Free Stop at Nothing by Kate Serine Page A

serious. “Exactly why you need someone who’s got your back. Now, show me your findings. I want to see everything you’ve got.”

Chapter 6
    As early morning sunlight began to creep through the blinds in Abby’s study, Kyle pushed back from the desk and stretched his arms, arching his aching back. He’d been sitting in that damned chair for hours, paging through the information she’d compiled.
    God, she was brilliant. She might not be out in the field studying crime scenes and questioning suspects, but in just a few days she’d managed to sift through several years of incriminating evidence to bring a swift end to her brother-in-law’s nefarious partnership with Preston Whitmore.
    But obviously someone had beaten her to it when they’d apparently murdered Curtis Maxwell and texted Abby a photo of their handiwork.
    He turned his attention to the overstuffed suede easy chair in the corner of the room where Abby was curled up asleep, having finally taken his advice to get a little rest. She’d tried valiantly to stay awake as he read through her reports, checking her phone every five minutes on the off chance that she might’ve missed the next text from her sister’s abductor.
    But when he caught her nodding off for the fourth time, she’d given in and retreated to the chair with strict orders to wake her when he finished or if she received further instructions—whichever came first.
    But she looked so peaceful, so damned beautiful that the last thing he wanted to do was drag her out of what he hoped were pleasant dreams and into the stark, heartbreaking reality that her dead brother-in-law was an asshole of the lowest order and that her sister was now being held captive because of it.
    There’d be time to talk about everything and figure out a game plan after she’d caught some shut-eye and was thinking clearly again. And he could relate. His mind was mush. And his eyes were so grainy from lack of sleep that he wasn’t sure he’d be able to pry them open again once he finally closed them.
    He checked his watch. Half past the ass-crack of dawn. Awesome. Chances were that he’d be getting a call from Joe in a few hours to give him an update on the search warrant for the abductor’s cell phone provider.
    The fact that the number was from New Orleans had his spidey senses tingling in a big way. It was pretty damned coincidental, considering the case he’d just been booted from down in the Big Easy. Except he didn’t believe in coincidences.
    He scowled at Abby’s laptop as he shut it down, mentally going back through all the info he’d read. He hadn’t seen anything in the data linking Curtis and Whitmore to what had been going on in New Orleans, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to discount anything just yet. In fact, until he could rule it out, he was going to presume that the human-trafficking operation he’d been working to bust and the one Abby’s brother-in-law was running were somehow linked.
    The question now was how much to share with Abby. If he divulged even half of the shit he’d been on to down in NOLA…
    He shook his head, making the call and shoving his conscience aside for the moment. Abby’d be pissed as hell if she discovered he’d withheld information from her. But he’d have to risk it. There was no sense in making her worry even more about her sister. She was already teetering on the verge of a total meltdown. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that there was no way the abductors would kill Emma. Not a pretty, weak woman like her. Although after they finished passing her around to clients, forcing her to ingest enough drugs to keep her compliant, Emma would probably wish she was dead.
    He’d just have to make sure it never came to that.
    He rubbed at his eyes again, the raspy, burning sensation on his eyelids reminding him he couldn’t do shit without some