What Laurel Sees: a love story (A Redeeming Romance Mystery) Read Online Free PDF Page A

past. How many had that been? Joe opened up his blinds and peered out the window. A helicopter whirled by, racing in the same direction. There went another. Something was up downtown. Something big.
    Joe grabbed his keys and strode across the apartment.
    “Where are you going?” Clay piled his peelings on the counter.
    Joe threw the door open. “To work.”
     
     
    Laurel gulped for air.
    All along the route she ran, sirens wailed impatiently as squad cars jockeyed their way through downtown traffic. She’d counted six emergency vehicles already. There went a seventh. Traffic was so snarled. They could hardly get through. Though her chest heaved from the exertion, at least she could get through on foot.
    The closer that Laurel got to Frank’s building, the more ominous the unfolding scene became. Helicopters circled overhead. The police presence alone was staggering. It was surreal—horrifying, and yet eerily familiar. It confirmed everything she’d dreamed but had hoped would never come to be.
    An ambulance idled. Rescue workers hustled a gurney toward the entrance of Frank’s building. There was the yellow crime scene tape. It was being stretched across the breezeway to the sliding glass doors, opening to the lobby with its elevator bank to the councilman’s offices.
    As if all of the police barricades weren’t enough to circumvent entry, upstairs, she would face an even more formidable blockade.
    Somehow, she would have to get past Shana.
    It was everything a waitress could do not to be intimidated by a woman of Shana’s regal bearing. Shana had come into Frank’s life an heiress, and of considerable sociopolitical influence in her own right. Shana had everything that Laurel didn’t, including Laurel’s ex-husband and daughter. What’s more, Shana was convinced that the court had found her unfit for good reason.
    It wasn’t right to fear a human being. Laurel knew that. But she had to be honest with herself. She was afraid of Shana. Her stature in society was daunting enough. But mostly, it was the power Shana wielded over both Frank and little Grace. It rattled her last nerve.
    Laurel steeled herself to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Get it together , she coaxed herself.
    Quickly, she surveyed the situation. The scene was getting more overwhelmed with authorities by the minute. Soon, the site would be impenetrable. There wasn’t a moment to waste. Laurel veered toward the side of the building. Drivers laid on their horns, adding to the din, as news crews set up along the perimeter, crisscrossing the street. Laurel kept her head down. Her chance to get inside would be over if she drew undue attention.
    A police bullhorn assaulted Laurel’s ears as she hurried around the building. Hastily, she scanned for an entry point. There had to be a way. She needed to get inside, but not so much for Frank’s sake. She already knew in her spirit that it was too late for him. But Grace was in there—sweet Grace—whose cries still rang in her memory. Grace needed her. Laurel knew it from the depths of her mother’s heart. But how could she get to her daughter, with the building being cordoned off by this swarm of authorities?
    Avoid eye contact, Laurel reminded herself.  Walk briskly. Appear to know exactly where you’re headed. Laurel knew that God had opened up the Red Sea. He had made blind eyes to see, and on occasion, seeing eyes to be blind. Was it too much to hope for the latter?
    There. A metal service door slapped open. A catering truck was parked beside it. Laurel stepped up her pace. Her waitress’s uniform was sky blue, rather than the stark white of the exiting crew, but it was worth a shot. Maybe she could blend.
    An empty food cart sat abandoned by the catering truck. In a snap, Laurel commandeered the cart and wheeled it toward the service bay. With so much crew exiting pushing full carts, going toward the back entrance was like swimming upstream. There must have been a luncheon. No