Mine to Keep (Mine #2)(44)
Author: Cynthia Eden

They hurried inside the complex. An old converted warehouse, the place was now full of high-end condos. Trace got them immediate access to that building. He had Sara’s key code, and that code opened the entrance gate in seconds.

They hurried up the stairs. Stopped on the second floor.

“She’s number two-oh-six,” Trace said.

Alex stopped in front of the indicated door. That door was ajar, open just a few inches.

Alex and Trace shared a hard look, then the detective rushed inside. “Sara Kramer!”

There was no answer. There was only thick silence, then, Alex snarled, “Dammit, no!”

Trace leapt inside. Skye and Reese were with him, and they only had to take a few steps before they saw Alex. He was bent on the floor, crouched over the prone body of Sara Kramer.

Skye’s hand flew up to cover her mouth, an instinctive reaction. Blood soaked Sara’s robe. And there was a big, gaping wound where her throat should have been.

Just like Parker.

Sara’s throat had been slit open, a wound that stretched from ear to ear.

Alex yanked out his phone. As he surged to his feet, she heard him say, “This is Detective Alex Griffin, badge number four—one—one—eight. . I’m at a murder scene. Brighton Condominiums, number two-oh-six.”

A soft knock sounded at the door behind them.

Skye whirled around.

The unlocked door swung open. A woman stood there. A woman with hair the same light blonde shade as Sara’s. Her eyes were like Sara’s, too—a deep blue.

The woman hesitated as she stood there. “I, um, I’m looking for my sister—”

No, dear God, no. Skye rushed toward her, trying to grab the woman before she could see the body on the floor.

“Her name’s Sara Kramer,” the blonde continued, stepping forward, “and she’s—”

Skye shoved the woman back toward the door. A hard shove that sent the other lady stumbling with a yelp. “No!” Skye snapped. “You can’t—”

“Who are you?” The blonde demanded. “What’s happening? Where is Sara?”

She’s dead on the floor. And you don’t need to see her that way. You don’t. “I’m sorry,” Skye said, dropping her voice. “Something has happened.”

The blonde grabbed Skye’s hands. “To Sara?”

Trace came to stand behind Skye. “You’re Claire. Sara told me that you were coming to town.”

Claire frowned at him, then her eyes widened with recognition. “You…you’re Mr. Weston, Sara’s boss, right?” Claire appeared to be about twenty-five or twenty-six. She was slender, her skin a soft gold, and her expression was slowly becoming terrified. “Please tell me what’s happening.”

Sirens screamed from outside.

“I’m sorry,” Skye whispered. Claire was still holding her hands in a tight grip. Claire’s gaze was now full of fear and desperation. Tell her. “Your sister is dead.”

Claire shook her head. “No.”

“A detective is in there now. More police are coming.”

“No!”

“We need to go downstairs,” Skye said. “The apartment…it’s a…crime scene.”

Claire tried to lunge past Skye, but Trace caught her, stopping her before she could burst back into Sara’s place. “You don’t want to see her like that,” he told her, voice soft, sad. “You don’t.”

“Sara!” Claire screamed.

Then the tears broke from her.

***

Trace stood in his office, his gaze on the city that spread out before him. Noah and Drake were seated behind him. After Sara’s death, he’d had to call them both in.

“He used Sara,” Trace said, his shoulders stiff. “In order to get close to me. He gained access to my personal phone line.” He turned toward them. “The SOB hijacked the line to make a call to Skye. He could’ve lured her any place.”

Noah swiped a hand over his face. “And you think he might be using people at my organization, too? Doing the same damn thing to me?”

It was a definite possibility. “The guy sure as hell seems focused on me right now, but the two of you needed to be warned. If he hasn’t already gone after you, he will.”

Drake gave a grim nod.

“I think he stole my shirt right out of the office.” The back-up clothing that he normally kept at the office was gone, so there really wasn’t any thinking about it. Now he knew how his shirt had wound up at Parker’s crime scene. You wore it while you killed him, didn’t you, bastard? “I’m sure he used Sara to get access to the clothing.”

Poor Sara. She’d been caught in a battle for nothing. Used. Thrown away.

“Your security footage got his face, right?” Noah said as he leaned forward. “I mean, this is Weston Freaking Securities that we’re talking about. This place is wired from the floor to the ceiling.”

It was, but… “Sara Kramer had access to all the security information here. She was my right hand.” Grief was there, painful, twisting grief that clawed inside of him. Sara had been a friend. “I trusted her, and it looks like, a few days ago, she took the security offline for fifteen minutes. The whole building went dark.”

Drake swore.

Yes, that was just how Trace felt. He’d been distracted—the security breach had happened right after the car crash. He’d learned that his team had reported the problem right away, only they’d reported to Sara, not him because he’d been getting stitched up at the hospital.

“So we’re saying a dead man is doing this?” Noah surged up from his chair. “Because I don’t believe that crap. No way. I don’t—”

“You were flying the chopper that got us out of there,” Trace told him. Because that had been Noah’s job that day. Trace had barely made it to the rendezvous point. “The snow was coming down hard, and you could barely get the bird back in the sky.”

Noah glanced over at Drake. “I was convinced he’d die before we got him to a doctor.”

Drake’s gaze strayed to the window. “Do you two ever think…maybe I should’ve been the one to die? Maybe Trace made the wrong choice out there. He grabbed the wrong friend.”

Noah’s eyes narrowed to chips of golden fire. “Stop being a dick, Drake. You both told me what went down out there. Tucker turned on you. He would’ve killed you both in an instant.”