Honeymoon To Die For Read Free Page B

And neither would Bianca. Not after what she’d been through in her one serious relationship.
    Sara Lynn had been there for her through that hell.
    Bianca was here for her friend now.
    The deluge of water came down so fast and hard, it blurred the cemetery, dredging up a memory of days long gone.
    Sara Lynn would always stop whatever she was doing when they were inside and the noise was deafening from hard downpours hammering the tin roof. Bianca would grouch about having to deal with a muddy yard. Sara Lynn would smile and look up at the ceiling with reverence, then say, “You can’t have rainbows without a little rain.”  
    I miss your sweet take on things, Sara Lynn. Bianca wiped the water off her face and cranked the engine, heading back to Atlanta.
    And Sara Lynn, now would be a good time to ask your Boss about that favor.  
     
    CHAPTER 3
     
    Bianca retrieved a file from her briefcase and placed the case on the concrete floor next to her feet. She tried to act natural, as if meeting with a murder suspect being held for trial was part of her weekly routine. Pretend this wasn’t the first time she’d stepped inside a prison.
    SAC Murdock sat on her left and Van Dyke’s attorney had the chair on her right at the end of the dull-white table. The Atlanta Federal Penitentiary staff had provided a small conference room for this meeting.
    No one chatted.
    This was no social visit.
    Murdock had made it clear on the way here that they had to wrangle a deal out of Van Dyke. Today. Intelligence reports indicated two terrorists suspected of being involved in the Istanbul and Italian attacks had dropped off the map. They might surface in the US, but by the time that happened whatever they planned might have already been executed.
    Bianca straightened her file. It was more for show than anything. She had quick recall of written details. Not quite a photographic memory, but close enough that when combined with her dedication to this case, Murdock had chosen her to join him today.
    A major step forward in Bianca’s bid for a permanent position as an analyst on Murdock’s anti-terrorism team.
    But that wasn’t her reason for being here. Her career moves fell down the list behind finding evidence of terrorist cells and justice for the victims of terrorist attacks. One would serve the other.
    The day Sara Lynn died, Bianca had been ready to sign up to fight on the front lines as a field agent, but a person should know her strengths and weaknesses.
    Ask her to lie and pretend she was something other than herself? Not her skillset. But hand her a keyboard and she’d infiltrate the enemy.
    Ryder Van Dyke is not your enemy. He’s a person awaiting trial.
    Her job was to gather and analyze information, not pass judgment. That’s what the court system was for, but her FBI research team anticipated a conviction based on the formidable stack of evidence they’d compiled. All of it pointed to Ryder Van Dyke as the shooter who’d killed J. K. Kearn.
    Just over five months had passed since Van Dyke was arrested so that wasn’t the reason Bianca and Jason Murdock were sitting here today.
    No, it was Van Dyke’s attack on a prison guard seven days ago that had changed everything. That had put Van Dyke’s chances to beat a murder rap at below zero, and given her boss what he needed to bargain with.
    What was it with Van Dyke men and killing innocent people?
    To be honest, Bianca had struggled to accept Ryder Van Dyke as a cold-blooded killer after digging into Van Dyke’s military records, but the shot that killed Kearn had been taken from eleven-hundred yards away.
    Making a shot that accurate and at night took an elite marksman, which Van Dyke was, but still, that was only circumstantial evidence.
    It had taken the results of the ballistics report and months of playing devil’s advocate for Bianca to finally accept that her team had a valid point in suspecting Van Dyke.  
    The distinctive sound of chains dragging the tile floor