Free Echoes of Murder (Till Death do us Part Book 2) by Cheryl Bradshaw Page A

morning, it wouldn’t be easy. He had to get rid of her, and dawn’s first light provided a golden opportunity. A door several away from his was ajar. He wasn’t aware whose room it was, and he didn’t care.
    So what if the body was found?
    Why should it matter?
    As long as it was somewhere else, it couldn’t be tied to him. Whoever the poor bastard was who found the unwanted surprise, surely he could convince the cops of his innocence. It was only after he secured Dakota inside the closet that Nathan detected the familiar scent of Evan’s aftershave. A kind of woody musk. More feelings of guilt set in. He couldn’t do this. It wasn’t right. But he had to. He was meeting Evan and Reagan in less than five minutes to search for Isla. There wasn’t time to come up with anything else.
    Nathan swapped out the lamp on the nightstand, closed the closet door, and left, making a pit stop in his own room to replace the now broken lamp with his. During this time, a new plan formed. A way to get Evan off the hook without implicating himself in the process. When Dakota was discovered, Nathan would say he saw someone enter Evan’s room the night before. A man. Someone that didn’t look like either of them. The plan was perfect. Now he just needed to find Isla, find some way to convince her too.  
    It was less than an hour later when Isla’s disfigured body was found. Only Nathan knew what had happened—that she’d died trying to get away from him, plunged off the cliff without even knowing it was there.
    She was dead.
    And he had no one but himself to blame.

CHAPTER 25
     
     
    Reagan knelt down, a bouquet of Isla’s favorite white roses in hand, the same flowers she bought every week. Using her fingers she brushed flecks of icy snow from Isla’s headstone until it was clean again. It was the least she could do.
    The last five months hadn’t been easy. She’d watched her brother confess, her mother break down in a childish tantrum inside the courtroom, and the town gossips chatter about her “tainted” family. An eccentric mother and a murderous brother. All the hoopla had Reagan considering how much easier life would be if she moved away again.
    But she didn’t.
    Her mother had stopped speaking to her, preferring instead to look past her like she didn’t exist whenever the two were in the same room. The last time they exchanged words, Sallie had called her the kind of names a daughter imagined weren’t part of her mother’s vocabulary. Of course, Sallie wasn’t an “average” mother, and Reagan was the farthest thing from her favorite child.
    The snap of hardened snow crunching beneath the weight of a heavy boot caused Reagan to turn. Evan. She placed the flowers below the center of the headstone and stood.
    “Hey,” she said.  
    “It’s good to see you.”
    “You too.”
    “How have you been?”
    “All right,” she said. “You?”
    “Same.”
    “I thought you were the one bringing her flowers every week.”
    “It’s not much, not even close to what she deserves. I … hope you don’t mind.”
    “Mind? Why would I?”
    “With everything that’s happened, I wasn’t sure,” she said.  
    “Is that why you’ve been avoiding me—why I never saw you in the courtroom?”
    “I never know when my presence will incite some kind of emotional outburst from my mother, so I figured it was best if I wasn’t there. Easier, you know? To see the pain in your parents’ eyes and know it was placed there by my brother, and nothing I could ever possibly say could remove it … it’s just easier for me to stay away.” 
    “It’s not your fault, Reagan. If it wasn’t for you, we may have never known what really happened. What you did—I can’t imagine how difficult it was—even if it was the right thing. Don’t you think they appreciate you for what you did—that I appreciate you?”
    “Your family has suffered so much pain,” she said. “I didn’t want to cause any more of it.”
    “You