Double Cross Read Online Free PDF Page B

evidence?”
    I pictured Officer Ferrell pushing my head down as he shoved me into the backseat of the police SUV. I shook the image out of my head. “This isn’t a crime scene, it’s a suicide. Besides, her computer files belong to your father’s ministry. You’ve got a right to them.” I stuck the flash drive back in my pocket. “Maybe this will help us figure out what she did with the money so we can try to get it back.”
    I walked over to the couch, picked up my purse, and held it out to her. “Would you mind doing me a favor by taking this out to the car? It’s got my gun in it, and I don’t want that to cause a problem with the police. I want to look around for Elise’s laptop before they come back in from the garage.”
    Her eyes widened. “You brought your gun?”
    “People can do unexpected things when they’re cornered. Did you expect what we found in the garage?”
    She slung my purse over her shoulder and put her hands on her hips. “You missed my point. I just want to know why I didn’t get to bring mine.”
    I tapped a finger on my cheek. “Well, let’s see. You’re not twenty-one, you don’t have a permit to carry it, and you don’t have a single reason in the world to be carrying it even if you did have a permit. Do you need to hear more?”
    “I’m a better shot than half the guys at the range.”
    Actually she was a better shot than ninety percent of the guys at the range, but I wasn’t about to let her redirect the argument. “That doesn’t change the fact that you don’t have a permit to carry—and don’t get a big head about your shooting. You’ve still got a lot to learn. Now, do you mind? I’d like to get that gun out of here before they come back in.”
    Kacey headed for the front door. I went back to the desk in the corner. A docking station and printer, but no laptop—so how did she write the note? I looked all around the desk, and opened and closed the drawer again. Then I walked across the room, through the kitchen, and into a hallway that ran from the back of the house to the front. The first door was the master bedroom. I stepped onto the cream-colored carpet and looked around.
    I felt as if I had walked through a mirror into Barbie’s bedroom. To my right was a canopy bed with a pink duvet, a frilly white dust ruffle, and layers of lacey pillows. Beyond the bed was a bay window with a built-in pink cushioned love seat. The curtains were white lace. I assumed that the window looked out onto the lake, but the blinds were drawn. To the left of the door was a pink-and-white painted dresser with a mirrored back; against the opposite wall was a tallboy in the same colors. Beyond the tallboy was the door to the master bath.
    On the floor next to the tallboy sat a pink nylon laptop case. I walked over and unzipped it. No computer. I looked in the closets and even opened the dresser drawers. Nothing. Glancing toward the bed again, I noticed a cell phone plugged into its charger on the end table. I went over, picked it up, and checked the screen. No messages. I made quick mental ledger entries of the pluses and minuses of taking the phone. The biggest plus was that it might have phone numbers and information that belonged to Simon’s ministry. The biggest minus was that even though this was a suicide scene, I was still uneasy about the whole evidence thing.
    I got over it by assuring myself that it was an employee’s phone, probably issued by the ministry. We were entitled to it. Besides, it wasn’t as if we were going to throw it away. If the police ever needed it, we’d still have it. In fact, the same was true of her flash drive. Legitimate or not, that line of reasoning made me feel better.
    I looked over my shoulder at the bedroom door. Everything was quiet in the house. I unplugged the phone and stuck it in my jeans pocket with the flash drive. Just in case the police came in and looked around, I unplugged the charger from the wall and put it in the drawer of the