Beautiful Storm (Lightning Strikes Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

what would happen next, feeling helpless to make a change. Those feelings reminded him of his childhood when life had been chaotic, unpredictable, and lonely. When he'd left Miami at fifteen, he'd left those emotions behind him. He'd become the kind of person who set goals and achieved them, who knew what he wanted and went after it.
    He was good at fixing things. He was a builder. He put things together. He executed a vision every day of the week, but he couldn't fix the problem with Liliana. He couldn't find her. He couldn't bring her home, and it was driving him mad.
    Hopefully, today's search would yield something new, but the fact that there was no sign of Liliana didn't bode well for that outcome. Still, they had something new to go on—because of Alicia.
    His gaze moved back to the woman who had recharged the investigation.
    Now that the sun had come up, he could see her more clearly. She was young, mid-twenties, he thought, slender and fit in her jeans and jacket. She was pretty, too, in a natural, not-really-trying kind of way. Her dark hair was pulled back in a thick ponytail that hung halfway down her back, and her brown eyes were wide and framed with long black lashes. While the bump on her forehead and the shadows under her eyes made her look tired and beat-up, there was a fighting spirit, a curiosity, a determination that came through in her gaze and in her actions.
    How many random witnesses came back to the scene of a crime to look for more clues? And she hadn't even waited for daylight. She'd come to the park before dawn.
    But he also had to ask himself why she was so interested in an unsolved mystery. She didn't know Liliana, and she'd already turned in the military ID, which would make her eligible for the reward, so the money couldn't be driving her.
    Maybe it was guilt. She'd seen a woman being attacked, and she hadn't been able to help her. Now she wanted to find that woman and make it right. It made sense, but he still came back to his original question: how many witnesses would return to the scene of the crime to help out a stranger?
    Probably very few.
    Alicia shifted her gaze from the police detective to him, and even from a distance he could read the wary suspicion in her eyes. No doubt Kellerman had warned her away from him. He wondered if Alicia would listen.
    He got his answer a moment later when Alicia said something to the police detective and then started walking toward him.
    She had her back to Kellerman, so she didn't see the police detective watching her, but Michael was acutely aware of Kellerman's gaze following her steps, those steps leading straight to him. He had a feeling Alicia's action was only going to add another complication to his life, but right now he was more interested in finding out if Kellerman had shared any information with her.
    "What did the detective have to say?" he asked as she stopped in front of him.
    "He had more questions than answers. He wanted to know if I'd met you before this morning. I said no, but I'm not sure he believed me, which was strange. Why would I lie?"
    "He's suspicious of everyone, especially if they're seen with me."
    "He told me not to trust you."
    "I'm not surprised," he said evenly, but her words still burned through his soul. He'd straightened out his life a long time ago, and he wasn't used to people doubting his actions or his intentions.
    "I know you and Liliana exchanged texts on the day she disappeared, that she was supposed to meet you, but that doesn't explain why the detective is so suspicious of you."
    "He has no other leads. And he's never been a fan of mine."
    Her eyebrow lifted in surprise. "What do you mean?"
    "A long time ago, when I was a teenager, I had a few run-ins with the police, with Kellerman in particular."
    "Like what?"
    "Vandalism, theft," he said with a shrug. "I was fifteen and running with a bad crowd. Kellerman was a beat cop back then. He still thinks of me as that punk kid, but I'm not that person anymore.