Page 115 of The Girl in the River

ONE HUNDRED FIFTY-FOUR

ROCKY BOTTOM

Ellie called an ambulance for Mia and Pixie, a second team for Kevin’s body and an ERT to process the riverboat. Medics were also on their way to check on Kevin’s father.

Mia cradled Pixie against her and the little girl fell asleep, at peace now in her mother’s arms.

“Are you okay, Mia?” Ellie asked while she waited on the ambulance. “Did he hurt you?”

“I’ll be fine,” Mia said. “Just so relieved you found me and saved Pixie.”

“I’m glad too. We’ve all been so worried.” Ellie wanted to know everything. “I learned your real name is Jesse Habersham and that you and your assistant Patty discovered the Moons were doing something illegal in town. That’s why you ran?”

“They’re money laundering,” Mia said. “They killed Patty because she was going to the sheriff.” Her voice cracked. “I was there. Saw them kill her and put her body into a barrel.” She shuddered visibly. “They threatened to kill me if I said anything.”

“Who were they?”

“Goons who worked for the Moons,” Mia said.

“But they let you live? Why?”

“I don’t know, maybe they were afraid of Kevin,” Mia said. “By then I’d already wanted to call off the wedding. Kevin had become controlling and he hit me once, I was afraid of him. Then I learned I was pregnant and knew I couldn’t raise a child with him.” Pain suffused her eyes. “My sister and her husband helped me fake my death.”

“By using the cadaver,” Ellie said.

Mia’s breath hitched. “You know about that?”

Ellie nodded. “Emily Nettles was keeping Pixie. She gave me the envelope with your instructions about the Penningtons. I tracked them down.”

“But he murdered them,” Mia said, her voice tormented with guilt. “They saved me and now they’re dead.”

“Your sister loved you,” Ellie said. “Don’t forget that.”

“I won’t,” Mia said. “Not ever. I just wish I hadn’t shut Jo-Jo out of my life all those months when Kevin and I first got together. She warned me not to get involved with him or to go to Red River Rock.”

“You went there to ask about your parents’ deaths,” Ellie said. “What did you find?”

“Nothing specific. But I have this fleeting memory of my family on the boat the night of the explosion. And… I think they were running from something. That someone was shooting at us and we were trying to escape.”

Mia rubbed her eyes, despair wrenching her voice. “Now I’ve lost everyone. Mark probably hated me when he found out the truth, and Kevin killed him, too.”

Ellie gave her a sympathetic look. “Mia, Mark is not dead. He was shot but he survived.”

Mia’s face crumpled with relief. “Thank God for that. But he probably hates me. And I don’t blame him.”

Ellie had no answer to that. Mia and Mark would have to work out their personal feelings between themselves.

Sirens wailed in the distance and Ellie went to meet them. Mia and Pixie were safe.

But something was going on in that warehouse and she couldn’t close this case without uncovering what it was.

ONE HUNDRED FIFTY-FIVE

Ellie met the ERT on the Moons’ boat and found Kevin’s father hanging on by a thread. The medics checked his vitals then carried him to the ambulance while another team recovered Kevin’s body from the life raft.

She texted Bryce with an update and asked him to meet Mia and Pixie at the hospital, to take their statements and guard them.

Sheriff Kincaid arrived seconds after the medics, his expression stoic as he saw Mr. Moon’s bloody body and the evidence of the struggle between him and his son on the deck. “What happened here, Detective?”

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