The Kay Sister Read online

  LEVI

  FULLER

  A Suspense Mystery Thriller

  The Kay Sister 2

  ALSO BY LEVI FULLER

  ALMA NOVELS

  Sound of Fear

  Eye of Fear

  Vision of Fear

  Taste of Fear

  Game of Fear

  ISLE OF BUTE NOVELLAS

  The Scent of Bones

  The Secret of Bones

  The Unburied Bones

  The Missing Bone

  Hide The Bones

  LUKE PENBER NOVELLAS

  Bend The Law 1

  Bend The Law 2

  Bend The Law 3

  Bend The Law 4

  Bend The Law 5

  NANTAHALA RIVER

  The Reticence 1

  The Reticence 2

  The Reticence 3

  The Reticence 4

  The Reticence 5

  TURQUOISE VALLEY

  The Kay Sister 1

  The Kay Sister 2

  The Kay Sister 3

  The Kay Sister 4

  The Kay Sister 5

  AUDIO BOOK

  Sound of Fear

  Eye of Fear

  Copyright ©2021 by Blue Scallop Digital LLC. – All rights Reserved

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2021 by Blue Scallop Digital LLC. – All rights Reserved

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

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  Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

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  1

  Three days. It had been three days since Lucia had vanished with no real explanation. Their best guess was that she had gone across the border into Mexico. Most of her clothes were gone, as was their biggest suitcase, but the car was still parked in the drive. For a whole day, Rosa and Camelia had sat inside their house, every noise bringing with it the hope that Lucia had returned. By the second day, Camelia had decided to use her default survival mechanism. Pretend that nothing strange was happening and keep as busy as humanly possible. So here they were, walking through the town they had been born and raised in, but stopped really belonging to the day their father was found murdered and buried in Turquoise Valley Golf Course. Rosa kept her eyes dead ahead, but couldn’t stop her ears from picking up the sounds that followed them. The town was like a forest caught in the wind, all the people whispering like shifting leaves whenever Camelia or Rosa walked by.

  Rosa refused to acknowledge the words as she walked with her younger sister. Camelia’s chosen course was to keep volunteering at the mission center their local pastor ran. Still, she did not have the courage to walk into town alone. So Rosa accompanied her, jade eyes tight, hands tense.

  “Welcome,” Pastor Ian smiled, waving them forward as they entered the plot of land where both his church and mission stood. His brown eyes, usually warm and accepting, flashed with reprimand as he scanned the locals who had stopped on the sidewalk to whisper behind their hands. They dispersed rapidly, and he sighed. “It will pass.”

  Rosa swallowed a rueful laugh as Cam shot her a glare.

  “It would end faster if we could tell them something, anything.”

  Rosa gave her sister a kiss. “I’ll look into it, okay?”

  Camelia sighed, then looked at Pastor Ian. “So what am I doing today?”

  He smiled at her enthusiasm and then pointed her towards the mayor’s wife, who was doing her annual bit for charity. “I think Mrs. Goodwin could use a partner in crime.”

  She blushed furiously at his wink, then rushed off towards Cathrine Goodwin, who gave her a friendly smile in greeting. Rosa nodded to herself and turned to leave.

  “Rosa,” Ian called her back.

  “Yes, Pastor?” she asked, sweeping her midnight braid over her shoulder and trying to look polite rather than annoyed.

  He seemed able to read her thoughts and suppressed a smile. “Camelia is right. If you know where Lucia went and why you should say so. It doesn’t even need to be a big announcement. Just let the right people overhear you, and it will spread like fire and stop all this gossip.”

  Rosa felt her lips tilt in a half-smile. “I’ll bear that in mind. I’ll collect Cam later.”

  “I could drive her home. I don’t mind.”

  She looked back over her shoulder. “No need. Thank you.”

  Rosa stepped back into the blinding sunlight and worked to shut people out as she moved through her morning, purchasing some real food from the store and starting her walk home. She wanted to talk to Mark, but his duties as the town’s coroner and forensic analyst kept him too busy. The FBI had wanted a full interview to go over everything again, including the new corpse and anything else they had taken as evidence.

  Makes sense seeing as it was one of their own.

  “I get why you’re ignoring everyone else, but why do I get the same treatment? Does being your best friend for the last 27 years count for nothing?”

  Rosa brought herself back to the present and turned to look at her friend since birth. Ella gave her a broad smile, showing her that no real offense was taken, her strawberry blonde curls bouncing as she stepped closer.

  “Sorry El,” Rosa said, linking their arms continuing towards Rosa’s home.

  “No problem. Can I help with anything?”

  Rosa shook her head. “I don’t suppose that new boyfriend of yours would be willing to see if she crossed the border?”

  Ella pursed her lips. “They won’t tell you?”

  “No,” Rosa said, anger in her tone. “They say that since I am not her spouse nor a member of law enforcement, I have no right to view their records.”

