

A hit cost money.

A lot of money.

Even more money to make sure several parties could be implicated, which had happened.

Father Jim might have had my father’s contacts, but would he have had the required money?

I didn’t know.

We’d already checked his financials. He made a modest income as the priest of St. Andrew’s, but we knew better than to take that at face value. He probably had money hidden somewhere. Our PIs were looking into it.