Page 75 of When He Defends
Chapter Sixteen
“I don’t remember much about the night my father died. It was storming. I could hear thunder rumbling over and over again. I-I was scared, so I went looking for my dad. I couldn’t find him anywhere. Actually, I couldn’t find anyone, not at first.”
– Emerson Marlowe
For a honeymoon,there was a surprising amount ofno sex.
Emerson crept behind Gray as they snuck around the sprawling resort property. They’d spent the last few hours reviewing the case files. Working silently. Not touching.
Okay, so fine. She’d expected sex on their pretend honeymoon. She got it was an undercover assignment. Understood. But after the previous night, after the way they’d burned up the bed together, she’d thought…
What did I think? That we would pick up where we left off?
Not happening. Clearly. Because Gray was…not interested? Because he’d only wanted one time with her? Because…
She’d disappointed him?
Emerson had a million questions swirling in her mind, but she kept her lips clamped shut as they maneuvered around the property. Gray had already given her schematics for the resort. They’d seen plenty of maps and layouts online. But he’d still insisted on walking the territory himself.
She wasn’t even sure what he was looking for.
Three couples were dead. Three, out of over forty thousand.
The first couple, Kris and Wendy Prichard, had honeymooned on the island just a little over a year ago. They’d been high school sweethearts. Gone to college together. Got married shortly after graduation. Seemingly, they’d had an idyllic honeymoon. They’d gone home and, two days later, they’d died in a car accident.
Not some brutal murder. Anaccident.Or, so the police on scene had thought at the time.
But Gray had gotten access to a report that indicated the vehicle’s brakes had been useless on the night of Kris and Wendy’s deaths. Despite that revelation, a revelation their own investigation had uncovered, the local cops had clung tightly to the accident theory. Brakes went out. Tragic events happened. There’d been only a minimal investigation. Until now.
Couple number two on Gray’s list—that would be Zac and River Turner. It had been Zac’s second marriage. River’s first. He’d been a doctor. She’d been an artist. They’d honeymooned at the island about four months prior. River’s social media had been full of happy pictures from the resort. Sunrise yoga. Stand-up paddleboarding. Spa relaxation. Even a pic of River riding a horse on the beach as she grinned from ear to ear. Everything had seemed perfect.
Then they’d gone home. Two days later—two days—they’d been killed while they were on a morning jog together. Both attacked and brutally stabbed as they ran. Zac had died rightthere on the running trail. River had made it to the hospital. And only that far. She’d died in the ER.
The cops on that case had no leads. River and Zac had been running in a park right before six a.m. No witnesses. No leads.
Until now. Until Gray. Until he’d taken the case because of Cassius. And that led them to the third couple.
Anzo and Kim. Kim had been a cop. Anzo had been part of Cassius’s MC. Kim and Anzo had first met when she’d been investigating the motorcycle club. Only instead of arresting the guy for anything, Kim had married Anzo. From the photos that Emerson had seen, the two had looked wildly in love.
Anzo had gotten out of the MC after his marriage. He’d stayed out, stayed busy opening up a series of restaurants, for five years. Then he and Kim had returned to Sea Island for their anniversary. If you looked at their photos, you would think they’d been deliriously happy. The perfect couple.
Sure, expressions could be faked. It was so easy to look happy in the two seconds that it took to snap a pic. But…
I saw the videos, too.Videos from their small wedding ceremony five years ago. Videos that had been taken on their honeymoon. Kim’s father had paid for their honeymoon—their first trip to Sea Island.
For the anniversary trip, Anzo had proudly footed the bill. Had splurged hard on his wife and ordered all the bells and whistles for the trip. An adoring Anzo had followed his wife everywhere around the resort, always having his phone at the ready, and recorded videos had caught him telling her that he was “the luckiest bastard in the world.”
After the weeklong trip, Anzo and Kim had gone home. Two days later—because it was alwaystwo daysas Emerson had discovered when she studied the files—they’d been dead. Anzo had been shot with his wife’s gun. One that she had then seemingly turned on herself.
Except…
There had been no gunshot residue on her fingers. And, in fact, two of her fingers had been broken. As if the person who’d shoved the gun into her hand had used far too much force. He’d snapped her pinky and ring finger. Plus, he’d put the gun in the wrong hand. It had been found in Kim’s right hand.
She’d been a lefty.
All points that Emerson had learned Cassius had made to Gray in order to plead his case. Cassius had actually done the digging to find the previous two couples, as well. He’d put it all together because the deaths had occurred in different cities, with different cops investigating.
That was why it had been so easy to overlook the crimes. Different places, different types of kills. Especially the first, staged to look like an accident.
