Daddy's Little Killer Read Free

motive.  I didn't need it.
    Sixteen calls from area newspapers asked for
interviews, statements, reactions to the FBI turning on one of
their own.  I changed the outgoing message to include that my
response to media inquiries could be summed up in two words. 
No comment.
    David.
    Four more reporters.
    David again.  "Please consider what
your resignation looks like, Helen."
    Police Commissioner George Hardy from
Darkwater Bay.
    My brain did a double
take.  Darkwater Bay?  This
cannot be a coincidence.  Why would they want to talk to
me?
    The crystal swan figurine Dad gave me for my
twelfth birthday crashed to the floor, and shattered.  He
tried to remind me that I was his swan, no matter how much I was
teased for being too tall, too thin, too plain. 
    The snap decision was made for me. 
Darkwater Bay was blissfully far away from Washington D.C.  I
hadn't been there in nearly a decade and a half, the summer after
Dad's conviction to be exact.  What was that young man's
name?  The undergraduate who befriended me while I was working
as a teaching assistant during my post graduate studies… 
Roger?  Rodney something  …  At the time, I thought
he had a bit of a crush and was flattered by it more than anything
else.  After two weeks in Darkwater Bay, I was ready to return
to the balmy spray of the North Atlantic and leave the icy shards
of the North Pacific forever.
    And I hadn't seen much of the young man
during my stay in Darkwater Bay.  He was busy currying favor
with the locals on his quest to join the police academy after his
graduation that spring.  Rodney Martin.
    I grabbed my cell phone
poised to dial directory information.  The shadow of one of
the agents ransacking my home gave me pause.  Did I want them
knowing who I spoke to after I became a person of interest in
whatever case they were pursuing now?  Dad's words echoed in
my head.  Admit nothing.  Deny
everything.  Demand proof.  
    Defiance burned through my veins.  I
grabbed my purse, stalked over to Seleeby and thrust it under his
patrician nose.  "Search it.  I don't want to be accused
of hiding anything."
    His eyebrows stitched
together and slid down in a narrow V.  "Did anyone say we
thought you were hiding something, Mrs.
Hamilton ?"
    I didn't bother correcting him.  He
wanted to provoke an angry reaction from me.  "I want it
entered into the record that I offered my bag and you refused to
search it."
    Seleeby and I had never been what I would
term friendly toward one another, even before Rick's arrest. 
With an irritated huff, he grabbed the leather straps and dug
through the contents of my purse quickly.  "There.  I
searched your purse.  Happy now, Helen?"
    "Delighted.  Good bye, 
Mark.  Please be sure that your team locks up before they
leave."
    "Where are you going?"
    I spun on my heel at the front door. 
"Am I under arrest?"
    "No."
    "Then it's none of your business where I'm
going."  I flung the door open and pointed at the dark SUV
with tinted windows.  "It's not like you won't have your gang
watching every step I take anyway,  Mark.  Don't play
dumb.  Or perhaps this is your true intellect surfacing."
    He feigned shock, and as if on cue at his
appearance at the door, the SUV quickly pulled away from the curb
and disappeared. 
    "Did you get the license plate number?"
    I snorted.  "Like you need it. 
Really,  Mark, do you think I'm this gullible?"
    His eyes fixed out the front door, darting
from one end of the street to the other.  "I don't think you
should leave.  Have you forgotten who your husband's business
partners were?  Whoever was in that SUV wasn't from the
bureau."
    "They just happen to perform surveillance
outfitted exactly like you do?  I don't buy it.  You're
trying to frighten me into cooperation.  It won't work."
    "If I were you, I'd be more terrified of
Sully Marcos and his crew than I would be the FBI, Helen."
    "You've forgotten who my father was," bitter
words bubbled from my mouth,