Free Raven's Peak by Lincoln Cole Page A

look like a murderer.
    But, he now knew, looks could be deceiving.
    Not looking up, she pushed another plate of food toward him. It had bacon, eggs, and a piece of toast on it.
    “Eat.”
    “I’m not hungry.”
    “Wasn’t an offer,” she said, taking another bite of her toast.
    He picked up a piece of bacon and twirled it in his fingers. Just thinking of the grease in his stomach made him queasy. He dropped it back onto the plate and glanced at her again.
    “Wait a second, isn’t that my phone?” he asked.
    “Yep.”
    “Hey give it—“
    She looked up at him sharply. He stopped reaching and folded his hands in his lap. 
    “Uh . . . how did you get my passcode?”
    “Seriously?” she asked. “It’s the first four digits of your birthday. About as secure as a broken lock.”
    He wasn’t sure he wanted to ask, but he did anyway: “How did you know my birthday?”
    “I looked you up Monday,” she said. Haatim did some quick math. That would have been the same day he was first asked to check into her when he’d met George at the library.
    On Monday, he’d spotted her in a nearby park sitting on a bench. He only snapped a few pictures from his car on that day. He hadn’t even gotten close to her, so how the hell had she known he was tailing her?
    “Plus, every time you log on in the morning to check your email, you hold the phone up in clear sight of the window.”
    A flood of emotions hit him all at once. He couldn’t decide if he was disheartened that she’d known he was following her from that very first day or that she had been spying on him and he hadn’t noticed.
    Or . . .
    “Wait . . . I check my email in the bathroom.”
    She didn’t look up. “Yep.”
    “OK, OK, what the hell is going on?” he asked, flushing again. “Who the hell  are  you?”
    She hit the power button on his phone and slid it across the table to him. “Why didn’t you publish your article?”
    “Excuse me.”
    “You have plenty of evidence against me. Why didn’t you take it to the authorities or post it like George wanted you to?”
    “I wasn’t supposed to take it to the police. George was going to do that.”
    “Oh, come on. I saw the pictures on your camera. They would have stuck me with a restraining order if you’d shown them even a few of these. Maybe not enough for a conviction, but certainly enough to raise suspicion.”
    “I wanted to get an up-close picture,” he said awkwardly, “to post on my blog.”
    “Is that the only reason?”
    He paused. “Yes.”
    “You hesitated.”
    “Yes,” he repeated firmly. “You’ve been through my phone. Probably my laptop, too. You read the post I wrote. It’s almost ready to submit. I just needed a final picture for the front page and I was going to publish.”
    “And then you would give the photos to the authorities and have me arrested?”
    “Yes,” he said. Then his eyes widened as he realized what he had just said. “I mean no. No. No way. I wouldn’t turn you in. No. Probably not. Maybe. I don’t know.”
    “Relax,” she said. “You never would have made it that far.”
    He started to ask her what she meant, then decided against it.
    “In any case, you’ve pissed a lot of people off sitting on this evidence, and they decided to take it from you.”
    “What? Who?”
    “The people who work for the guy I just killed.”
    Haatim was silent for a long minute, having no idea what to say.
    “You’re wondering why I killed him.”
    “I…” he trailed off.
    “He was a sex trafficker and money launderer.”
    “Then shouldn’t the police deal with someone like him?”
    “I am the police for someone like him,” she said. “Sort of.”
    “The police don’t execute people.”
    “Trust me, George was already dead. In either case, when you didn’t give him the stuff he wanted, he decided to take it from you. Now that he’s dead, his people want to use it.”
    “It’s just some pictures. I didn’t even catch you doing anything