Page 62 of Killer Knows Best

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SPECIAL AGENT FALLON BAXTER

Jack floors it, racing us toward Elmwood with his jaw clenched and eyes set dead ahead.

We both know there’s no guarantee of how this night will end. The silence is thick, only broken by the hum of the engine and the soft panting of Buddy in the back seat. He jumped into the truck before we could stop him with his tail wagging like this was just another late-night adventure. If only it were that simple.

Thankfully, Riley didn’t hear Sandy call out our sister’s name. Riley and Jet think we’re off to take care of paperwork. There’s no point in endangering Riley. And I know for a fact if she knew where I was going that she’d be in the truck faster than Buddy and ten times as hard to evict.

I steal a glance at Jack as his hands grip the wheel tighter than usual. Knuckles white, jaw clenched.

My mind races, trying to process what his mother just let slip.

Erin. My little sister. She’s not just tangled up with the Moretti crime family, but she’s running girls for them.

A madame.

My stomach twists.

Erin, the girl who was supposed to be the brilliant one, the one who had it all together, had finally lost every single one of her marbles. She’s fractured.Broken. And now it’s up to me to put her back together again.

The roads are dark, slick with a shower that just drifted by, and the lights from the city flicker as we get closer to Elmwood. The streets here are no stranger to grime and wickedness.

Jack pulls up to the last known location where Gunther, the greasy pimp who controls most of the girls in this area, was spotted.

He parks the truck and kills the engine abruptly. We leap out, and Buddy bounds out right beside us. The cold air stings my face, but I hardly feel it. There’s no time to waste.

We hit the streets hard, and flash a picture of Gunther and Erin at anyone and everyone who will give us the time—at anyone who dares make eye contact with us, but so far no one will admit that they know either of them.

We comb through alleyways, darkened storefronts, under bridges, anywhere those without hope might hide. But no one is willing to give us anything.

“We’re getting nowhere. It was a good try,” Jack mutters under his breath. His hand finds the small of my back as he warms me and pulls me in. “Let’s head home. We’ll start fresh tomorrow.”

I’m about to nod when something catches my eye—a stocky figure down the street, and his bleached hair stands out like a neon light.

Gunther.

But it’s not him that sends a jolt of adrenaline surging through my veins. It’s the brunette standing next to him.

“Erin,” I whisper, and my heart begins to pound as I bolt toward her. My feet slap the pavement as my body moves fasterthan my mind can catch up. She turns, just as our eyes meet, and suddenly it’s as if time slows down.

I throw my arms around her, pulling her tight against me with no intention of ever letting go. Her body is rigid at first, but slowly, so painfully slowly, she gives in.

Her arms wrap around me, and we both break.

Tears blur my vision as I hold her, my little sister, the one who I thought was lost to me forever.

I pull back just enough to get a good look at her. She’s different, harder, and by the looks of it, life has sanded down all her rough edges.

“A part of me wants to kill you,” I say, my voice breaking between a sob and a laugh. “What were you thinking?”

She shrugs and her lips twist in that old familiar way. She looks so much like my father—like a perfect combination of both my motherandmy father—it makes me want to cry.

“I wasn’t thinking,” she says. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t take it. Watching Dad die like that... I couldn’t handle it.” She nods, her eyes locking on mine because we both know the truth regarding what happened that night.

We know that it was my gun that went off.

That I killed him.

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