Free Vengeance: A Reece Culver Thriller - Book 1 by Bryan Koepke Page B

gone well for him in the afternoon meetings at the federal building in downtown St. Louis. Special Agent Stephen Cox had appointed himself lead and Kendall was pissed. It had been the Missouri federal attorney’s idea to include the FBI in their investigation, and now they were taking over the case. He was no longer sure he’d be the chief prosecutor.
    Kendall opened his laptop, and while waiting for it to boot up, he went to the bathroom for a glass of water. When the cold water washed over the new crown in the back of his mouth, he made a funny face. He set the glass down a little too hard, enough to crack it.
    Returning to his laptop, he scrolled down a list of websites until he came to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. He went through a series of login screens until he found the directories he was looking for. It had been standard protocol for the CBI to run an extended background check on all of the personnel working in his office. He scanned the entries until he found the original folder for Crystal, dated September 23, 2007. He opened the folder and clicked on her file, looking for the list of relatives she’d provided.
    He found the heading Birth Parents and read the names Tracey and Owen Roberts. He stared at the names, thinking back to the meeting he’d just come from with the FBI. How many men named Owen Roberts lived in St. Louis?
    *
    Crystal splashed water on her face and glanced down at the skimpy black thong she’d picked for dinner, knowing the task ahead would be easy. The collar of her blouse was slightly crooked, so she adjusted it, lining up the red silk edge just above the black lace of her bra. With both hands cupping the undersides of her breasts, she pushed up. She stuck her plump lips outward, puckering at the mirror, and applied one last coat of restless red. Staring at the full-length mirror on the back of the door, she looked down at her bare feet and then upward to her forehead, then squeezed her buttocks tight, pulling in her stomach. The skirt she’d laid out earlier was sitting on the bed.
    The phone rang, startling her.
    “Hello.”
    “Crystal, it’s George. I’m down in the Clock bar. Will you come join me for a drink?”
    “Oh, okay, I was reading a magazine, but I guess so, George,” Crystal said with simulated hesitation. “I’ll be down in a few minutes.”
    Bingo. She hung up the phone, pulled the skirt off the bed, and stepped into it, looking sideways at the mirror. After taking a seat on the edge of the bed she slid her feet into a pair of three-inch black high heels. Crystal plugged the charger into the phone, clicked on the lamp next to the bed, and left for the big date that would compromise her boss for good.

Chapter Sixteen
    R eece was tired of chasing pavement and yearned to stretch his legs. He took the exit off the Mark Twain Turnpike and entered a neighborhood where the vast majority of the homes had plywood nailed over their windows. He soon spied Calvin Avenue, where Owen and Tracey Roberts chose to live on while raising their three children. He followed the directions he’d copied onto the lower half of his grease-stained McDonalds bag, past 1960s-era houses that looked like abandoned remnants after some toxic chemical spill.
    He parked in front of the house listed as 4867 Calvin Avenue. When he killed the car’s ignition, he was met by the howl of semis coming from the highway he’d just exited. It seemed like a horrible place to raise a family, but maybe the highway hadn’t been around then.
    Reece switched off the headlights and sat in the car with the doors locked. The street was pitch black, and he had a funny feeling about approaching the house. His cellphone buzzed on vibrate mode in the front pocket of his jeans. He pulled it out and answered.
    “Reece Culver Investigations.”
    “Reece, it’s your mother. Where are you?”
    “I’m parked on a residential street on the north side of St. Louis. Why?”
    “What are you doing