Page 78 of Incomplete
“Found you, you piece of shit.” I stared at the mugshot of a man with the same name. Both his prints and DNA matched the set I’d recovered from the U-Haul abandoned a few weeks back.
“What did you find?” Jaxon asked from his desk a few feet from mine.
“Anthony Montoya. This is the man we are looking for.” I held up his photo.
“Copy that. I’ll get a BOLO out, you work on getting a warrant to check his recent credit card history, and then we’ll do a deep dive into this SOB.”
I grabbed my laptop and moved over to his desk. After typing Anthony’s name in our central database, a list with multiple priors popped up: bribery, assault, assault with a weapon, and forceable confinement. All the charges were from years ago, with nothing following his release from time served. So either his nose was clean, or the evidence I’d found stacking up against him proved plausible that he had just gotten more creative about covering his tracks.
The problem with men like him was they're often driven by their ego, meaning it was only a matter of time before Anthony would slip up and overplay his hand.
Now it was time to call in a favor and hope to hell I wasn’t too late.
Chapter31
Lakelyn
My vision again fought to adjust to my darkened surroundings when I came to, but I sensed him even before he snaked a hand up my leg.
Anthony, my sister’s husband, had kidnapped me.
The panic that slithered up my spine painstakingly slowly held me paralyzed. I did everything I could not to let him know how he affected me. My personal space meant nothing to the man. Common courtesy was a luxury he didn’t afford me as his stale breath filled my nose and made me want to vomit.
The flashlight from earlier flickered on, and he looked at me with an intense sense of betrayal. I might have felt bad for him if I hadn’t suspected how vile he was. Instead, my heart bled from the glimpse into the horror that my sister had suffered at the hands of the monster before me.
“Why couldn’t you just know your role?”
My eyes widened. He had to know his question would go unanswered since he’d covered my mouth with duct tape, but he kept shouting at me repeatedly, pleading “why” before his eyes turned sinister. “But I should thank you for making it so easy to find you.” His hand gripped the rope bindings over my head and tugged harshly. “You’ve been a bad girl, haven’t you?”
My wrists burned, and I pinched my eyes shut before his fingers viciously dug into my jaw, forcing me to watch the venom swirling in his darkened orbs.
“Tell me you love me and not him.”
I wasn’t sure who he was referring to at that moment, but nothing he said made any sense. He was unstable, seemingly alternating between two realities with different personality traits. And I was trapped, powerless in the crosshairs, with no option but to play along.
“Tell me!” he yelled as he ripped the tape off my mouth, and a whimper of pain thumped loudly in my ears.
“I said, tell me, you bitch.”
“I don’t love him, I can’t—” I spit out in disgust.
“Yes, you do. I’m no one’s fool.”
“I don’t love Tyler.”
“I’m not talking about him. I’m talking about the cop you’ve been playing house with.”
“No.” My heart constricted with the lie on the cusp of my tongue. “I don’t . . . I don’t love him because I’ve always loved you.”
I tucked my lips between my teeth, fearful he’d unleash his wrath on Boden if I didn’t comply.
“No, you don’t.”
“I’m not lying.” I choked down my claim and cringed as the acid burned my throat in rebuttal. “I swear.”
He leaned over me nice and close. Close enough to send me into full-blown panic mode as his breath seared across my mouth, but far enough that he could still watch my reaction.
“Do you want to know how I know you’re lying? It’s because I killed my wife—” he calmly stated so matter-of-factly, as if he hadn’t admitted to murder like it was an everyday activity. “And you, my dear, are her twin sister. The one no one wanted.”
