Page 63 of Upon Blooded Lips (Vengeance #1)
SPECIAL AGENT SUSANNAH GERHARDT
“ S usannah, Agent Manning wants to see you,” Jessica says from my doorway.
“I wonder what I did now,” I grumble, sliding my suit jacket on and following her out of the room.
“You didn’t hear it from me, but I think it’s got something to do with David Harrison’s niece.”
My throat tightens, and I school my features. Oh god, did she come across the post I made in the newspaper? Fuck. I’m about to be fired, aren’t I?
“Thanks, Jess,” I murmur, turning down the hall toward the assistant director’s room. When I arrive at her office, I straighten my jacket and blow out a breath before knocking.
“Come in.”
Sweat lines my palm as I push open the door and step inside. Agent Manning sits behind her desk and gestures for me to take a chair across from her. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I’m screwed.
“So your trip to Brazil was a bust, I take it?” she asks, leaning her elbows on her desk.
“Yes, ma’am. We weren’t able to trace David beyond his exit from the airport.”
“That’s unfortunate. With the wealth of evidence you found in his house, I was hoping to see him prosecuted.”
“Me too, ma’am.”
“That’s not why I called you in here, though. I received an interesting letter this morning from Presley Harrison.”
I sit up straighter, my brows furrowing. “Isn’t she in a psychiatric hospital?”
Agent Manning nods. “She is. And this letter, while mostly containing the scribblings of a disturbed mind, includes some serious allegations we need to look into. It’s possible they’re a figment of her imagination, but I can’t, in good conscience, dismiss them without looking into it.”
“I understand. May I ask what it says?”
She pulls out the letter and smoothes the lines out.
Even from here, I can see the underlined words, bold writing, and drawings etched along the edges.
“She claims her daughter, Tessa Harrison, killed Robert, arranged her incarceration, and fabricated the evidence that led to your interest in David.”
I huff a laugh. “Wow. Those are quite the claims.”
“Indeed. She also says that Tessa didn’t go missing at all.
Rather, she’s living with her cousins on some estate just outside Willowmen.
” She points to the letter. “There’s an address here.
I’d like you and a couple members of your team to clue Sheriff Calloway in on this and go out to the property to check it out.
It’s probably nothing, but if the girl is there, I’d like to question her.
Or at least get her off the missing persons list if she isn’t, in fact, missing. ”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I stand and take the letter after she dismisses me, nibbling on my bottom lip as I head back to my office, closing the door behind me. I lean my back against it and rub my temples. My job is still safe, but what the fuck am I supposed to do about Tessa now?
The small motorcade of two FBI cars and two patrol cars rolls down the private road, pausing outside a set of open gates with brick pillars on both sides.
My hands tighten on the steering wheel, my gut screaming at me to turn back.
Ignoring it, I continue down the expansive, tree-lined driveway, the car practically crawling along the blacktop while tendrils of dread spread through me.
The trees thin and a sprawling house reminiscent of the one from Home Alone comes into view. Something flutters in one of the upper windows, and I squint up at it, but I can’t tell if it’s a curtain blowing in the breeze or someone watching our approach.
The car bumps over something, and time seems to stop as an explosion rips through the air.
The blast rocks the car, and I stomp on the brake, the agents behind slamming into my bumper, pushing me toward what’s left of the house.
A secondary, smaller explosion erupts, turning the garage into a pile of rubble.
Broken glass litters the driveway and front lawn while smoke and flames pour from the blasted-out windows.
I climb out of my car on shaky feet, my hand trembling as I push a strand of hair out of my face. My blood chills at the destruction laid out before me. If we’d been a hundred feet closer to the house…
“Agent Gerhardt, are you okay?” Agent Kim says, hurrying over to me.
“I’m fine,” I say, gaze still locked on the destruction before me. “Call the fire department. Let’s hope no one was inside.”
“Thank you, Dr. Contreras,” I say before hanging up. My eyes fall closed, and I swipe a weary hand over my face.
Tessa’s dead.
I push my chair back and walk over to the windows, pressing my forehead against the cool glass.
After firefighters put the blaze out and cleared the house for entry, the fire investigators went in and found the remains of three bodies, two male, one female.
There was enough viable DNA to test, and Dr. Contreras confirmed that Tessa’s body was one of the three.
One male is indeed Presley’s nephew, but the other is a mystery, since his DNA didn’t match anyone in the database.
The whole thing is a mess.
Did Tessa run to her cousins for help? Was she involved in her father’s suicide? Or did Presley have something to do with her death and sent us out there in the hopes the blast killed us in some kind of revenge fantasy?
It’s too bad I’ll likely never get the answers to those questions.
With a sigh, I head to my desk and place Tessa’s file into a box, glancing one last time at a few of the pictures. Tessa lying on a bed on her birthday. Presley in the room where her daughter is chained to a wall. A bloody kiss mark on a mirror.
I place the lid on the box and shelve it, my heart breaking for a girl who never got the chance to live.