Vicious Carousel (Suncoast Society #25)(67)

She took a deep breath. “I couldn’t believe it, at first. I mean, he was supposed to be in jail. What the f*ck was he doing there? I couldn’t just go up to the window of his car and kill him sitting there.”

“Security cameras?”

“Fuck, yeah, security cameras. At least three in that part of the complex. Damn Kel.” Then, she laughed. “Geez, I sound horrible.”

“I’m a writer, and a former cop,” he said. “I do the same thing. It’s a blessing and a curse.”

Her smile faded. “It’s why I never made the team,” she said. “The US Olympic team. We were trying together. Yeah, we were a little older, but we were good. We were only seventeen. So f*cking good. Then she died, and my heart died, too, that day. The grief killed my f*cking parents. Slowly, but it did.”

“What happened to the guy?”

She picked up her glass and took a long sip of iced tea before meeting his gaze again. “What guy?”

“The guy who killed your sister?”

She slowly shrugged. “That’s the pisser of it. He disappeared. He was listed as the prime suspect. Still is to this day, far as I know. No one was ever arrested for it, no prime suspect but him. Fucker had marks on his hands that looked like he’d beaten her, claw marks on his face, too, from her fingernails. She died with DNA under her nails that matched DNA from a hairbrush the cops found at his apartment.”

“How did they know he had those marks on him? I thought you said he disappeared?”

She looked out the window, at the murky water of the Anclote River flowing just outside the restaurant. “He did.”


THE END