Chapter 4
The next afternoon, at the FBI field office in Los Angeles.
Anna limped through the glass doors, wearing a pristine Chanel suit and carrying a thermos.
Jack immediately shot up from his desk and rushed over to support her weight.
"What happened to your knee?" he demanded, his voice tight with anxiety as he stared at the red scrape.
Anna's eyes welled up with tears, and they spilled perfectly down her cheeks.
"I ran into Lia downstairs," she whimpered, biting her lower lip like she had been horribly wronged. "I just wanted to say hi, but she shoved me..."
Sniffling, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a dusty sapphire pendant.
"She threw this at me. She said she never wants anything to do with you again, and to stop looking for her."
The moment I saw that pendant, my soul convulsed.
It was the only thing my mother had left me.
In that abandoned warehouse, Anna had stood in her heels and laughed as she violently ripped it from my neck.
And now, she was using my mother's relic to smear my name in front of my own brother.
Jack stared at the pendant, the vein in his temple throbbing.
He snatched his phone from his desk, jabbing the screen with brutal force.
"That ungrateful little—" he hissed through clenched teeth, his eyes blazing. "I'm dragging her in here today, and she's going to apologize to you on her knees."
Tom marched over, grabbed Jack’s wrist, and snatched the pendant away.
"Jack, cool your head." Tom stared at the sapphire, his voice dropping to a grave octave. "This is her mother's pendant. Lia doesn't even take this off to shower."
He looked up, his eyes piercing Jack. "There is no way in hell she just threw this away."
Jack yanked his arm free and let out a harsh scoff. "She's selfish enough to do anything just to piss me off."
He hit the dial button and slammed it on speakerphone.
"Listen to me. She's going to pick up," Jack glared at Tom. "And when she does, I'm going to make her drag herself in here and explain this."
The phone rang. Ring. Ring.
Hiding behind Jack, Anna’s lips curled into a barely noticeable, wicked smirk.
A few seconds later, the line actually connected.
Jack leaned into the phone, his voice a vicious bark. "Lia, get your ass to my office right now! You put your hands on Anna? Have you lost your damn mind?!"
Silence hung on the line for two agonizing seconds.
Then, a gruff, strictly professional male voice came through the speaker.
"Agent Harrison. This is the Captain of the Crime Scene Investigation unit."
Jack froze. The rage on his face turned to pure confusion.
"What? Why do you have Lia's phone?"
The wail of police sirens bled through the background of the call.
"We just located the primary crime scene for the serial dumping case," the Captain's voice echoed clearly across the bullpen.
"We found this phone lying in a pool of blood."