Page 98 of Forged in Steele

Cabin? What cabin?“I thought your finances were stretched to the breaking point, and you lost everything except the house.”

“Was my dad’s place. He recently died and left it to me.” She sighed. “I put it in Valerie’s name so no one could come after me and take it away. We’ll be safe there. I made sure of it.”

“Safe?” Bristol asked to clarify. “How did you do that?”

“None of your business.”

“Can I come along and help you out?” Bristol smiled.

“No. You’ll try to take Darcy.”

“I won’t.”

Reya waved the gun. “Your time ends here.”

Panic set in.

God, please. Please. Is this the end? No. No. I’m going to trust that You’ll get me out of this. Not because I deserve it. But surely baby Luna does.

Bristol searched for the right reply for Reya and swallowed hard. “You don’t want to shoot me. You’ll draw the neighbors’ attention. And they’ll call the cops. Nearby houses have cameras. They’ll record you leaving, and then the police will hunt you down and take Darcy back. But if I go with you, no one will even know you were here.”

Reya tilted her head.Good. Good.She was thinking it over. Bristol didn’t speak but stuffed the laundry bags with the items from the drawers to give Reya more time to think.

With two cases nearly filled, she looked up. “I can carry these to the car while you carry Luna.”

“I told you it was Darcy. Darcy.”

“Right, Darcy. I forgot.” She lifted the laundry bags. “Now what?”

“You can come with me. Maybe it will be good to have someone to drive. That way I can tend to Darcy if she wakes up.” She nodded at the cases. “Bring them.”

Bristol gripped the fabric in her sweaty palms. Should she swing them at Reya? No. A bullet ripped through air much faster than she could swing the cases. “You could’ve purchased all of this at a store. Why come back here and risk being discovered?”

“Darcy needed her things. Not something from the store.Hers.Now move.” She waved the gun.

Bristol figured the woman had stared at, maybe handled all of these items for years and in her crazed state justified the risk of returning to collect them. Bristol headed for the door and led the way to the front room where Luna continued to sleep peacefully. Just the sight of the baby brought joy to Bristol’s heart. But it evaporated in a flash.

Bristol was so close to bringing this case to a close and yet so far away. At least, she’d persuaded Reya to let her come along with her, but Bristol had to be careful with her moves to free Luna. Seemed like Reya had a complete break with reality and would kill to protect the baby she thought was her daughter, and she wouldn’t hesitate to shoot Bristol.

20

Jared paced the lab as he waited for the return call from Dr. Albertson. Sierra and her team continued to work processing forensics from the many scenes, but Jared couldn’t sit still. He’d tasked his team with doing additional research on Valerie Zupan, and he hoped they would locate something that would move them quickly forward with this lead.

He got out his phone to text Bristol to tell her what had happened.No. Stop.Wait until the deceased’s identity was confirmed.

He took a few more steps then caught Sierra’s eye, her pointed look telling him to stop. He settled on a stool at an empty lab table to ponder. Everything was starting to make more sense. Reya had likely assumed Valerie’s identity and was moving about freely with credit cards and access to a bank account that no one on his team would’ve checked. And he hadn’t put any alerts out on Reya. Why would he when they believed she was dead?

Well, they were checking it all now.

But the really big questions were, did she have something to do with Luna’s disappearance, or did they just have a case of a woman being murdered and the team had the wrong ID?

They surely couldn’t discount the fact that Reya’s blood was on Luna’s blanket. The blanket could belong to another child, but the odds were astronomical for such a unique blanket ending up in a parking structure of the facility where Luna had been taken in the same style blanket. Especially since it was purchased from a small internet boutique.

His phone chimed from his pocket. He jumped up to get it out.

Expecting to hear from Dr. Albertson, he was surprised to see the text from Reed with a photo of Kelsey’s sketch for the woman Osborne hired. Jared tapped the photo and shot up a hand. “Yes!”

“Did Dr. Albertson have a match?” Sierra asked.

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