Faceless (Sinister Secrets Book 2) by Candle Sutton (best motivational novels txt) 📕

completely overblown response in a situation like this.

Yet Noelle didn’t seem scared. Why?

Maybe she hadn’t thought that much about the logistics of returning to work. Of facing the spot where she’d been abducted.

Denial was a common response, too.

“I’m hoping you can give me a list of people who might want to see something bad happen to you.”

Shoulders tightening, Noelle pulled her legs in closer. “No one. I can’t think of anyone who would do this to me.”

“There’s no one who doesn’t like you?” Kevyn arched an eyebrow and smiled. “I wish I could say the same.”

“Well, sure. Not everyone is my friend. But I can’t think of anyone who would do something like this.”

“Any complaints at work lately? Guys who are too interested? Another yoga studio who is struggling since you opened your business?”

Noelle shook her head almost violently. “No. Nothing like that.”

“What about your dad? Can you think of anyone who might want to hurt him and might use you to do it?”

“No. Everyone likes…” Noelle paused, tapping her lower lip. “Well, I guess there was that engineer that he fired a few months ago. I mean, the guy went ballistic. Dad upped the security both at work and here because the guy was threatening to ‘do something.’”

Noelle’s fingers made air quotes.

Seemed a little tenuous, but it was a lead. “I’ll need his name.”

Noelle spelled it out, watching as Kevyn wrote it down on a small notepad. “And then there’s this guy from school. I mean, we went out a few times and it was fun and all, but it wasn’t going anywhere. I don’t think he figured that out until I broke things off after graduation.”

A jilted ex-boyfriend? Why had the business partner said there wasn’t one of those? “How long ago was this?”

“Last year. We graduated a year ago in May.”

Long time to plan revenge. Especially when it sounded like the relationship wasn’t all that serious.

Still, she jotted his name down anyway.

“Oh! And there’s this guy at my dad’s office who gives me the creeps. He’s always staring and stuff. I could totally see him doing this.”

Now they were focusing on a random guy at her dad’s office? The leads were going from thin to translucent.

Was Noelle providing names just for the sake of providing names? If so, why?

A few more potential suspects joined the three she already had and when she left the house, Kevyn had ten people to investigate.

Her gut told her none of them would be behind the abduction.

Hopefully she’d be wrong. Because if not, they were no closer to solving Noelle’s abduction – and possibly locating Jason Boggess and Wes Andrews – than they had been before.

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Dak looked around the room.

Lines creased Sid’s forehead and crinkled around his eyes. JD’s stocky frame appeared to have shrunk as the day wore on. Felicia’s brightly colored shirt was crumpled and her hair disheveled. Dark rings hung beneath Kevyn’s bloodshot eyes.

He probably didn’t look any better than his team.

It’d been a long and tedious day. A long and tedious week.

And now, at six p.m. on a Friday, they were all feeling the effects.

“Let’s keep this brief so we can all get home.” No one objected to his suggestion, even though he knew they were all thinking about Jason Boggess and Wes Andrews, who would not be going home tonight.

Maybe ever.

Still, if they ran themselves into the ground, they’d be of no use to anyone. They needed rest. Physically, mentally, and emotionally.

There was a reason God set the example of resting on the seventh day.

“Kev and I are still working through the list of Orson’s enemies.” Sid gestured to Kevyn, who sat in the chair adjacent to his. “Noelle’s list was pretty short and we got through that this afternoon, but Randall Orson’s list was longer. We’ve prioritized the list and are starting with the most promising leads, but nothing yet. It’ll probably take us all of Monday to get through.”

Not unexpected. “I take it nothing came from the list Noelle provided?”

Kevyn shook her head, her blond waves brushing her shoulders. “I would’ve been surprised if anything had. It was a pretty weak list.”

Not the good news he’d hoped to hear, but not surprising. He turned to Felicia. “How about Andrews’ patient list?”

The subpoena had come through yesterday and Felicia had spent all of today going through it.

“Nothing so far. Everyone seems to love him.” Felicia looked at the paper in front of her. “I quote, ‘He’s the best.’ And ‘I don’t know why anyone would want to hurt him.’ Oh, and my favorite, ‘You sure you’ve got the right guy?’”

“What about that one patient? The flirty woman?” It seemed like the most solid lead they’d gotten from Andrews’ employer.

“Well, she’s bitterer…” Felicia faltered. “Is that even a word? More bitter? Whatever. She’s pretty bitter, but she was at work during the abduction. She’s a news anchor, so there are lots of witnesses. Oh, and a recording.”

She could have hired it out, but that would be a pretty extreme reaction given that the woman had never been involved with Wes Andrews outside of her son’s care. “What did she have to say about the whole thing?”

“She claims that he came onto her. That he was more interested in flirting with her than treating her son.” Felicia shrugged. “Obviously not what he told his employer, but would he really admit to something like that?”

Probably not.

“Oh, and then she tried to pump me for information. Smelled a story and wanted to be the first to get in on it.” Felicia tucked her hair behind her ear. “I shut that one down right away.”

He would expect nothing less. He swiveled to JD. “Have the police made any headway on Orson’s abduction?”