Renegade (Elite Ops 5) Read Online Free PDF Page B

Mikayla wasn't holding her breath, though.
    She was doomed to disappointment, though. It was a good thing she hadn't held
    her breath.
    "You know I can't talk to you," Gina finally stated regretfully as she laid her arm against the door frame and rubbed her forehead against it.
    "I understand no one wants you to talk to me," Mikayla agreed painfully. "But he was your husband and he was killed in cold blood." Mikayla wanted to scream. Anger was like a parasite inside her, spreading, eating away at her control.
    "Miss Martin, let it go," Gina advised her softly as she straightened. "The police are investigating his death, and I have every confidence that Chief Riley will find his killer."
    Mikayla couldn't let it go. She couldn't get that image of Eddie Foreman's
    sightless gaze staring up at her out of her mind. It haunted her.
    "Are you sure?" Mikayla asked, doubt heavy in her voice. "Or will he simply continue to cover for your husband's murderer?"
    Gina Foreman's face tightened as grief flashed in her dark eyes once again.
    There was no doubt she was mourning her husband, even though from what
    Mikayla understood, Eddie Foreman hadn't exactly been a loving, faithful husband.
    "I can't talk to you," the other woman repeated. "Don't do this to me. Don't make me doubt people I trust. . . ."
    "Do you think I didn't trust Maddix Nelson as well?" Mikayla argued softly, desperate to convince the woman to talk to her. "Mrs. Foreman, I watched your husband 23
    die in front of my eyes. I saw the man who shot him. Perhaps you can ignore that, but I can't. I see it every night in my nightmares. I can't escape it."
    She couldn't forget it. She had tried. She had fought sleeping just to escape the
    dreams. She couldn't get the image of Eddie Foreman's dead body out of her mind. She couldn't forget that evening, the sounds, the smells, the horror of it. The feel of complete terror enveloping her as Maddix Nelson had shot at her next was still an ever-present reminder that nothing was certain. Especially tomorrow.
    Gina lifted her hand to her trembling lips as tears gathered in her eyes. Eyes that were shadowed and dark with weariness and grief. Mikayla hated seeing that pain; she hated adding to it.
    "God, don't do this to me." Gina shook her head, her dark blond hair swaying just below her neck as she shook her head.
    She was a pretty woman, Mikayla thought. She'd often thought Gina Foreman
    was too pretty for her portly, overbearing husband.
    "Mrs. Foreman, I need answers," Mikayla whispered, her fingers curling into a fist as she pressed them against her stomach. "I have to know why so many people would lie for Maddix Nelson."
    "And I can't let myself believe you," Gina said, refusing the request, though her voice was thick with tears now. "I can't let myself believe that what you say is true, Miss Martin. Because if it is, then it means not just Maddix Nelson, a man I've trusted for years, is a murderer, but it means my boss and other people I respect are lying for him.
    And that I just can't believe. I know them. I don't know you. Good-bye."
    The door closed in her face.
    Mikayla raked her fingers through her hair as she turned and stepped from the
    porch, her teeth gritting at another dead end.
    She'd put off coming to talk to Eddie Foreman's wife for three weeks after the
    funeral, hoping that in that time Gina Foreman would begin questioning the excuses Maddix Nelson and his friends had given her.
    The lies, Mikayla amended. There could be no excuse for murder, or for covering it up.
    Moving back to her Jeep, she wanted to stomp her feet, scream. Even her family
    argued with her over the questions she asked, the people she had tried to talk to in the past weeks.
    Her parents were beside themselves with worry, and she couldn't blame them. It
    seemed as though the entire city council was covering for Maddix Nelson rather than trying to bring him to justice.
    The police force patronized her if she even tried to question them. They