Page 25 of Always Been Mine

Beatrice clenched her jaw.

“I understand he was harassing you two days ago,” Detective Moore pressed immediately after Smithers’s question. “Even after you’d threatened him in a voicemail to leave you alone or else.”

Shit.

“You’ve got connections with private security groups—”

“Gentlemen, either charge me with something or this meeting is over. I will not entertain any more questions without my lawyer. Got it?” Beatrice snapped.

“Very well, Ms. Porter,” Detective Smithers said, still sporting an annoying smirk. “Don’t leave town.”

With that parting shot, the two detectives left.

Beatrice called her father.

It wasearly evening when Gabe let himself into his house.Poor Rhino must be ready to explode. If he had been thinking straight, Gabe would have thought to bring his dog along. After his stop in Chevy Chase, Maryland, he just drove around until his gas tank was almost empty.

After walking Rhino for half an hour, he returned to the house. Admiral Porter was waiting for him. The admiral was sitting on the top steps with his head in his hands, elbows resting on his knees.

“Admiral?”

The older man looked up and rose from the steps. “Where were you, Gabriel?”

“I’m not accountable to you,” Gabe answered coldly as he moved past the admiral to unlock the door. Porter followed him in without waiting for an invitation.

“Is it true you were with Beatrice Saturday morning?”

Gabe stilled, suddenly unsure where this was going. “She told you?”

“Is it true?”

“Yes,” Gabe bit out. “If this is some form of belated fatherly outrage, you can turn around and walk out that door. It’s between me and her, and I don’t know what the fuck she was thinking telling you.” His nostrils flared. “Unless you had one of us followed.”

“Fatherly outrage is the least of your concerns right now,” Porter shot back. “Eric Stone is dead. Beatrice is a person of interest. She left a damning voicemail on that man’s phone, threatening him.”

All the anger leached out of Gabe as concern for Beatrice took over. “They think she killed him?”

“Or hired someone to do the job. Woman scorned and all that,” the admiral said dismissively. “I know Beatrice had nothing to do with it. Besides, autopsy and tox screen show death by natural causes.”

“Which is?”

“He died in his sleep.”

“Fuck!” Gabe muttered.

“Exactly.”

The degree of separation from Eric Stone to the admiral and even to Gabe was too close, and death by natural causes, too suspicious in the world of covert ops and assassins. “You’re thinking it’s a professional hit?”

“I’m pulling some strings to have our own techs run some tests to check for lesser known toxins.”

“Hybernabis,” Gabe said softly. “It’s untraceable, makes the victim look like he died in his sleep, or if he has an existing heart condition, a heart attack. There’s a chemical you can add to flush it out so it’d show up on the report.”

“Are you breaking the assassin’s code, Gabriel?” Porter asked.

“No. That compound is on the CIA watch list. One of the elements is hard to procure, which is why it’s a very unpopular popular drug if you know what I mean.”

“Did you use it?”

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