Every Breath You Take: A Novel (A Kristen Conner Mystery Book 2) Read Online Free PDF

don’t see an old man around here, Bob, so who would that be?”
    “Nicely played, Detective,” he says with a laugh. “And I’m not feeling too bad these days. I’m going to feel even better when I throw a line in the Penobscot River. Austin and I are going fishing up in Millinocket this weekend.”
    “That’s what I heard.”
    I studied Willingham’s career when I was a criminal justice major at Northern Illinois University. I wrote a paper on him. Now I know him on a first name basis. Bob. I don’t have a clue where he is going with this “word of counsel” stuff.
    “Our strengths are usually our weaknesses,” he says. “Your strengths are your unbending will, your fierce determination, your lack of guile and political motivation.”
    “Thank you, Bob.”
    I think that was a compliment.
    “Those are also your weaknesses. It’s not the right time for you to say yes to us. I understand that and am not pushing any more. But there are other areas of life where you need to be a little more open-minded and flexible. Do you know what I’m saying?’
    “I think so.”
    I’m pretty sure not.
    “Good. But just in case you don’t, I would encourage you to not be too hasty in your judgment of Major Reynolds. He’s an awfully fine young man.”
    Did the Deputy Director of the FBI just give me advice on my love life?

11
    IT’S EIGHTEEN LONG, excruciating hours, and no one from the police has contacted me. It isn’t going to just go away, is it? Is this over for me—could they be on to the real murderer? I thought I might be in custody by now.
    The silence is almost eerie. No one knows I was there. I’ve thrown away everything I was wearing that night but that won’t be any help since I threw up in his bedroom. My DNA is literally all over the murder scene. My only hope is that I never become a suspect.
    I wasn’t hiding my visit to him from anyone. I didn’t use the back entrance of his building to avoid security cameras. That was at his instruction and insistence. I wasn’t hiding—he was hiding me. I wasn’t good enough for him and his world.
    Who killed Jack?
    It would make things so simple if it was Bobbie. She brought Jack and I together. We got off to a rocky start but I came to believe she was someone I could trust. But she betrayed me. I’ll never forgive her for pushing Jack and me apart. She knew he cared for me and she wanted to protect her own relationship with him. Would she have killed Jack if she felt she was losing her hold on him?
    He was no angel. That’s for sure. It’s ironic that after he finally told me he loved me, he still made me use the door by the delivery dock. He would have kept me a secret from the world forever if he could have pulled it off. That was going to have to change. And it could have. But then she stepped between us.
    No, Jack was definitely no angel, but I could have helped him. I think we could have helped each other change for the better. Doesn’t everyone deserve a second chance at happiness?
    I still can’t believe he is dead. Everywhere I turn and look I see his face. I don’t have to watch news coverage to see him. I think I see him out of the corner of my eye. At a restaurant. At a shop. I turn quickly and he’s gone.
    He was cruel to me the last time we were together. And now he can never make those wrongs right.
    Even if she didn’t kill him, she deserves some payback. If this investigation drags out, there might be a few ways I can point police her direction.
    But who killed Jack?
    • • •
    “Detectives will be here in the next hour,” Stanley McGill said.
    Robert Durham, Jr. and Robert Durham, Sr. were seated with McGill, their corporate and private attorney, in Durham, Sr.’s home office.
    “We really have to talk to the police today?” Robert Sr. asked.
    “I’m afraid so, sir.”
    “We landed from Moscow less than twenty-four hours ago,” Robert Sr. grumbled.
    “Let’s get this over with, Dad. We need to help the police any