  Ella shook her head. “What about asking the Sheriff?”

  Rosa turned to face Ella, the sun making Rosa’s eyes glimmer like pale emeralds. “I did. He said that as Lucia is a legal adult and there was no sign of a struggle, he can’t do anything.”

  Ella fell silent, and Rosa pressed her lips together. She still hadn’t figured out where the third clue was.

  She dances on the turn of the crescent moon. Rosa recalled the words, her hand moving automatically to the heavy seal in her pocket. If she was honest with herself, it was because she didn’t want to know what other family secret Lucia had been guarding and had now meant to entrust to her. She was already implicated in harboring two illegal immigrants.

  Her mind jumped to her aunt and cousin. She wondered if they had already heard the news, isolated as they were at the moment. How was she supposed to help them get their papers? That had always been Lucia’s job, her risk alone. That way, Rosa and Camelia could claim ignorance and be free of most of the legal ramifications if they were caught.

  She shook her head, not really listenin
g to Ella’s attempts to distract her. Why would Lucia cross the border, when their mother had been adamant that they were never to do so? Her mother had told them that the family in Mexico saw them as traitors. Traitors who had given up on the family business, their ties, their very identity, to remake themselves over the border. Was that a lie? Or had Lucia not crossed the border at all? She could have gotten a lift to somewhere else.

  But no, then why would she have mentioned breaking her promise to mom?

  Unless it was another promise. Rosa groaned at all the unanswered questions, and Ella gave her a lopsided smile.

  “You’ll figure it out,” she said, knowing her well enough to guess she had just failed at unraveling some mystery. “You always had a keen mind.”

  Rosa gave her friend a small smile in return. “Thanks. I only hope I am patient enough to figure it out.”

  Ella laughed. “Ah, yes. Patience. Not one of your better-honed skills.”

  Rosa rolled her eyes but felt a smile tug her lips. Ella’s cajoling finally eased the burden pressing on her heart and filling her mind with circular arguments.

  “You might want to keep your distance from her, Ella.”

  Rosa froze, and Ella hissed under her breath.

  “Mind your own business Frank,” Ella said, tuning slowly and tossing her curls over her shoulder.

  Rosa kept her eyes on the ground, the dispelled weight returning full force, seeming more eager than ever to crush her.

  “Come now, Ella, there’s no need to be rude. Our families have been neighbors for generations. I’m only trying to help. I know my parents and yours would hate to see you dragged down by the wrong kinds of associations.”

  “You want to help, Frank? Then shut your trap,” Rosa said, her voice like a whiplash, her eyes flashing to his face.

  Everything about him seemed to piss her off, from the wavy brown hair to the sunburnt cheeks, pointed nose, and the eyes that sat too close together.

  Frank Connor turned his dull eyes on her. “You got a problem with the right to free speech, Rosa? I say you and the other Kay should leave town while you can. We all know your mother did in your father and fled,” he said, his eyes flashing over the growing crowd with malicious pleasure. “Now it looks like dear Lucia followed in her footsteps.”

  Rosa felt her anger crackle through her bones. Feeling it so keenly after twelve years of near-total numbness was overwhelming. Ella’s hand tightened on her arm, and she bent her head close.

  “Don’t rise to it. That’s what he wants,” she breathed, her eyes darting to the side.

  Rosa followed the glance from under her long lashes and saw that Mayor Goodwin had joined the crowd, his mouth pressed into a thin line. Everyone knew that the Mayor was easily swayed by public opinion. He would say and do nasty things if the majority wanted it. Popularity was his life’s blood.

  Rosa gave Ella’s hand a gentle squeeze and unlinked their arms. “I’ll see you later.”

  Walking up the street alone, Rosa kept her spine stiff, feeling the eyes that continued to bore into her back. It was time she stopped giving in to a vain hope that Lucia would show up. Lucia wasn’t coming back to spare her whatever ‘baton’ she had meant for Rosa to pick up, not even bothering to tell her what that entailed. Lucia had left them with nothing but cryptic clues and the growing hostility of the town.

  2

  Dr. Mark Fell ran a hand over his light brown hair and turned his blue eyes on the FBI agent watching with a gaze intense enough to make him feel like he was on trial for murder.

  “What do you mean there’s no trace evidence, Dr. Fell?”

  Mark gave Agent Reis a long stare. “Exactly what you think it means. All traces of hair follicles, fingerprints, and bodily fluids belong to the victim. These natural finds, soil, insects, and such are all native to here and are commonly found in the golf course. As he was there a few days, their presence is not unusual. His wounds were all cleaned postmortem, in my estimation. There’s nothing to find.”

  Agent Reis pinched the bridge of his nose, his vivid red hair looking like magical fire under the bright fluorescents. “Did you go through his internal organs?”

