Page 220 of Her Daddies' Everything

“She really was dead, right?” Abe asked.

“Oh, yeah, she was fucking dead,” Sampson said. “There was no way she moved on her own. Everything was gone. Lauren and her car. There was no sign that she’d ever been there.

“But . . . but how?” she whispered. “How could that happen? A car and a dead woman can’t just disappear!”

“Well, a random man dressed in black doesn’t just appear out of the trees to shoot a woman, then leave, either,” Tobias said.

“He didn’t just leave,” she said. “And I don’t think he was random.”

“What?” Jenner asked, glancing down at her. “What do you mean?”

“I didn’t get a chance to tell you guys everything,” she said, shifting around to find a better position to sit in. “Lauren said she was taking me somewhere, to meet someone, but she wouldn’t tell me who.”

“You think it was that guy?” Tobias asked. “The one who shot her? He was an accomplice? That makes some sense. He killed her, then got rid of the body and car as evidence so she couldn’t be linked back to him.”

“But who the fuck is he?” Sampson asked.

“And why did he leave you alive?” Abe asked.

“I don’t know if he was going to,” she said. “I’m not sure. He was walking toward me as you guys drove up. I’m surprised you didn’t see him. I think your headlights hit him, just briefly. But in the next second, he was gone. But . . . surely he had time to shoot me?”

“Yeah, he still could have shot you and disappeared,” Tobias said. “Maybe he didn’t want to kill you. Perhaps he had something else planned.”

“Like kidnapping her?” Jenner said in a stark voice. “The same as Maeve and Cat?”

Sampson started to pace.

“What is going on?” Abe asked. “They caught the copycat, right? Is this something else? Something unrelated to the copycat Deity and those Sentinels that kidnapped Maeve and Cat? I mean, Lauren is a woman. The Deity would never make a woman a Sentinel.”

“And she was angry about losing her job. If I hadn’t fired her would she have done this?” Jenner asked.

“Whoever this person in black is . . . he was the one calling the shots. Maybe he was using Lauren to get to Immy. Then Immy’s friend thwarted that plan. He was closeby or tracking them or something. Saw his chance, shot Lauren to get rid of her and was going to take Immy when we came along,” Tobias said.

“We need to track down this Dev,” Sampson said.

She shook her head, wincing as it throbbed. “Dev had nothing to do with it. And I don’t think he’d take kindly to you trying to track him.”

“Still going to go to that bar and see if he appears,” Sampson said. “A bar you should never have been at.”

She sighed. “Isaiah knew about it. Where is he?”

They all shot looks at each other.

“Fuck!” Sampson said. “Where is Isaiah?”

Fear filled her. “What if someone took him? What if this wasn’t even about me and it was all a ruse to get to him?”

“I’m going to the house,” Abe said.

“I’ll go with you,” Sampson said to him. “I’ll leave the truck here for you guys?”

“Thanks,” Jenner said. “Go and let us know what you find.”

She didn’t like this. “I want to go too.”

“Well, you’re not,” Jenner growled as Sampson and Abe left.

She gave him a shocked look.

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