DEATH (The Justice Cycle Book 1) by J Kiefer (best classic books to read TXT) 📗

him. Why? Did he want her to tell him something? Perhaps he had been simply trying to tell her to tell his brother that he loved him.

No, that could not be it. Jared did love his brother, but she doubted his last thoughts would have been about Steve. Why then had he reacted so strongly at the mention of his name? Had he been trying to warn her about him? After all, he was already there on the scene when she had arrived. Why had he not been considered a suspect in both murders? She had been so filled with grief that she had simply taken his word about what had happened that night.

Come to think of it, even the NYC police had quickly dismissed him as a suspect. If this had been any other case, she would have instantly considered Steve as the prime suspect. Why had she simply dismissed the idea offhand? Sure, they had all grown up together and he was Jared’s brother, but it would explain Jared’s behavior at the mention of Steve’s name.

Of course, no weapon had been found at the scene by the police, but had anyone searched Steve that night? She could not recall if they had. Of course, she was so overcome by grief and shock that she really would not have noticed. A peculiar haze seemed to be draped over her memories of that night, and up to this point, she had chalked it up to grief. Now she was not so sure.

It was more than unusual that absolutely no evidence had been found at the scene. No fibers or fingerprints. No shoe prints or any other evidence of any kind. Of course, Steve’s fingerprints would have been all over the scene since he was the person who had discovered the bodies, but they would have been dismissed instantly. Still, there was the problem of the murder weapon. As far as she could remember, when she had arrived on the scene, he had not been holding a knife.

Of course, she had been so fixated on Jared that she most likely would not have noticed if he had. He could have easily hidden it upon her arrival, but surely the police would have searched him at the scene. Every time she tried to recall anything about Steve from that night and what he had done or said, the memory was foggy and blurry. She remembered in vivid detail everything else about that night, except Steve. It was as if someone had gone into her mind and had tampered with just that part of her memory that pertained to Steve.

Also, there was that eerie moment at the funeral when his eyes seemed to glow. Her rational mind would not accept that his eyes had indeed glowed red, but perhaps it was her subconscious’s way of warning her about him. She had certainly not been thinking rationally at the funeral, and it was perfectly conceivable to believe that her mind could have conjured up such a thing to try to reach her through the grief.

Moreover, when Steve had passed her while carrying Jared’s coffin, she was sure that he was smirking. At the time, she had convinced herself that her grief had been causing her to misinterpret things. Now she was not so sure.

Something was off about Steve, and she was going to find out what it was.

With a renewed purpose she got out of bed and went out into the kitchen. She ignored the food in her fridge and grabbed a diet soda instead. How long had it been since she’d had something to drink? God, had she been like this since the funeral? The thought of the funeral caused the pain to come surging back, but this time she suppressed it. If she allowed herself to feel the grief again, she would be crippled, and she had no time for that right now.

No, she scolded herself, why should she suppress her feelings? Her old martial arts instructor had taught her that emotions had the power to either cripple or propel you. She was done being crippled by grief. Now she would use that grief as fuel.

She thought of Jared, of how much she had loved him. How he’d been taken away from her before they had even had a chance to begin. The pain that had constricted her heart turned into fury. She had never been that helpless little girl type, not since her mother had left her and her father when she was ten. No, she was done wallowing. It was time for action. When she thought of Steve, a wave of anger swelled that was every bit as ferocious as her grief. If he’d had a hand in Jared’s death, she was going to find out and bring him to justice.

No, she corrected herself. No, I am going to kill him.

The cop inside of her screamed in protest, but she shut the voice up. If she found out that Steve had killed Jared, there would be no arrest and no trial, only vengeance. She would have to be absolutely certain of course before she acted, but when the time came, she would act.

She was getting ahead of herself. First, she would need to investigate and find out what had really happened. Perhaps she was wrong about Steve and her grief was playing tricks on her, but deep down inside she doubted that. She finished off the soda and set the empty can down on her coffee table and looked around for her phone.

After a few minutes, she found it on the charger where she had left it and turned it on. She saw that it was Saturday and realized that she still had a few days left of personal time before she had to be back to work. She decided that she would go back to New York to where Jared had been killed and investigate the scene herself.

Of course, the NYC cops would probably not like her snooping around