Finding Tessa by Jaime Hendricks (good story books to read TXT) 📕

I’m also enraged. Maternal instinct is real.

The guttural sound that comes out of my mouth stuns me, especially as I leap up and attack a shocked Maribel, who doesn’t expect me to be free from the ropes. Before I know it, I’m on top of her, the gun goes flying backward, and my hands are around her throat, my nails digging into her neck. There’s so much blood around us, I don’t know whether I opened her throat or it’s just pouring out of me at an alarming rate. She screams a high-pitched scream, as much as she can muster while I attempt to strangle the murderer out of her. Her arms flail around me, and she reaches out and plunges her finger into my wound.

I don’t think the bullet hit anything vital, but it’s in my shoulder and it fucking hurts when she presses into it. I falter.

Now she’s standing above me, and punches me with all her might. I know how to take a punch, but she sends me backward and my head hits the side of the stone table. She scrambles for the gun and holds it on me.

“Fuck!” she screams, the gun slipping from her grip due to all the blood. “Don’t fucking move.”

I’m seeing stars anyway, Candy is barking from the office, and Maribel is pacing back and forth. “Fuck. Are you really pregnant?”

My shoulder is bleeding, and with all the torture I’ve been through in my life, this is the worst. “I am.”

Her voice cracks. “Drew is going to kill me.” She grabs her phone, yet she’s not distracted enough for me to make a move, which is impossible anyway. The pain is like nothing I’ve ever experienced, and I’ll pass out from dizziness if I attempt to stand.

She throws a rag from the kitchen at me. “Put pressure on it.” She dials and panic comes out of her mouth when the call connects. “Drew, I need help.”

Holy shit, she called that asshole. I only get one side of the conversation.

“I need help . . . I’m at Tessa’s, and baby . . . baby, I shot her. No, she’s alive. She’s pregnant . . . she needs help, who’s that guy you know up here? . . . Okay, I’ll bring her . . . a new one? Where is it? . . . No, I’ll remember . . . fine, just fucking tell me where it is . . . yes, 899 Centaur Parkway . . . yes . . .” She looks at me. “I will.” She disconnects the call and walks toward me. “Sorry about this. Well, not really.”

Her arm goes up, and the gun smacks down on my head.

36

JACE

“Maribel Lopez? Never heard of her,” Jace said. “Who the hell is Maribel Lopez?”

“That’s who rented the car that was at your house. The woman who said her name was Bella Johnson.”

“Well, who is she?”

“I have no idea. I’ll get my PI on this.” Robert sits at his huge mahogany desk and starts tapping into his computer. “This can break the case wide open. Once we find out who she is.”

“Tessa never mentioned her either.” Jace begged his brain to remember. Was that one of her sisters? No, he would’ve remembered that. Would he, though? Did she even tell him about her sisters? Twins. They were twins. Their names? Hell, could’ve been Jace and Candy for all he knew. Fuck! Why didn’t he know more?

“Is there anything you need me here for right now?” Jace said, working through the revelation. “Now that I have a name, I want to go home and see if anything like that sticks out in any of her stuff. I want to know who this Maribel is, why she wanted to come to my house and interview me, and why she changed her name and lied. This woman obviously knew Tessa. And Tessa knew her,” he said, thinking back to the very first night that Solomon came. He said Tessa knew the person and let her in, because otherwise Candy would’ve attacked.

Candy.

She went crazy when he let Bella in the house. Jace thought she was just being protective over a stranger, but fuck, why did he not trust his judgment? Something was wrong. He knew it. God, he wanted to kick himself. Why did he let that strange woman tour his house?

Fuck! She killed Rosita. She planted the earring during the tour. That’s how it got there! She called in the anonymous tip herself. Why would she kill Rosita?

He knew she had to have Tessa. Why?

Robert agreed that Jace should leave, so he did. Raced down to his car, paid the parking fee through the automaton, and sped home. A few times he thought he might get pulled over for speeding but didn’t care, although he should’ve. Murder rap sheet, and all.

When he pulled into his driveway, Evan’s car was there.

Jace was so thankful that, through all of this, he had Evan every step of the way. Friends to the end. Inside, Evan was on the phone, Candy at his feet. His eyebrows rose when Jace walked in early from his meeting with Robert.

“Jace, I got here as soon as Robert called me. They found—”

“Evan.” Jace cut him off. “Thanks, man. Thanks for coming so quickly.” Bro hug. Pat, pat. Things were looking up. “The fake reporter. Robert just got a call. The woman who rented the car was named Maribel Lopez.”

“I know. He texted me,” Evan said. “Who the hell is that?”

“I have no idea.” Jace looked around his home, in disarray again from the executed search warrant. “She planted that earring. I know it. I just have to find out how Tessa knew her.”

“I’m here. Whatever you need.”

And Jace knew that and was so grateful that his best friend of twenty-five years never faltered. He wished Tessa had someone like him in her life. At any point.

Unless this Maribel was always there, a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Evan