Free forgotten (Twisted Cedars Mysteries Book 2) by CJ Carmichael Page A

her brother was leaving the big city and moving home to Twisted Cedars. She only wished he’d done it before their mother died.
    “I was motivated to get out of there fast. I had this old man living a few doors down from me—called himself Monty Monroe. He seemed pretty chatty whenever I saw him in the halls or out on the street, but I didn’t think much about it. A lot of old people like to talk when they get the chance.”
    True. But Jamie didn’t think her brother was the type lonely old people would tend to gravitate toward. But there was more to this, obviously.
    “Before I left for Oregon the first time, he offered to cat-sit for me. But on this last trip I found out the guy had an ulterior motive. He wasn’t being neighborly. He was stalking me.”
    She looked at him, alarmed. “Was he a crazy fan or something?”
    “I wish.” Dougal looked her squarely in the eyes. “He was our father.”
    Her heart thudded. Was it true? “But his name. You said it was Monty Monroe.”
    “I’m pretty sure he assumed the new identity after he broke parole and moved to New York.”
    “Did you recognize him?” She hadn’t been born when her father left, and Dougal had been little, but their mother had photographs. Not many, but a few.
    “No. He’d grown a beard and he was old, Jamie, really old. Plus, his body was shriveled with disease. He claimed to be arthritic and I don’t think he was faking it. He could hardly walk.”
    “So how did you figure out he was our father?”
    “When I went back to the city to pick up Borden, he’d moved out. Borden was okay, he’d left her with lots of food and water, but he also left behind a note that made it clear who he really was.”
    “Where is he now?” Her heart raced at the possibility that she might actually be able to see him, the father who had been entirely absent for all of her life. Was he really as bad as everyone said? But there had to be at least a kernel of goodness. After all, their mother had married him.
    Just as she had married Kyle.
    For as much as Jamie had come to despise Kyle since she’d found out the truth about Daisy, she wouldn’t classify him as evil. He’d been a good father to Cory and Chester. He had been loving to her. He wasn’t all bad.
    So maybe her father wasn’t either. Maybe there were extenuating circumstances behind the death of his second wife that none of them knew about.
    “I suspect he’s set himself up in another city by now, with yet another new identity.”
    “Why would he go to so much trouble?”
    “I wish I knew. He seems desperate for me to write a book that features him as some sort of serial killer of librarians. Maybe he’s just old and looking to establish a connection with me. Or maybe he craves the notoriety.”
    Dougal’s shoulders slumped. He looked so damn tired. But it wasn’t just a physical weariness, Jamie suspected. This fatigue seemed to go beyond muscles and bones, setting in to his very psyche.
    “He’s been playing me along for the last few months, Jamie. Sending me e-mails about some murders that occurred a long time ago.”
    “The librarians?” He’d been investigating the deaths since he came back to Twisted Cedars, with the idea of writing his next true crime novel about the case.
    “Yeah. I think it was his way of trying to connect to me, since I would never reply to any of his letters.”
    It made no sense to feel hurt that the father everyone kept telling her was a monster who had hurt her mother and murdered his second wife had never reached out to her. But feelings weren’t always logical, and that was exactly how Jamie did feel. Despite the fact that her father, from all reports, didn’t even know of her existence.
    “Did he really do it? Kill all those women?”
    “God only knows if anything Ed Lachlan says is true. I’m only telling you this now to warn you. In case he approaches you. I know you, Jamie. Given the chance, you would want to meet him and give him the benefit