Read Her Dying Breath for Free Online

wildflowers on the wall were compliments of Sadie.
    Jake offered him a drink, but he shook his head. “What’s going on, Nick?”
    Nick removed the note his father had given him. He’d bagged it to send to forensics, although he doubted they’d get prints off of it, but he wanted Jake’s take on it first. “I saw the Commander.” He refused to call him Dad.
    “Anything new?”
    “He wouldn’t give up the list of subjects or anyone else involved in the project,” Nick said. “But he showed me this.”
    Jake’s eyebrows arched in question as he read it. “Who sent it?”
    “I have no idea,” Nick said. “It’s possible that it came from one of the subjects who wants revenge on the Commander.”
    “What does he expect us to do? Put the bastard in protective custody?”
    Nick barked a laugh. “He may be a masochist, but he’s no fool. He knows we’d just as soon leave him to his victims and let them dole out his punishment.”
    Jake nodded, but Nick’s cell phone buzzed. He checked the caller screen, surprised to see Brenda Banks’s number.
    “You gonna get that?” Jake asked.
    Nick shook his head. “It’s Brenda. I ran into her at the courthouse. She’s pushing for more on the story.”
    “I wish we had more,” Jake muttered.
    The phone stopped buzzing, then started up a second later.
    “You might as well answer it,” Jake said. “When Brenda wants something, she doesn’t give up easily.”
    Like when she’d wanted to date Jake.
    Nick connected the call, prepared to blow her off. “Listen, Brenda, I told you—”
    “Shut up and listen,” Brenda said in a strangely high-pitched voice.
    Nick’s hand tightened around the handset. “What?”
    “There’s a body, a dead man,” Brenda choked out. “At the Slaughter Creek Motel.”
    “You’re there now?”
    “Yes,” Brenda said. “You have to see this, Nick. He was murdered.”
    Nick’s mind raced. “How did you find the body?”
    “I’ll explain when you get here.”
    Nick began to pace. “Is anyone else with you?”
    “No,” Brenda said. “I called you first. I’m in room seven.”
    “Sit tight and don’t touch anything,” Nick said. “I’ll be right there.”
    Nick headed to the door as he ended the call. “There was a murder at the Slaughter Creek Motel.”
    “Let me call Sadie, and we’ll ride over together.”
    Jake shoved the limerick back into Nick’s hand. Nick glanced at it, and a sudden feeling of trepidation came over him. “What if this murder has something to do with the note the Commander received?”
    A tense second passed. “We can’t assume that,” Jake said.
    “No, but it’s possible.”
    “True. Or the note could simply be someone toying with the Commander. For all we know, he could have written it himself, just to mess with us.”
    Nick hadn’t considered that.
    “I wouldn’t put it past him.” Although the timing hit him as odd. “What if Amelia sent Dad that limerick? The fact that she’s missing now is suspicious.”
    “Don’t go there, Nick. Let’s get the facts first. For all we know, Amelia just took a long walk somewhere.”
    “Find her,” Nick said. “If anyone has reason to send the Commander hate mail, Amelia does. I’ll call you from the motel when I see what we’re dealing with, and you can meet me there.”
    Jake reluctantly agreed, and Nick jogged to his car. Questions pummeled him as he drove down the road, then around Blindman’s Curve, and he couldn’t help but think about Sadie and her sister. Their parents had died on this road, all because the Nettletons had discovered that the doctors were mistreating Amelia.
    He passed a stalled SUV on the shoulder of the road, then flew the few miles to the motel. The gaudy green light from the sign blinked, streaking the sky and road with puke-green lines, reminding him of a cheap Vegas strip club.
    A pickup and RV sat at one end of the parking lot, Brenda’s Bimmer a few spaces down. The door to room 7 stood slightly