Faceless (Sinister Secrets Book 2), Candle Sutton [dar e dil novel online reading txt] 📗

“Um… witness protection? Prison? Coma?” Wendy offered a small smile. “You’ll never know if you don’t let him explain.”

“Well, if he shows up again, maybe I’ll let him.” If she could bite her tongue long enough to let him speak.

The waiter arrived to take their orders. After a quick glance at the menu, Kevyn settled on ginger-glazed halibut with rice and mixed vegetables.

As the waiter walked away, Wendy put her elbows on the table and leaned in. “I can’t pretend to understand how it felt to see him there. But that couldn’t have been easy for him, either. I mean, how do you go to someone you massively let down and try to explain a three decade absence?”

“I really don’t want to see his side of this.” Kevyn traced her finger through the condensation on the outside of her water glass. “But you’re right. There are always two sides. The decent thing to do would be to let him tell his before I make a final judgment.”

“The Bible tells us that mercy triumphs over judgment.”

Mercy was the last thing she wanted to extend to that man. “Yeah, well doesn’t it also say something about an eye for an eye?”

“Passing judgment is easy, but it takes real strength to extend mercy.” Wendy’s face took on a gray hue and her chin wobbled slightly. “And you know I don’t say that lightly.”

No, she didn’t. Wendy’s kindness toward one of her kidnappers was what had drawn Kevyn to Wendy in the first place. “I don’t know if I can do that.”

“On your own, probably not. But God can help you do anything.”

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d asked God to do anything for her. In fact, she wasn’t sure she’d ever prayed.

Yet now, here she was, sitting across from a woman whose faith was central in her life. And working beside a man whose faith guided his actions.

It was funny where life took you.

Still, she wasn’t sure she was ready to make the leap from believing in God to being all in like they were. Sure, it worked for them. But it might not be for her.

“If he comes back, I’ll hear him out. I can’t promise any more than that.”

“Just try to keep an open mind.” Wendy sighed. “I’d give anything to have a distant relative show up on my doorstep.”

Easy for Wendy to say. Her parents had been around, involved, and loving. Neither of them had turned their backs on her like she didn’t exist.

Enough.

She was ready to forget her father and the troubles he’d brought her, at least for a little while.

Because something told her this drama was far from over.

₪   ₪   ₪

The silence spoke to him.

The whirring of his laptop booting up was the only sound in the early morning hours as Agent Caldwell sipped his coffee.

Black and strong. It was the only way to drink coffee.

While he waited for the log-in process to complete, he flipped open Agent Taylor’s file and reviewed his findings from yesterday.

How could there be zero trace of her father? The man clearly existed, but he had yet to find a single record that tied to him.

If he could track down the right social security number, that would help, but there were too many Mitch Taylors out there for him to accurately isolate the correct one.

Using the information Agent Taylor had given him, he’d tried to trace it through her mother but even that had fallen flat. There was no record of a marriage license in Florida, where Agent Taylor had been born. Mitch Taylor’s name had been listed on her birth certificate, but that didn’t help Caldwell track down the man now.

Today he’d turn his focus on Florida.

Maybe by focusing on college records from around the time Agent Taylor had been born, he could locate the correct Mitch Taylor and track his movements forward.

It beat the needle in the haystack approach he’d wasted so much time on yesterday.

Honest men didn’t live in the shadows.

If Mitch Taylor was an honest man, he shouldn’t be hard to track down.

Caldwell would stake his badge on the fact that Mitch Taylor was not only dishonest, but involved in shady dealings up to his eyebrows.

₪   ₪   ₪

“We may have another victim.”

The fruit and oatmeal Kevyn had enjoyed not more than ninety minutes ago settled like lead in her stomach. One glance at the rest of her team, all seated around the conference room table, indicated similar feelings.

Another victim. And they were no closer to bringing home the first two.

Dak tacked a picture of a young woman to their board.

Her cheeks appeared slightly hollowed, but her eyes glowed with life. Straight brown hair framed her narrow face, curling beneath her chin in a long bob.

“Noelle Orson.” Dak’s gaze moved across everyone in the room. “Daughter of Randall Orson.”

A weight descended.

Why, Kevyn wasn’t sure. The name clearly meant something to everyone but her. “Who’s Randall Orson?”

“Only one of the richest dudes in Seattle.” JD swiveled his chair to face her. “He founded one of the largest tech firms in the state.”

If this case was connected to their previous two abductions, then clearly Jason Boggess wasn’t an anomaly. Their kidnappers weren’t fazed by high-profile targets.

“Why do we think this is connected?” Felicia asked the question running through Kevyn’s mind.

“First, I’m not completely convinced that it is. But it occurred in the same vicinity as the other abductions. A van pulled up as she was leaving work and a guy forced her inside.”

“But our other two vics were both male,” Sid pointed out.

“True. But we don’t know that our kidnappers are only targeting men. Orson is a yoga instructor, so she’s likely fit, like our other two vics. She’s mid-twenties, like