Guilty as Sin Read Online Free PDF Page A

propelled him until his back hit the paneled wall. “More privacy so you could rape my daughter while my son is left unprotected?” he shouted as he slammed Tommy back against the wall.
    Tommy’s father wasn’t about to stand for that. He placed a firm hand on Senator Beckett’s shoulder. “My son would never do anything to a girl unless she wanted it.”
    “Your son would seduce a sixteen-year-old girl who doesn’t know any better than to leave her brother unattended in the middle of the night,” the senator said as he turned his angry gaze to Leo Ibarra.
    “Maybe you’re forgetting there were two people involved here,” Tommy’s father said tightly.
    “You implying my daughter’s a whore?”
    Tommy’s dad backed up and held his hands up, signaling for peace. “Your daughter seems like a very nice girl—”
    “No, you’re right,” her father said, turning a glare on herso filled with rage he looked nearly psychotic. “Even though I tried to raise her right, she’s nothing but—”
    Tommy surged forward before he could finish, his fist cocked back. Kate jumped in front of him and planted her palms against his chest. “Stop it!” she shouted.
    She looked around at the many stares focused warily on her. Then she looked at her mother and Lauren, huddled in a corner, their arms wrapped around each other, their eyes showing nothing but fear.
    “Stop. Just stop,” she said weakly, her hands dropping from Tommy’s chest. She turned to her father, straightening her spine with all the dignity she could muster. “You can rage at me all you want, but that’s not going to help us find Michael. Right now we have to focus on finding him before something awful happens to him.”
    Her father didn’t reply. The rage in his face melted away as quickly as it came, his expression as hard and flat as cement.
    “Kate.” Tommy reached out to take her arm, but she eluded his grasp.
    “You should go,” Kate said, forcing the words around the softball-size lump that settled in her throat. “I can’t really be around you right now.”
    The look of stunned hurt on his face barely penetrated the fog of fear and guilt surrounding her. After the Ibarras left, Sheriff Lyons tried to console them with the notion that the car accident in front of the house could easily be coincidental. “Kids Michael’s age like to start pushing the boundaries, see what it’s like to party with the big kids. He probably snuck out to one of the parties, got hold of some beer, and is at this very moment puking his guts out in the bushes somewhere or passed out on the beach.”
    “Or maybe he got drunk, wandered into the lake, and drowned, or got hit trying to cross the highway,” Laurensnapped. “Even if he left on his own, there are a lot of ways he could get hurt.” Her voice broke at the end, and that little sob was like a knife to Kate’s stomach.
    Though Kate clung to the faint hope that the sheriff was right, Sunday morning turned into Sunday afternoon, then Sunday night. Another night passed while Kate and her family kept a sleepless vigil.
    Monday morning an FBI agent flew up from the Boise field office to help with the investigation. Kate listened mutely as Agent Martins explained that if Michael was the victim of a kidnapping for ransom, they should expect to get a call within thirty-six hours. Kate stared at the phone, clinging to the faint hope that Michael had been taken by a sick jerk who just wanted money rather than that he was somewhere hurt or, God forbid, dead.
    While dozens of people canvassed every inch of town, Tommy, his father, and a handful of other ranchers rode out on horseback into the surrounding wilderness area to look for any signs of Michael.
    As Monday turned into Tuesday and there was no ransom call and no other sign of Michael, the cold blanket of dread that had settled over the Beckett household grew so heavy and oppressive Kate felt it hard to breathe.
    Reporters circled like sharks, thrusting