Read Online Don't Say a Word by Rita Herron - Free Book Online Page A

he and Jean-Paul would clear Antwaun, the anguish of his family made him feel raw inside. Antwaun was innocent.
    But he was not. If they knew what he had done, about the E-team and the missions they’d pulled off, about the woman who’d gotten caught in the middle and lost her life, it would kill them.
    So many secrets…Tell and you die .
    He wasn’t worried about dying himself, but he knew repercussions would spread to his family. Not just the pain of the truth about his last mission—their lives would also be endangered.
    When he left, he drove straight to Kendra Yates’s apartment to meet Jean-Paul’s partner, Detective Carson Graves. Kendra lived in a modest older unit on the fringes of Bourbon Street. The place had already been thoroughly searched and, as the police had reported, they found no computer or files. Damn. He wanted her research on the dirty cops. The furniture was a hodgepodge of antiques and crafty items that she had obviously picked up in the market. A few photos adorned the built-in bookshelf; one of her receiving some kind of journalism award drew Damon’s eye. He stared at the face in the photo, trying to reconcile the beautiful brunette with a heart-shaped face and deep-set eyes with the mutilated hand they had found, and his stomach revolted.
    â€œI can see why Antwaun was enthralled,” Jean-Paul commented.
    Damon nodded. He took a newspaper photo from the desk to have a reference when he asked around. Carson searched her bedroom, and Jean-Paul the den, finding a book planner the police and the people who’d ransacked the place had missed.
    â€œThere are a couple of names of contacts in here that I want to check out,” Jean-Paul said. “They may be informants, may have talked to her before she disappeared.”
    â€œThe police confiscated a toothbrush and hairbrush for DNA,” Damon said. “Jean-Paul, can you access the results of the trace evidence the police found?”
    Jean-Paul agreed and Damon thumbed through past issues of the papers stacked in the corner, searching for Kendra’s byline, hoping to find another story she’d written that might have landed her in trouble. But nothing jumped out at him. “I’m going to the newspaper office and pushing the publisher to tell us what he knows.”
    They agreed to check in and left Carson to finish searching her apartment.
    At the newspaper office where Kendra Yates had worked, Damon asked to speak with the head of the paper. Warren Allan, a middle-aged man with a bad comb-over, yellowed teeth from smoking and a jacket two sizes too small, gestured toward an orange vinyl chair. His desk overflowed with newspapers, clippings of various articles, bulging file folders, coffee cups, chewing-gum wrappers and an ashtray that looked as if it hadn’t been emptied in days.
    â€œI’ve been expecting you, Special Agent Dubois.” A small smile stretched his thick lips into a rubbery line. “In fact, I expected an entire fort of you by now.”
    Damon narrowed his eyes to slits. “Then I’ll cut to the chase, Mr. Allan. My brother is innocent. Someone is setting him up and I’m going to find out who it is.”
    Allan’s chair squeaked as he leaned back and steepled his hands. “Are you sure about that? Maybe you don’t know your brother as well as you thought.”
    â€œAnd you don’t know him at all.” Damon gritted his teeth. “Tell me what Kendra Yates had on Karl Swafford, and any tips she had on the possibility of corruption in the NOPD.”
    â€œYou really think I’m going to divulge that information?” His cheeks swelled with his chuckle. “I’m sitting on the hottest story to hit New Orleans since the Swamp Devil murders last Mardi Gras. And the murdered victim happened to be one of my own reporters.” He leaned forward, a menacing glint to his eyes. “I want the bastard who killed her to