Read Online Never Fear by Scott Frost - Free Book Online

yet.
    â€œThere’s nothing here of any use,” I said and looked at them both. “What was it you wanted me to see?”
    Chavez motioned toward a brown envelope paper-clipped to the bottom of the folder.
    â€œTake a look at that.”
    I opened it and pulled out a faded arrest report. It was dated 1987. I started to run down the lines of information.
    â€œIt’s an arrest in a murder case,” Chavez said.
    My eyes stopped on the name of the suspect arrested.
    â€œThomas Manning,” I said.
    A mug shot was clipped to the back of the report, and I pulled it free and looked at the photograph.
    â€œThat’s my father,” I said, barely speaking above a whisper.
    I quickly began scanning the rest of the report. “It refers to the River Killer murders.”
    â€œI remember them,” Chavez said. “I made a few calls to refresh my memory. Three young women were murdered, their bodies left on the banks of the L.A. River.”
    â€œWhere on the river?” I said.
    â€œSame general location as your brother. The murders were never solved.”
    In my mind’s eye I saw the image from my dream the night before, only it wasn’t a dreamlike image anymore. It was real. I was a little girl staring at my father choking my mother.
    I felt a hand on my shoulder yanking me back to the present.
    â€œAlex, you okay?” Chavez said.
    I took a deep breath.
    â€œYeah, I’m okay.”
    â€œLook at the name of the counsel present at the questioning of your father,” Harrison said.
    I flipped to the second page of the report and found it in the middle of the page. “Gavin . . . He was my father’s lawyer.” I looked at Harrison.
    â€œYour father was released within hours of his arrest, no charges filed.”
    I tried to let the pieces fall together in my head, but all it added up to were more questions than I had started out with.
    â€œIt can’t be a coincidence that my brother was working for Gavin,” I said.
    â€œUnlikely,” Harrison said.
    â€œAnd if you carry that logic further, the fax my brother sent probably had something to do with this. One or both of them must have been looking for something to do with that case.”
    â€œOr looking for someone,” Harrison said.
    I couldn’t help but connect the dots that they had just laid out. My father had been questioned as a suspect in a serial murder case, and my brother died in nearly the identical place as the victims of that killer while working for the man who represented my father eighteen years before.
    â€œA serial killer, and the murders of my brother and an LAPD cop. And the one connecting thread is my father,” I said.
    â€œThat doesn’t make your father guilty of anything, Alex,” Chavez said. “Hell, you don’t even know if your father is alive.”
    â€œNo, but that’s why you called me. It’s probably what brought my brother and Gavin together, and now they’re dead, and so is a cop who saw this file and was thinking the same thing we are. One way or the other my father is at the center of this.”
    â€œBut how?” Harrison said. “Williams may also have just gotten a random hit on the name Manning linking your brother and father to the river.”
    â€œLAPD still considers your brother’s death a suicide, and the coroner is probably going to agree,” Chavez said.
    â€œYou think Detective Williams would agree if he could?” I said.
    â€œGavin still died in an accident.”
    â€œAnd the day my brother died, he tried to contact me for the first time in his life. There would have to be a pretty good reason for him to have done that, something that affected us both.”
    â€œYour father would be the logical reason,” Harrison said.
    I nodded. “But as what?”
    â€œOnly your brother knew that,” Chavez said.
    â€œNot only my brother—his killer knew,