In the Beginning (Volkov Bratva #1)(67)

She headed back inside maneuvering around the packs of tissue in the living room. She was too eager to go through the boxes to figure out where to store them all.

Lauren thought she heard Amber’s bedroom door open as she entered her own.

“What’s with all the toilet paper?” Amber called as Lauren was closing the door.

“It’s a long story,” she called back. “Promise to tell you later.”

The boxes resting in the middle of her bed were like a beacon calling to her, but it was the unknown inside of that made her nervous. Within them laid the answers to all her questions.

Taking a deep breath, she lifted the first lid, discarding it next to the bed. Hundreds of documents were inside, not in any particular order. She began painstakingly going over each piece, sorting out sections for those that corresponded.

It looked like she was in the middle of an intense study session with all the papers scattered around her. On top of her desk, there were files on her dad’s life insurance policy and the notes the officers had taken on them. Early in the investigation, the police had assumed Susan was behind the break-in, trying to make it look like a robbery so she could cash in on the life insurance. They quickly abandoned that theory when the evidence didn’t suggest that.

But what was curious was the conflicting documents. In the file she found in the box from the garage, the life insurance was only two million dollars, but the policy found in the police file was well over triple that amount.

She wanted to believe it was a typing error, but then again, it would be able to explain how she could afford NYU and pay for her apartment without any assistance.

In front of her were the witness statements, at least half a dozen that didn’t really provide any useful information. From what Lauren could piece together in her mind, the men had come and gone in less than ten minutes so she wasn’t very surprised at the lack of anything useful.

Surprisingly though, there were no crime scene photos at all in any of the boxes, Ross probably have taken them out.

Even going through each piece, there was nothing tying her father’s case to Mishca’s family at all besides what she had heard that night. A part of her was relieved by the fact, but another part wasn’t very to give up her suspicions. It seemed, even after going through it from top to bottom, he was still no close to finding her father’s killers than she was before.

In the past she had given up, but now, she was too determined to stop.





Chapter twenty-One:


Ross


There were very few things in the world that Detective Thomas Ross cared about. The first was his job.

Working his way from patrol officer to homicide detective, Ross had worked the latter for the last fifteen years. He was a decorated detective and had earned commendations for his service with the Michigan Police Department.

That came second to his family though. His sister Marie and his nephew Jonathan meant everything to him, but even his sister believed that his real love was for Susan and Lauren. Without a wife and child of his own, he was practically married to the force, until he met them.

He still remembered his first case as a homicide detective, perhaps all first cases were sentimental that way…

Detective Ross was seated at his new desk, sipping two day old coffee as he unpacked the cardboard box that housed the items that would be decorating his desk. A couple of pictures, one of his sister and nephew, another of his parents, the edges of it frayed and darkened from age.

He was just arranging him when he got the call. A possible 187.

He and his partner at the time, Detective Louise Mitchell, took a car over to 415 83rd St. N., home of Dr. Cameron Thompson and his wife, Susan, where three squad cars were already waiting outside, lights flashing and sirens blaring, attracting the attention of the neighbors who were gathered around outside the yellow CAUTION tape, trying to figure out what was going on.

They gave a cool nod to the officer that was keeping everyone back, slipping under the tape and entering the house

Ross spotted the body immediately, the crumpled form already in rigor as the medical examiner performed a cursory once over of the body, listing his finds to the surrounding officers.

He scrubbed a hand down his face, turning away from the grizzly sight, breathing in heavily through his nose and out through his mouth. There was nothing that could truly prepare you for the smell of decamp. While the good doctor was still relatively fresh, the scent of death still hung heavily in the air.

Ross wouldn’t vomit, though to be fair, none of the other officers around him would not have minded. It was his first case after all and the rookies always lost it when they got their first victim. As a patrol officer, he had never had the misfortune of seeing a dead body.

In fact, the doctor’s murder was the first of its kind in their sleepy little town. It might explain why there was such a crowd.

Mitchell patted his shoulder, crouching down beside the medical examiner. “What do we got?”

“Three GSWs to the chest. Looks like one lodged in his heart, he was dead before he hit the ground.”

Ross cleared his throat, wiping away the sweat dotting his upper lip. He needed to get it together. “Who called it in?”

One of the uniforms to his right spoke up, flipping through his notepad. “A woman next door, Tammy Morgans. Called around 7:15 pm, said she thought she heard gunshots, but her hearing isn’t what it used to be.”