  Mark’s eyebrow’s scrunched together. “No. I checked his heart, to confirm the cause of death. His manner of death did not give any reason to look into his other organs beyond a survey to verify that he was otherwise in excellent health.”

  Reis muttered something under his breath. “Then go through them now. I need you to establish a proper timeline, Dr. Fell. I need to know how long he had been here for before his death.”

  Mark bit back a despairing laugh. “And how do you propose I do that, Agent Reis? I cannot see any way his internal organs could possibly tell me about the length of time he had been back over the border.”

  “There must be some lead you can give me, damn it!”

  Mark sighed. “I can confirm that the knife used for this murder is the same one that took Henry Kay’s life.”

  Reis’s honey-colored eyes snapped up to his again. “What?”

  “Blades usually have microscopic defects, even when brand new—traces leftover from how and when they were made. Over time and with use, other distinctive marks might appear, such as knicks and dents. When…”

  “Get to the point already, Dr. Fell,” barked Agent Reis.

  “I went back over Henry Kay’s report, just like you asked. My predecessor noted damage to the heart muscle along the incision. I noted the exact same damage to this victim. Three of the five things noted are manufacture marks, meaning as the blade was likely bulk cast in a factory, all blades from the same batch would have those marks. The final two are unique. One would be a dent, often caused when a blade hits something solid. The other is a type of scratching, again likely caused by contact with something hard. Both defects are usually found on butcher’s instruments.”

  “Butchers?”

  Mark nodded, feeling the same wave of grim realization wash over him again as it had when he had first made the find before he’d even looked back into Henry Kay’s file. “Butcher’s blades routinely get damaged by the bones in the meat they cut. On the blade in question, which seems to be a hunting knife judging from the radius of the wounds, the gouges are all in the same location, and relatively deep.”

  “I can tell from your tone that that is supposed to mean something to me.”

  Mark smothered a smile. “It means that they were caused by repetitive motion,” he said, then elaborated when Reis still looked blank. “It means that someone was learning their trade, learning to stab upwards, under the sternum and directly into the heart. There were no flakes left from the knife, showing me that the damage is relatively old. My predecessor found none either, meaning the skill had already been learned by then.”

  “Okay. So you’re telling me that there should have been a lot more than just two bodies found with stab wounds directly to the heart?”

  Mark gave a grim nod. “Yes. Also, I’m not sure how many people we are looking for.”

  Reis raised his eyebrows. “Come again?”

  “The learning marks. There are two different patterns. One leftward leaning, one rightward.”

  Reis frowned. “Couldn’t the same perp merely have been learning to use the blade effectively in both hands?”

  Mark shrugged. “I suppose we can’t discount that possibility. There’s no real way to determine the age of the marks without the actual object.”

  Reis sighed and shook his head. “I want you to run a blood screen on Agent Monterra. Look for these substances specifically, but do a wide sweep anyway.”

  Mark took the offered paper and nodded. “I’ll have this to you by the end of the day.”

  Reis raised an eyebrow and chuckled. “I guess there is an upside to being in a one pony town. You have plenty of time to devote to this.”

  ****

  Agent Reis stepped into the house he and Agent Boone were occupying while they were investigating Carlos’ death. Gabriella
looked up as he entered the dining room turned ops base. Her long white-blonde hair had been pulled up into a messy ponytail and her deep blue eyes had dark circles under them, telling of her desire to have this case over with quickly.

  “Did the good doctor tell you anything useful?” she asked as he clicked the coffee machine on.

  “Looks like it might be the same perp, or at least the same weapon.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “You sound surprised. Wasn’t that our suspicion all along? I mean, we know Grey didn’t kill Henry Kay, so the fact that the real murderer is still around shouldn’t surprise anyone.”

  Reis sighed. “What surprises me is that the FBI didn’t act when Grey was taking the fall. I want to know what he had been sent here to do and why it meant they couldn’t just step in and tell the police force they had the wrong man.”

  Gaby nodded. “Ask. Worst is the higher-ups will tell you no.”

  “Why me?”

  “Because you’re Daniel Reis, prodigy student of the infamous Hyde. You can get away with far more than I can.”

  Reis snorted but didn’t argue the point; she was right after all. “Fine. In the meantime, what have you found?”

  Gaby sighed. “Not much, I’m afraid.”

  He poured his coffee and came to look down at her notes—transcriptions of the key points from their questioning of the Kay sisters, Frank Connor and Mark Fell.

  “Well?”

  Gaby seemed to swallow a laugh at his impatience. “Well, the Connor family and the Kay family used to be the same family, four generations ago. Now’s there’s a lot of bad blood there from three generations ago. Looks like the Kays tried to stop the Connors secretly patrolling the fence at night and taking shots at anyone who came within range.”

  Agent Reis shook his head. “Okay. So Rosa Kay and Frank Connor’s disagreement can be traced back to a long-standing feud. Any reason why he might go out of his way to drag her mother’s name through the mud?”