Read Online Girl of Rage by Charles Sheehan-Miles - Free Book Online

of…” Alex’s voice trailed off.
    Carrie leaned forward and spoke in a bitter tone. “Most of Dylan’s Army buddies are dead, and the ones who aren’t are in prison.”
    Bear grimaced. “Right. The shooting in Iraq.”
    “Afghanistan,” Carrie corrected.
    He nodded. “I’m gonna ask you a straight question here. Carrie, it’s your condo. Any idea how the drugs or cash got in there?”
    Carrie twisted her mouth a little, and Rachel stirred, grabbing at her with a tightly wound fist. “Someone planted it there. I guarantee you Andrea’s not mixed up in drugs.”
    “What about Dylan? I understand they had him on some pretty powerful painkillers after his injury.”
    Alexandra said, “Dylan doesn’t even drink. Much less do drugs.” For a quarter second longer than they should have, Carrie’s eyes locked on Sarah’s. Then she looked away.
    Alexandra was fooling herself if she didn’t know Dylan was drinking again. Carrie had seen it in the furtive movements of his eyes, in the tension in his body when he was near Alexandra, in the slight shake of his hand. From Sarah’s expression, she knew it too. All the same, while Dylan may be drinking again, he certainly wasn’t dealing massive quantities of drugs. She didn’t know where the drugs in the condo had come from, but it wasn’t Dylan Paris.
    “All right,” Bear said. “So they didn’t come from Dylan, and Andrea had literally just arrived in the country. And we know she had nothing, because she was kidnapped off the plane and her things were examined and catalogued before they were returned to her. Had anyone else been in and out of the condo?”
    Carrie shrugged. “Not in the last week. Family. My father. The nanny. And a bunch of people from Diplomatic Security.”
    “Does the name Ralph Myers mean anything to you?”
    It wasn’t familiar, and Sarah also shook her head no. But Alexandra spoke up. “Isn’t he one of the guys on your team? He asked me some questions about Columbia. Yesterday? I think so. It’s all jumbled together.”
    “Where was he? Where were you?”
    Alexandra closed her eyes and thought. “Carrie was out, gone to see Dad. Andrea and Sarah were at the doctor. Must have been yesterday.”
    “Where was Dylan?”
    “Out on the deck reading a book. We’d … we’d had an argument. Anyway, Ralph said he was on duty and was just curious about how Dylan and I met. He’s a nice guy.”
    Bear frowned. “He was a nice guy. He’s dead now.”
    Carrie flinched, and for just a second she felt a flash of irritation at Bear. She knew it was irrational. But she couldn’t stop herself.
    “The attackers killed him?”
    Bear shook his head. “No, as best we can tell, Dylan Paris did. Myers was one of the attackers.”
    Alexandra gasped, and Carrie’s irritation at Bear shifted to anger. “Mr. Wyden, do you think you can consider—”
    “No. I need to know,” Alexandra said. “What happened?”
    Bear sighed. “We’re still trying to reconstruct the events, and some of it I can’t talk about. But as best we can figure, when the attack came, Andrea went over the side of the balcony, and Dylan stayed to ambush the attackers.”
    “Andrea did what?” Carrie asked.
    “She tied a blanket to the balcony rail and used it to swing down to the floor below, then smashed in their sliding glass doors and let herself out on the 19 th floor.”
    “Badass,” Sarah murmured.
    “And what happened after that?”
    “The shooters killed Mick Stanton, and wounded Leah. Once she was down they busted open the door to the condo. As best we can tell, Dylan was hiding behind the door—he took down one right there, and the other one in the living room.”
    Carrie said, “He took them down?”
    “The evidence seems to indicate he stabbed them with kitchen knives.”
    Alexandra gasped and covered her mouth.
    “At that point,” Bear said, “it’s not clear what happened next. He had blood in his shoes—it looks like he went into Andrea’s