Read Bloodlines for Free Online Page A

inconvenience of being asked to answer a few questions.
    The only outward sign of Trey’s anger was a muscle twitching at the corner of his left eye, but when he opened his mouth, his tone was terse, his words short and clipped.
    â€œLook, Mr. Sealy, I’m sorry if this offends you, but I’m more offended by the bones of a two-year-old someone stuffed in a suitcase, plastered behind a wall and as good as forgot for the past twenty-five years than by whether or not my questions might tick you off. Someone thinks they’ve gotten away with murder, and that offends me.”
    Immediately, Marcus was apologetic.
    â€œYou’re absolutely correct, Detective Bonney, and it’s I who should apologize. It’s just that Olivia and I have been bombarded by the media since the story broke, and my patience is running thin. I should not have taken my frustrations out on you. Forgive me.”
    Trey shrugged, then nodded. “I’m a little tense myself, so what do you say we start over?”
    Marcus nodded. “Done.”
    Trey heard Olivia exhale. He wanted to look at her but didn’t dare. Instead, he referred to his notebook, then looked back at Marcus.
    â€œYou only had the one child, is that right?”
    Marcus nodded. “Yes, my son, Michael.”
    â€œAnd he and his wife, Kay, only had one child?”
    Marcus looked at Olivia and smiled gently.
    â€œYes, my granddaughter, Olivia.”
    Trey’s gaze shifted to her. She was sitting on the edge of the chair with her hands folded in her lap and a strained expression on her face. She looked as if she wanted to slap him into the middle of next week. He glanced back at the notebook.
    â€œWhat about anyone else? Maybe cousins…someone who would have had a child about the age of Liv…uh, your granddaughter?”
    Marcus sighed, then leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he met Trey’s gaze.
    â€œOnce, the Sealys were many, but three wars and a couple of natural disasters have thinned us down. I have a second cousin who is a nun, so naturally, there were no children from that branch. I had a brother who was gay. He took his own life at the age of twenty-nine, in some pitiful hotel room in Paris after his lover left him, which left only me and my baby sister to continue the family line. My wife and I had just the one son, and my sister never married, although I suspect she left a string of broken hearts during her younger days.”
    â€œWhere is she now?” Trey asked.
    Marcus grinned. “Living in an old lighthouse off the coast of Maine with a dozen cats. She paints pictures of the lighthouse over and over and sells them to tourists. No husbands…no children.”
    â€œWhat about Uncle Terrence and Aunt Carolyn?” Olivia asked.
    Marcus shook his head. “They never had any children,” he said shortly.
    Trey paused. The tension in Marcus’s voice was there, even if the expression on his face said otherwise.
    â€œWhere do they live?” Trey asked.
    â€œThey’re in Italy. Have been for years.”
    â€œHow many years?” Trey asked.
    â€œI don’t know…oh, at least twenty-five. Seems to me they were gone before Olivia was kidnapped. Terrence isn’t my brother, he’s a cousin.”
    â€œDid he share the same genetic trait with the rest of the Sealys?”
    â€œWhat…you mean the second thumb on the left hand?”
    Trey nodded.
    Marcus frowned. “Yes, I suppose he did.”
    â€œWhere did they live before they moved to Italy?” Trey asked.
    â€œAt his family’s home north of Sherman.”
    Trey wrote down the information while mentally mapping out the distance from Sherman to Lake Texoma. It was easily within an hour’s drive, even less depending on which part of the lake one was aiming for.
    â€œDo you have a number or address where they can be reached?” Trey asked.
    Marcus’s frown deepened.
    â€œI