AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You know what I mean. We don’t have any proof of Hawthorne’s crimes. Nothing that will hold up in court at least.”
The guy has “untouchable aristocrat” written all over him. Nothing happened at the restaurant last night. Well, something happened. Something I’m trying hard to forget about. But nothing with Hawthorne. He was on his phone the whole time. He didn’t even order a meal, only a drink.
Which doesn’t prove anything. Maybe he was hiring hitmen to take out someone in Russia while he sipped wine. Some people are straight-up psychos.
“We don’t get the luxury of choosing our assignments. We still have to follow him and figure out what he’s up to here,” Cruz says, looking down her nose at me. We get it. She’s tall. She’s also tough as nails and I’d never dare cross her.
“Fine, let’s walk through it again.”
She starts at the beginning. With the list of suspected art crimes of Liam Hawthorne. Nothing is concrete. The man shows up in a country, only for an ancient artifact or priceless work of art to disappear or be replaced by a forgery a week later. The only pattern we have on his M.O. is that he visits each location before it’s hit. Beyond that, all we’ve got is a physical description from one security guard who almost caught him when he stole something from the Louvre.
After each heist, zero footage remains, anywhere. Street cams, security cams, and even social media. He disappears without a trace. Someone with that kind of tech ability is extremely dangerous. It makes me wonder why he allows himself to be seen entering the country at all. It’s like a game to him, testing us to see if we’ll catch him before he disappears again.
But all those crimes look petty when compared to his most criminal act.
The murder of Scarlett Winthrop four and a half years ago. Scarlett Winthrop was the daughter of a European dignitary, who moved to the U.S. when she was eighteen and found fame in Hollywood because of her connections and looks. She was killed on the night of her twenty-first birthday in her penthouse, while dozens of party guests continued the celebrations downstairs.
Some friends.
The killer was never found, but it was rumored that Hawthorne had been in love with her and was at the party that night. A very drunk couple claimed they saw him head upstairs around the time of death. But that’s all it was, rumors. No traces of DNA were found, and the video surveillance had been completely erased so no one could be identified coming or going the whole night.
It’s also believed that whoever killed her took a priceless emerald ring that had been a gift to the Winthrop family from a monarch over a hundred years ago. Scarlett’s friends swore she wore the ring that night to celebrate, but it was nowhere to be found. The ring is worth over forty million dollars. The Winthrops want the killer brought to justice and the priceless heirloom returned. But our only suspect, Liam Hawthorne, disappeared four years ago. Only to turn up in Phoenix of all places.
His disappearance tells a story all its own. Only guilty people run. I thought we’d bring him in for questioning the second he landed, but the boss wants evidence first. Guys like that don’t say a word, then go free on technicalities with the help of their fancy lawyer. But if we can find out why he’s here and if it’s connected to Scarlett’s death, we can keep him locked up.
I scrub a hand down my face, wishing for the hundredth time that simply “walking through it again” would bring to light the final missing piece of evidence everyone else overlooked. I’ve poured over every case file, every note, everything. But it has yet to yield any results.
My personal phone buzzes and I welcome the distraction.
Ward: Dinner at six.
I’ve been busy since moving back to Arizona and haven’t had a chance to catch up with my friend. Now he’s giving me no choice. It’s not that I’m avoiding him, I’m just… okay I’m avoiding him. Ward is happy now with Lyndi and Crew, I don’t want to do anything to ruin that.
I haven’t seen them since they got married almost a year ago. It was a small ceremony in Ward’s parents' courtyard. And afterward, Lyndi sent me home with some of her homemade desserts. I thought their love had made me nauseous. Turns out it was her cookies. I didn’t know it was possible to get food poisoning from baked goods. Now I know what it’s like to quite literally lose my cookies.
I haven’t had a chocolate chip cookie since. Which is a shame because they used to be my favorite.
Caleb: Is Lyndi cooking?
Ward: Not a chance. She almost burned down the house last week.
Lyndi is a wonderful person, the one woman in the world I didn’t mind handing my closest friend off to, but cooking isn’t a skill she possesses.
I lock my phone and slip it into my pocket. It’s time I visited them.
“I’m heading out.” I stand and shut my laptop. “Let me know if you come up with anything more on Hawthorne.”
“I’m not doing your homework, Harris.” Cruz chucks a pen at me. It misses and I smirk at her.
“But I know how much you like being the teacher’s pet.”
Her black eyes shoot daggers into my soul. I’m the only one who knows about her crush on our supervisor, but I’m a good partner, and won’t tell. Not yet anyway.
Thirty minutes later I’m standing in front of my old home.
Well, not mine. Ward owns it. But I lived with him for my years in between active duty and the academy when we both worked at the local fire station. The house looks different, though nothing on the outside has changed. The grass is freshly cut, and there’s a Spider-Man bike in the corner of the driveway, but that’s not what’s new.
When we got back from Iraq we were two broken dudes recovering from war and we carried that darkness with us, letting it permanently cloud over the house.
