Page 37 of Silencing Stolen Whispers
The bottom drawer slid open smoothly, revealing her red leather purse. Technically, it was a shade between red and pink. He never understood the importance of distinguishing colors, but he had been corrected by many women that “sunset blush” and “strawberry daiquiri” were vastly different on the color wheel.
The leather was soft and well-worn, similar to the purse that Chloe carried around with her, though hers had decorative tassels and a pattern of small perforations along the edge.
Chloe, with her easy laughter and uncomplicated affection.
Chloe, who didn't carry the weight of something unspoken behind her eyes.
Shane shook his head, dismissing the comparison. Chloe was good for him. Safe. Present. His relationship with Kinsley had been intense but fleeting. A shooting star that burned out too quickly.
He leaned down and unzipped the main compartment of Kinsley's purse. He moved aside her wallet, a small cosmetic bag, and various other personal items.No white envelope.What he did find was a fork, one blue sock, and a wrapped lone granola bar that he was certain had been at the bottom of her purse for years. It was now as flat as a pancake.
Shane set his flag football belt on her desk before lifting the bottomless purse out of the drawer. How she found anything inside of it was beyond his comprehension. He moved the contents around once more before noticing the zippered inner pocket.
He hesitated before opening it, his discomfort at going through her personal items growing with each passing second. Alex’s words came back to him about Wally’s ire, and Shane sighed in resignation.
Alex was right.
Wally would be impossible to deal with if he didn’t get his raffle money.
Shane unzipped the pocket and slid his fingers in between the two rows of plastic teeth. He spotted the corner of a square envelope right away.
“There you are,” Shane muttered to himself.
Once he had the envelope in hand, he was surprised to find the material flat. Had Alex and Kinsley deposited the cash and written a check instead? Wanting to confirm that the contents were the raffle funds, he flipped over the envelope and peered inside.
There was no check.
No dollar bills.
Instead, a single sentence written in block letters stared back at him on cardstock paper. He read the statement three times.
I KNOW YOU KILLED CALVIN GANTZ.
He continued to stare at the words in horror, convinced he must have misunderstood them somehow. Yet the sentence stayed the same, and Shane suddenly fought the urge to sit down.
Calvin Gantz.
The Fallbrook Killer.
The man who had been acquitted of murdering three women despite overwhelming evidence, thanks to a technical error that had rendered key evidence inadmissible. The man who had disappeared almost two years ago, his absence barely noticed at first, before becoming the subject of quiet speculation among law enforcement. The man whose case had coincided with Kinsley's sudden withdrawal from Shane, and her abrupt decision to end their relationship.
He began to connect dots that he never imagined existed in the first place. George Aspen had been Gantz's defense attorney,and the acquittal had devastated the department. Hell, it had almost ruined Kinsley’s relationship with her father.
And then Gantz had simply... vanished.
No credit card activity, no cell phone pings, nothing.
It was as if Gantz had been erased from history.
What Shane held in his hand wasn’t some random threat. It was a very specific claim that aligned too perfectly with the timeline of their breakup. His lungs suddenly struggled to inhale oxygen.
The elevator dinged in the distance, jarring Shane back to reality. He quickly returned the card to its envelope and slipped it back into the inner pocket, zipping it closed with fingers that didn't feel like his own. He carefully arranged the purse to look undisturbed, not wanting Kinsley to have the slightest suspicion that he had been through her personal belongings.
As Shane was about to return her purse to its rightful place, he spotted another envelope at the bottom of the drawer. Kinsley must have taken out the raffle money with the intention of running it over to the morgue.
Shane hesitated before deciding to leave it where it was. It was better to make an excuse to Alex than risk Kinsley noticing both envelopes had been disturbed. Once the drawer was closed, Shane remained near her desk for a moment, unable to slow his thoughts.
Had Kinsley actually killed Calvin Gantz?
