Ignoring the freaked-out guy, Adeline carefully extracted the single white card from the envelope. The printed letters were not the usual MO since the perp had called in the order, but the words screamed out at her.
It’s time, princess.
38
Jackson County Sheriff’s Office
3104 Magnolia Street; 10:30 a.m.
The briefing had gone on too long. Adeline couldn’t sit here much longer. Cummings and Ferguson were sending some of their troops to assist with the search. Half an hour from now they would divide up into groups and begin. Couldn’t happen fast enough for Adeline.
Wyatt had attempted to get her to eat. She couldn’t. She just needed to focus on the investigation. To find Jamison. And make him pay.
“Detective Cooper.”
Adeline jerked to attention, scanned the faces around the table.
“I want you to know,” Detective Ferguson said via the teleconferencing system, “how deeply sorry I am for your loss. I’m certain it’s very difficult for you to continue assisting with this investigation.”
Cummings chimed in with a similar sentiment. Adeline managed a nod. “Thank you.”
The silence that followed closed around her, suffocating her. “I ...” She stood, sending her chair sliding backward. “I need to ...” She skirted the long conference table and rushed for the door. In the corridor she made a mad dash for Wyatt’s office. She needed to be alone for just a moment.
The breakdown was coming and she couldn’t stop it. To allow anyone to witness it ... she couldn’t do that. She couldn’t allow anyone to doubt her ability to continue being part of this investigation.
The secretary didn’t try and stop her as she twisted the knob and pushed inside Wyatt’s office. Adeline let the door close and sagged against it.
Her whole life, the one thing she’d been relatively certain of was who she was. Even when the bullshit had gone down over Gage’s death, she hadn’t once questioned herself as an officer of the law or as a woman.
She looked at her hands, turned them palms up and studied the lines there, then the veins beneath the pale skin of the backs of her wrists. She had no Cooper blood in her veins. She hadn’t gotten the blond hair and blue eyes from her great aunt on her mother’s side.
Her mother was dead.Murdered.
Because ofher.
Adeline hugged her arms around herself. She had no one. She was alone.
Wyatt’s image swam before her eyes.
No ... he ... they were over. Too much time had passed. He had a life. So did she. A life she would return to as soon as this was over.
She would go back to Huntsville and get her promotion. Her life would resume.
Her life? What a joke. How could she just pretend that nothing had changed?
Her mother was dead!
Adeline didn’t even know who she was anymore.
She pushed away from the door. Grabbed her courage with both hands. “Adeline Maureen Cooper.” She was from Pascagoula, Mississippi, where she had at least one shithook for a cousin and an old bastard of an uncle.
All that Cyrus had said whipped around inside her.
He had nothing to do with who she was. She was Irene and Carl Cooper’s daughter. A good cop ... if not a good daughter.
Stop. Letting herself go down that road would only hinder what she had to do. She would be okay. As soon as she took care of Jamison.Made him pay for what he’d done. A sob twisted inside her. She would be okay.
“Damn it.” She refused to cry again. “Suck it up, Cooper.”