“Is it okay if you wait here with Stef while I walk Clara out?” Max asked Brooke.
Brooke looked at Max, as if uncertain.
A grin stretching its way across her face, Stef emerged from behind her desk. She placed her hands on the wheelchair’s arms and looked down at the girl. “How about we play some wheelchair tag?”
Brooke shouted, “You’re it!”
Giggling followed us out the door, as Stef tried to touch Brooke, who swiveled her chair to get away.
Max held the door for me, and we took our time rounding the corner to where I had the SUV parked. “Clara, thank you for coming.”
“Thank you for calling me,” I said. “If you hadn’t…”
“Delilah and Jayme may never have been found. We wouldn’t have known what happened to Eliza and Sadie. And Gerard may have never been stopped. There would have been more victims.” He held out his hand and I took it. Then he released it, leaned close and whispered, “Again, I’m sorry. When you needed me, I should have backed you up.”
He was thinking back to the day he’d sided with the others and told me to go home. At the time, I didn’t understand why Max worried so about losing his job. I thought about Brooke waiting inside, and all he’d told me about her, losing her mother, the accident, that she might never fully recover. Without medical insurance to pay for her care, she had no hope.
In that moment, I forgave him. “It’s okay, Max. We all have our priorities. Brooke has to be yours. I understand.”
“But I shouldn’t have let that get in the way of my work when a life could be at risk,” he said. “I was wrong. I won’t do that again.”
“I know you won’t,” I said, meaning it.
Moments passed, before he said, “Clara, I have missed you.”
I didn’t know how to respond. He moved toward me and wrapped his arms around me. At first, I didn’t react. Then, slowly, I slipped my arms around him, and I laid my cheek on his chest, where I could hear his heart beating. We held each other for mere moments, but it felt like a lifetime. For that brief instance, we were teenagers again, and he was my first love. When we parted, I ran my fingers down his cheek, letting them come to rest on his lips. He put his hand gently over mine and lightly kissed my fingertips.
I reclaimed my hand and stepped back, turning toward the Pathfinder.
“You know, you don’t have to go.” I felt his eyes on mine, traveling deep inside of me to places I’d buried long ago. I realized it would take every bit of determination I had to get inside the SUV, especially when he said, “I don’t want you to leave.”
“I have a job in Dallas. My chief has a case waiting.”
“You have a job here, if you want it,” Max said. I shot him a curious glance. “Alber needs a new police chief. I talked to the mayor today. The job’s yours if you want it.”
“No. I need to…” I started to object.
Max smiled at me, questioning, waiting for an answer.
From him, my eyes traveled down the familiar street, the sidewalk I’d taken as a young girl. The buildings I’d passed as a child. And I wondered what lay ahead.
Gripped by Clara's story? Want to read more twisty crime thrillers in the series? Get Her Final Prayer and you won't be able to stop turning the pages as she unravels another unputdownable mystery.
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Her Final Prayer
Her pulse pounded in her ears as she scanned the house. Her eyes traveled over the porch where three empty chairs lazily rocked in the breeze, surrounded by scattered children’s toys. In the yard, there were mounds of earth. Graves. Only big enough for children…
When Detective Clara Jefferies is called to a family ranch just outside of Alber, Utah, she’s horrified to find two innocent young children murdered alongside their mothers. But she arrives at the scene quickly enough to rush their father, Jacob Johansson, to hospital where he begins fighting for his life, and to save his two-month-old son Jeremy, left untouched in his crib.
As Clara begins to investigate, nothing she finds out makes sense. Though she uncovers photos of one of Jacob’s wives in his best friend’s trailer, her flower necklace underneath his bed, there are rumors that she was in love with a different man altogether. And as the close-knit community comes together to support Jacob, Clara’s own family shut her out of the investigation…
But Clara won’t give up. With the killer still at large, baby Jeremy is at risk, and every moment her family are helping Jacob they are also in danger. To earn her family’s trust, Clara finally has to face the past, but can she do it before it’s too late?
Impossible to put down, Her Final Prayer is perfect for readers of Lisa Regan, Melinda Leigh and Kendra Elliot. You’ll race through the pages until the final heart-pounding twist.
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Books by Kathryn Casey
Detective Clara Jefferies Series
The Fallen Girls
Her Final Prayer
The Sarah Armstrong Mystery Series
Singularity
Blood Lines
The Killing Storm
The Buried
True Crime
Evil Beside Her
She Wanted It All
A Warrant to Kill
Die, My Love
Shattered
A Descent Into Hell
Deadly Little Secrets
Murder, I Write
Possessed
Deliver Us
In Plain Sight
AVAILABLE IN AUDIO
The Fallen Girls (Available in the UK and the US)
A Letter from Kathryn
I want to say a huge thank you for choosing to read The Fallen Girls. If you did enjoy it, and want to keep up to date with all my latest releases, just sign up at the following link. Your email address will never be shared and you can unsubscribe at any time.
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Now, I’d like to tell you a bit about the inspiration
