Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 84227 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 421(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84227 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 421(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
“What?” I asked. “But Chief Potter said—”
“We thought it was at first—I thought it was. It’s a clusterfuck how it all went down, but I was with my dad when I shouldn’t have been, when I went looking for things I shouldn’t have.”
The way he said it, I could tell it was something we weren’t supposed to know. “Chase!”
“I know, baby boy. It was stupid, but there’s no going back now. At the same time, Timmy, the kid who works at the gas station that was robbed, had been blabbing. They found out he’d worked with my dad. He pretended to get robbed, passed all the information my dad needed to him, and then they split the money.” Chase glanced back at the door, which was still closed. “We have to make this quick. When Timmy got caught, he folded and told them everything. When they searched my dad’s house to find evidence on the robbery, they found…they found your mom’s ring.”
My stomach dropped out. Griff cursed.
“Yeah, that was my thought too because I found it before that. They hadn’t had enough evidence to run his plates or credit cards when it came to the photos, but they had it then. They found Dad in North Carolina, and I was…I was with him. When they came in, I had just found out what really happened. It was a mess after that, took me a while to get it all sorted out, but it’s not what we thought.”
“What happened, Chase? Please tell us,” I asked, my heart in my throat.
He paused for a moment, took a breath, and said, “Dad took the photos of us. He admitted that. He did it because he was blackmailed by Jimmy, who knew about the robbery.”
“What about Mom and Dad?” Griffin asked, and Chase’s eyes moved to him.
“It’s all a little murky from here. I don’t have all the answers, the why of it. Once there are more answers, Chief Potter will be made aware.”
I wondered if that was the phone call Chief Potter had gotten.
“They’re heading to search Jimmy’s place,” Chase added. “According to my father, he stole the ring from Jimmy. He didn’t know what it was. His eyes damn near fell out of his head when I told him it belonged to your mama.”
“Jimmy?” Griff asked, his voice tight. I couldn’t find mine. This whole time it had been Jimmy. “You believe him?”
“I do,” Chase said. “Maybe it’s because I want to believe him. Maybe I’m lying to myself because the alternative is too fucked up to consider, but I believe him.”
“But why would Jimmy…” Really, why would Chase’s father have done it either? Why would any of them?
Chase knelt on the floor in front of me. “I don’t know for sure, Kell. I shouldn’t have even told you guys this much. And it could all be wrong. I don’t know, but I just…I wanted you to know, and I needed to be here with you. I never should have left. I should have told you my fears from the beginning. I was scared and thought my father had done it, and I didn’t know how to deal with that.”
I didn’t have the chance to answer. There was a sharp rapping on the door before it was pulled open and Chief Potter came in. “Chase, I hope you’re not doin’ anything you shouldn’t.”
“No, sir.” Chase stood up.
“Just got a phone call that made shit go to hell around here even more than it was a little while ago. I’m gonna need the three of you to stay here. We’re gonna have some questions for you all. Griffin, Kellan, the two of you are going to have to look at some evidence and tell us if it belonged to your parents.”
The nausea hit me again. My whole world was spinning. I had no idea which way was up, what was happening. Chase’s dad had taken the photos of us, and he’d maybe robbed the gas station, and had my mom’s ring and maybe other things of my parents’? Either George or Jimmy had been responsible for their deaths. “I think I’m going to be sick again.”
Then Chase was there, by my side, and again, things weren’t good, hell, they didn’t even make sense right now, but they were better.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Chase
We were at the station for hours. There were more questions to be answered, the ring to identify, and eventually Jimmy had been arrested. They had to have had more evidence than my dad’s word to make an arrest, but I wasn’t currently in a position to know what it was. By the time we were able to leave, we were all more exhausted than any of us knew how to deal with.
“Do you feel comfortable coming home with me?” I asked Kellan as we stood outside the department. I brushed his chocolate-brown hair off his forehead.