Page 82 of Mine

“No, I don’t, but the lack of visual confirmation isn’t why.”

“Why, then?”

“The medical examiner’s report stated that there was a lock of her hair missing. Right up front, a thick section, like someone had intentionally cut it off.”

I gasp, my hand flying to the side of my head.

“What?” He looks at me, startled.

“I—I took a nap yesterday and when I woke up, I swear a piece of my hair had been snipped.”

“What?” He surges to his feet.

“Right here.” I find the small section of short hair. “See?”

He bends down and studies it. “Impossible.” His face pales. “I—I sit in your room all night. It’s impossible.”

“It happened during the day; I took a nap. I could be crazy ... my hair has thinned and maybe I brushed too hard, but it really looks like a blunt cut.” I don’t tell him that it also could be related to the sleeping pill I stole from his vanity.

“Come here.” Clearly upset, Astor grabs my hand, pulls me into his office, and closes the door behind us. I follow him to his desk where he has multiple monitors set up.

Frantically, he begins clicking open screens and keying in passwords. “What day was it?”

“Yesterday.”

As he pulls up what appears to be a grid of security camera footage, my head spins.

Is it a coincidence that a chunk of his daughter’s hair was cut on the day she died, and now, my hair has been cut? Is the same person who killed Chloe out to get me now?

“Tell me what we’re looking at.” I lean over his shoulder.

“I have twelve cameras throughout the property. If anyone sneaked in, it will be on camera.”

We sit in silence as multiple feeds run on fast-forward.

He pauses on this morning and leans back in his chair.

“The only people on this property have been Cillian, Prishna, and Leo, aside from you and me.” He shakes his head, and then, obviously thinking the same thing I am, says, “Neither of them killed my daughter and cut her hair, so it can’t be the same person. I had all of my associates tracked thoroughly on the day of Chloe’s death. Leo was in California, Cillian was on a mission in South America, and Prishna was with me the entire day, assisting with a virtual conference I was attending. None of them did it, and they’re the only ones who’ve been here.”

“Aside from the ghosts.”

He looks at me.

“I’m half joking.”

He blows out a breath and scrubs his hands over his face. “I’m going to send Prishna to the beach residence to begin packing Valerie’s things, and I’m going to tell Leo we don’t need him anymore. That way, it will just be me, you, and Cillian in the house.”

“Hang on—let’s loop back to Chloe. Why didn’t the cops think her hair being cut was significant?”

“Chloe had cut her own hair before. Several times, actually. They said she could have done it that day at school—which she’d done, twice.”

“What do you think happened?”

“I believe she was taken from school and then killed and dumped, and whoever did it wanted me to know it was no accident, so they cut her hair.”

“Why? If someone wanted you to know she was intentionally killed, why not do something less subtle than cutting a piece of hair?”

“To make me wonder, exactly like I am. To make me go crazy, exactly like I have.” He rubs the back of his neck. “Sabine, because of what I do for a living, the list of people who would want to torture me is quite literally endless. I’ve run missions involving the most dangerous drug cartels in South America, terror cells in the Middle East, and against former Soviet guys who are some of the most ruthless men I’ve ever come across. And the families, children, associates of all those men—they’d all want a piece of me. Believe me, I spent years running my own investigation behind the scenes, sending my own men to investigate leads. Nothing stuck.”

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