Slenderman by CeeRee Fields (best ebook reader for pc .TXT) 📕

“Rhys forced Rian to take Arabelle and hide in the woods and then went to confront the kidnappers.” Jo shivered at the memory. To discover Rhys hadn’t just been kidnapped but had been shot. It had killed her those hours she didn’t know if he were dead or alive.

“And when Rhys was taken, he was shot trying to defend us. I know, because if you remember Carl and I were taken along with Rhys. I was the one who helped stem the bleeding. Carl was the one who worked to distract Sharon, hoping for an opening so we could escape.” Maddy’s face paled the more she talked about that day. Then she shook herself and took a breath. “Give him time to wrap his head around yet another dangerous case where the killer is an unknown and loose on the streets. Let him slap up more outdoor security cameras to help protect all of you, and above all let him approach you when he’s ready to talk.”

Jo didn’t like waiting. She hated going to bed angry and would rather stay up hashing everything out. Her mother was right though. This case was shaping up to be like Gravedigger and Skinned in the complexity. With her normal cases they caught the killer within a few days, a week at most. The killers were usually someone the victim knew or had dealings with. Robberies were different and could be more challenging, but again there was always a thread. The smart robbers cased the places and then struck or the impulsive robbers who were high or desperate for cash. It didn’t matter who the killer was, Jo and her team caught them. Realizing her mother was right, she sighed. “Okay, I’ll try to have patience and let him come to me.”

“Now quit moping and help me find your wedding dress,” Maddy ordered, pointing toward the rack Jo had abandoned.

“Yes ma’am.”

“What do you think about this one?” Maddy lifted a dress.

Jo shook her head at the dress her mother held up. “Too much lace. I don’t want to scratch my way down the aisle.” Flipping through a few more dresses, she finally asked the question she’d been putting off asking for over a month. “Mom, do you think Pop would mind if I asked bio-dad to walk me down the aisle?”

Silence fell between them. Not even hangers dragging across the metal bars broke it.

“You don’t want Carl to walk with you?”

She gasped and swung around to face her mother. “No, I want them both to do it.”

Maddy came over and wrapped her arms around Jo. Her mother was almost the same height as Jo. There were so many similarities between them. Brown hair, though Maddy’s had more silver than brown now. Petite frames that everyone underestimated until they tangled with the two women. The only characteristic Jo took from her biological father was her eyes. The rest was Maddy.

“I think Carl would love that. He and Joseph have been going fishing once a month now that Joseph quit his government job. They both want to get to know each other.”

Jo stepped back to the plain dress section. She’d always thought her bio-dad was a hitman until after he retired. He finally told her he worked for the CIA but couldn’t go into details. Not that she wanted them but to know he worked for their government set her mind at ease and allowed her to grow closer to him. “Do they have fun?”

“Oh Lord, hon, they come in telling the biggest whoppers, so I’m going to say yes.”

“I used to resent that you named me after bio-dad.” Resent was a tame word for how Jo had felt. She had often thought of changing it after she turned eighteen but couldn’t quite make herself follow through, though she had filled the form out several times.

Maddy came to rest on Jo’s right her arm around Jo’s waist. “I know you did. I regretted it when you grew older and told me how much you hated Josephine, and it wasn’t like you wanted to use your middle name. As big a tomboy as you were no way would you ever go by Lavette.”

Jo leaned her head on her mother’s shoulder. “I don’t mind my name so much anymore.”

It had taken her a long time to let go of her anger at Joseph and her half-sisters. Not until Rhys came into her life had she begun to forgive Joseph for not being at the big events such as her birthdays, high school graduation, when she graduated from college, and then the academy. No celebration when she became a detective. The absence dug at her. Carl was a great substitute but growing up everyone had commented how she and Carl looked nothing alike. It was true. The only trait she had inherited from Carl was her love of police work. It was the one aspect of her personality she could point to and say ‘See, I’m just like Pop.’

Rhys however, had an opposing view. Yes, Joseph hadn’t been there for her birthdays or graduations. But he had been there at the life-threatening events such as saving her when Jo was five. Walking through a heavily guarded warehouse to pull her from a refrigerator where she would have died if not for her bio-dad. Then the man had killed anyone at that warehouse, protecting her as only he knew how.

Joseph wasn’t a kind man, he was more abrupt and harsh than warm and laid back like Carl. But when the chips were down, Joseph had always been there. During Rhys’s kidnapping, he had guarded Rian and kept him safe until Jo was able to do it. During the Gravedigger case, when Jo had given up hope of finding the guy pulling bodies from graves, her bio-dad had dug up a lead for them. And now, when Jo had mentioned the Slenderman case and how it tied with Rian, Joseph took more time out of