Page 3 of The Hunter

He shrugged, fully facing me. “You’ve been…off.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re full of shit.”

Gideon and I had known each other since we were teens. Survived the same hellish foster home where we learned we could only count on each other. He knew me better than anyone. And he could tell I wasn’t here for New Year’s small talk and toasts.

“I was right,” I said quietly.

“About?” He arched a single brow.

“Sarah. She didn’t commit suicide.”

I lifted my glass and let the scotch burn a path to the pit of my stomach, hoping it would cauterize the wound I’d been carrying for months. A wound I couldn’t see but felt every time I breathed.

Gideon turned to face me fully now, his expression sharpening. “How do you know?”

“I reached out to her brother.”

His spine straightened, and he narrowed his gaze at me. Gideon was also one of the few people in my life who knew about Sarah. He’d been there for me every step of the way.

When I learned my high school girlfriend was pregnant.

When she made the decision to give the baby up for adoption.

Then when I came home from the hospital after we let her go.

Regardless, I never stopped keeping an eye on her… At least not since I hacked into the adoption records to make sure she had the life we envisioned for her.

And she did.

She had everything we never could have given her. Comfort. Love. Happiness.

So when I learned she’d supposedly committed suicide while staying in some luxurious hotel suite in Santa Monica, it didn’t sit right with me. I may not have known her well — or at all,really — but I knew she didn’t commit suicide. Call it instinct. Call it intuition. It didn’t matter how I knew. I just did.

But after months of being unable to confirm my instincts any other way, I knew I had to do the one thing I swore I wouldn’t.

I got in touch with Sarah’s adoptive brother, Lucian.

“What did he have to say?”

“He mentioned she’d met someone during her travels. He didn’t know much, just that he was older and that his name was Victor. Apparently, he told all of this to the cops, but they didn’t pursue it because they’d already ruled it a suicide. But considering her body was found in a suite of one of Victor Kane’s hotels…”

“You think it was him,” Gideon finished.

“Iknowit was him.” I clenched my jaw, willing the fury back under the surface. “She was found in one of his hotels. Alone. Autopsy said suicide. Sleeping pills. No signs of struggle. No forced entry. But nothing about it adds up.”

“You think he killed her to cover up the affair?”

“He’s got a curated reputation that’s polished to a goddamn shine. A scandal like this would ruin him.”

Gideon’s brow furrowed. “Are you sure you’re not letting your emotions cloud your judgment here? So what if her body was found in a hotel that Victor Kane owns? It’s not exactly a smoking gun.”

“I know it’s not. Which is why I did more digging.”

I looked toward the living room where Imogene and her best friend, Melanie, currently sat huddled together on the couch, probably picking out baby names.

“I traced a donation,” I began, stepping closer to Gideon and dropping my voice. “One of Kane’s subsidiaries sent a payment to a nonprofit connected to Robert Alba.”