Читать книгу Unbreakable - Elizabeth Norris, Elizabeth Norris - Страница 24

hat?” My voice is breathless. “How?”

“Officially, it was an accident,” Barclay says. “He was home alone, taking a shower. He slipped and fell, pulling the shower curtain down with him, and knocked himself out. The shower curtain clogged the drain and he drowned.”

And in case I hadn’t heard the skepticism in his voice or seen it on his face, he adds, “But it wasn’t an accident. Someone murdered him.”

I don’t disagree. It sounds like a scene from one of those bad Final Destination movies—too many coincidences lining up to equal an accidental death. Instead, I get to the point. “Who would do that?”

“I don’t know,” Barclay admits.

I open my mouth to offer my opinion, but then I stop and look at Barclay. He’s looking at me, waiting—expectant even. He obviously has a theory, and he wants to know if I’m going to come up with the same one.

I take a deep breath because I know that if I’m right, I might be about to dive into something huge. “When did it happen?”

“Both Eric and I wrote up our reports as soon as we realized this was human trafficking, not just one missing person,” Barclay answers. “Then we were excused from the case. I fought it. This case was huge for me, a career maker, but Eric told me to lay off the information, that he’d talk to the higher-ups.”

“And he did,” I say. I don’t like where I think this is going.

Barclay nods. “Two days later, Eric was dead and a report he supposedly signed with ‘proof’ against Ben was on the server. The order to find Ben and bring him in was issued.”

“That means …” My heart hammers in my chest, and I can’t say what I think out loud.

But Barclay knows what I mean. “Someone in IA is involved.”

Which would also explain the liability issue—Barclay was taken off the case because someone above him doesn’t actually want it solved.

Because Ben is a convenient scapegoat.