Protecting Lyndley Read Free

door?” I could hear his voice in the distance, but my brain wasn’t registering what he was saying to me. “Miss, I need you to open your door, now.”
    I blinked my eyes a few times as my eyesig ht became hazy due to the amount of tears falling down my face. I nodded my head at the man, and finally opened the door. I glanced up at his tall frame from underneath my tear soaked lashes, and lost all control of my emotions.
    “Miss, it’s my underst anding that you knew the victim. Is that correct?” His voice was less than empathetic, and I knew that my night was about to get worse than it already was.
    “Yes.” I mumbled.
    “I have a few questions for you. Do you have time to talk with me?”
    “That depends, are you going to take the douche out of your tone?” I knew I was making this more difficult for myself, but I just watched my best friend get murdered. What did these people expect from me?
    “Miss, I would appreciate it if you didn’t talk to me like that.”
    “Well, I would appreciate it if you treated this case with some compassion.” I gave him an aggravated look and slowly stood from my car.
    “I’m sorry for your loss, Miss. I apo logize if I’m a little abrasive. It comes with the territory. Can you tell me what happened?”
    He pulled out a small notepad and stood there, pen poised, waiting for me to fill him in on all of the horrific details. “Well, my boss and I have been working on the Nelson brothers ’ case. Needless to say, all of us involved had a police tail for the last month or so while we got ready to take it to trial.”
    “Was Mr. Walker involved in the case as well?”
    He didn’t look up from his notepad, so I continued as if he hadn’t even asked me anything. I needed to get this out before I had a full on mental breakdown. “Mr. Cooper and I just had a meeting about two days ago with the FBI and the agents that have been watching us. Everything seemed fine. No one had heard anything about anyone coming after us, or whether or not the rest of the organization knew what we were up to.”
    “I’m sorry to cut you off Miss, but I have to know if Mr. Walker was involved with the case?”
    I rolled my eyes in anger. “No, he wasn’t. ” I growled. “He was working on an entirely different case. Like I was saying, everything seemed fine. Tonight we both ended up working later than usual. Being new employees, we don’t really have set hours. When we got down to the lobby, I noticed that the detective assigned to me was nowhere to be seen.”
    “And what is his or her name?”
    “Detective Dawson. So I tried calling him, but his phone went straight to voicemail. I left a message and Reese waited with me in the lobby to see if he would call back. After twenty minutes, I asked Reese if he would walk me out to my car. Detective Dawson had been teaching me safety precautions, and Reese and I both made sure to keep an eye out for anything suspicious.”
    “So no one was in the lot from what you could tell?”
    “No. No one was in the lot, just like I just told you. It was just Reese and I. We were saying good-bye, when a car alarm went off. We glanced around a few times, but still didn’t see anything. So I got in my car and Reese started walking towards his. That’s when…” My voice broke as I thought about Reese’s body crumbling to the ground.
    “I’m sorry, Miss.”
    “It’s Lyndley. My name is Lyndley.” I half shouted.
    “Calm down, Miss. I mean, Lyndley. I need to know what happened next.”
    “He got shot. He got shot and then he died. There, ya happy now?”
    “Lyndley, I’m very sorry. I know this can’t be easy on you, but I just have a few more questions and then we can get you home. Now, did you see the person who shot Mr. Walker?”
    That was the one question I so didn’t want to answer. So I simply nodded my head when I heard the man in front of me clear his throat. “Sorry, yes I saw him, but barely. He had on a black hoodie, a black pair