Harlequin Romantic Suspense April 2021 by Karen Whiddon (interesting books to read for teens TXT) 📕

and a pen, Julia began to take notes. “You said you had information about Darcy Owens? What is that?”

Robert leaned back in his seat and rubbed his chin. “Darcy has this cousin, Bethany Edwards. They’re the same age and look almost identical, or they did back in high school. Anyway, when they were kids, Bethany would do stuff and then later blame Darcy.”

Forced to use her left hand, Julia’s penmanship was horrible. Her palm cramped as she held tight to the pen. Robert stopped and Julia stretched her fingers.

Luis asked, “What kind of stuff?”

“I remember once in middle school Bethany stole a girl’s lunch and put it in Darcy’s locker. We all kind of thought it was funny, even though we knew it was mean.”

Hilarious, thought Julia. But not equal to the crimes Darcy committed. “Anything else?”

Robert paused. He rubbed his chin again. “I think in a lot of ways Bethany was jealous of her cousin. Right before the homecoming dance, Bethany was supposed to give Darcy a trim, but she cut off all her hair. She sheared off part of her scalp, too. It was a bloody mess. Darcy couldn’t go to the dance, and her parents never let me come over. So...”

“So what happened?”

“I ended up taking Bethany.”

Julia didn’t want to feel bad for Darcy Owens, truly she didn’t. Yet, she couldn’t help herself when she said, “That must’ve sucked for her.”

“Yeah, I guess it did.”

“Anything else?” Julia asked.

“Actually, yeah,” he said.

Julia let silence settle in the room and waited for Robert to fill it.

Finally, he said, “The things that Darcy’s dad did to her.”

“The abuse?”

“Yeah. Well, he did that to Bethany sometimes, too.” Robert paused again. “That night at the homecoming dance, Bethany told me that she blamed Darcy for the abuse and was eventually going to make her pay.”

* * *

Robert Carpenter left and let the door close behind him. Luis stood in Julia’s office, and adrenaline raced through his system. Undoubtedly, Robert Carpenter had just provided a reasonable suspect in the killing of Tom Dolan—Darcy’s cousin, Bethany Edwards. Never mind that Julia was reluctant to call the death a murder until the tox reports came back. The dude had been whacked.

“We have to do some snooping into Bethany Edwards’s internet footprint and see what we can find.”

“Sure thing,” said Julia. She hit the power button on her computer.

“Oh, no,” he said. “We’re going to RMJ’s office and use the good stuff.”

Julia smiled in return. “I’m in.”

Taking Julia’s official vehicle, an ancient pickup truck, they drove from the county office building to RMJ’s headquarters. To the untrained eye, it appeared to be any other well-maintained property.

Yet, to those who knew enough to look, it was so much more.

As Julia pulled up at the corner, Luis knew they’d been caught by one of more than a dozen cameras that surrounded the property. As they strode up the walk, the lock clicked as they approached the door. He turned the handle and they stepped inside.

Every time he came to work, Luis felt as if he was living inside a spy flick.

Marcus stood on the threshold. “I saw you two driving up the street,” he said.

Luis let Julia go first, then he said, “We need to do some internet searching.”

“Let’s get you started,” said Marcus.

The most powerful computers were located on the second floor, at the end of the hallway, in a climate-controlled room.

“What are you looking for?” Marcus asked.

“We found an interesting lead. It seems as if Darcy Owens has a cousin who could be her twin,” said Julia, settling into a seat.

“Really? That fits with the person you saw in your house, right? And the woman who was caught on camera.”

She nodded. “It does.”

Luis turned his attention to the wall of computer monitors. Within minutes, they knew all there was to know about Bethany Edwards from her public social media accounts. Age. Address. Along with the fact that she’d recently gotten a divorce. They even had her car’s make, model and license plate from a picture that she’d posted.

“She’s a divorced mom with two children,” Julia said as she read from the screen. “A boy and girl. It looks like she took back her maiden name after the divorce and works as a dental hygienist.”

Bethany had also pinned dozens of recipes on a board entitled Healthy Recipes That Kids Will Actually Eat.

She chatted online with a group of women about educational TV. And she belonged to another group that discussed dating after a divorce. It was all as Luis expected to find, except for one thing.

“She does a lot of searches for Darcy Owens,” said Luis, scrolling through her internet history that the wizards at RMJ were able to find.

“Do you begrudge Bethany her curiosity? After all, they’re cousins.” Julia leaned her elbow on the table. She was putting up a strong front, but Luis could tell—by the paleness of her skin and the dark circles around her eyes—that Julia was exhausted. More than that, someone had actually been in her home, violated her privacy.

“How’re you doing? This morning was intense.”

She touched the back of her head. “The bump doesn’t hurt at all.”

“You can take the day off, Julia. Nobody’d blame you if you did.”

“I took off enough time after what happened with the damn hand and my gut.” She shook her head. “Besides, we have to find out what happened to Tom Dolan. He deserves justice and the town deserves peace. I’m not going to let a bruise and a startle stop me from doing my job.”

“Fair enough,” he said.

Holding a tablet computer, Wyatt appeared at the door. “Marcus said you two were here.” He sat down and held out the computer. “I was going through the Darcy Owens file last night and I have a theory about our current killer.”

“You do?” Julia leaned forward. “What is it?”

“It’s simple, really. There were two things Darcy did with each of her victims. First, she left half of a ripped two-dollar bill in their wallet. But she also