Page 93 of Don't Say a Word

I flipped to the softball page, not expecting to find her; I didn’t.

But I found one name I didn’t expect.

Bradford, Kayla

What were the chances that Kayla Bradford was Coach Bradford’s daughter? She was a freshman the year Megan was a sophomore... I flipped to the later yearbook, and there she was, a sophomore when Megan was a junior. There was only one photo of Kayla in the second yearbook—her official school picture. She was no longer on the softball team, likely because she’d been shipped to South Dakota to live with her grandparents in January. She would have graduated high school this past May.

What were the chances that Kayla Bradford didn’t mean to saymy coachbut instead almost slipped and saidmy dad?

What if his own daughter turned Bradford in to the authorities?

Why had I jumped the gun and talked to Bradfordtoday?I felt like I’d royally screwed up. No way would he speak to me again.

I’d found a trail from Elijah to Coach Bradford when I wasn’t even looking for it. Yes, it was thin, and yes, I’d already decided to focus on Elijah’s Cactus Stop surveillance, but this was something I hadn’t expected.

As I drove home, I came up with a plan. I sent Tess all the names of the girls on the softball team from both years, and asked her to find out where they were now. Most of the girls overlapped: A couple seniors in the first book were not in the second, and there were a few girls in the second who weren’t in the first. I’d played softball for years, and there was always a core group that moved through together.

My phone buzzed. It was Harry, from the MVD annex.

“Hi, Harry.”

“What do you want?”

Always blunt and to the point.

“A Tesla owner.”

He snorted. “Tomorrow,” he said. “I was training this idiot today, fucking gave me a headache. There was nothing behind the eyes. Why they hired him I don’t know.”

I rattled off the number. “Thanks.”

“What they do?”

“Don’t know yet. I’m investigating a suspicious overdose death. Tesla may be involved, may not be.”

“Fucking drugs,” Harry said and hung up.

My sentiments exactly.

I called Jack.

“What’s up?”

“Where are you?”

“I just dropped Whitney and Austin off and am heading home.”

“What? Whitney again?”

“It was open house at Austin’s school.” Austin went to a Catholicschool in Avondale, near where Whitney still lived in the house that they’d bought when they were married.

“Oh.” I shifted gears, asked all the right questions about Austin and his teachers. He was in sixth grade now.

“Not one insult about Whitney, I know your heart is not in this conversation,” Jack said after a few minutes.

“Sorry. Yeah, I’m preoccupied. I really need to talk to Hitchner.”

“I reached out, he hasn’t gotten back to me.”