Not well, p.1
Not Well, page 1
N O T W E L L
(A Camille Grace FBI Suspense Thriller—Book 3)
K a t e B o l d
Kate Bold
Bestselling author Kate Bold is author of the ALEXA CHASE SUSPENSE THRILLER series, comprising six books (and counting); the ASHLEY HOPE SUSPENSE THRILLER series, comprising six books (and counting); the CAMILLE GRACE FBI SUSPENSE THRILLER series, comprising five books (and counting); and the HARLEY COLE FBI SUSPENSE THRILLER series, comprising three books (and counting).
An avid reader and lifelong fan of the mystery and thriller genres, Kate loves to hear from you, so please feel free to visit www.kateboldauthor.com to learn more and stay in touch.
Copyright © 2022 by Kate Bold. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the author. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Jacket image Copyright BABAROGA, used under license from Shutterstock.com.
BOOKS BY KATE BOLD
ALEXA CHASE SUSPENSE THRILLER
THE KILLING GAME (Book #1)
THE KILLING TIDE (Book #2)
THE KILLING HOUR (Book #3)
THE KILLING POINT (Book #4)
THE KILLING FOG (Book #5)
THE KILLING PLACE (Book #6)
ASHLEY HOPE SUSPENSE THRILLER
LET ME GO (Book #1)
LET ME OUT (Book #2)
LET ME LIVE (Book #3)
LET ME BREATHE (Book #4)
LET ME FORGET (Book #5)
LET ME ESCAPE (Book #6)
CAMILLE GRACE FBI SUSPENSE THRILLER
NOT ME (Book #1)
NOT NOW (Book #2)
NOT WELL (Book #3)
NOT HER (Book #4)
NOT NORMAL (Book #5)
HARLEY COLE FBI SUSPENSE THRILLER
NOWHERE SAFE (Book #1)
NOWHERE LEFT (Book #2)
NOWHERE TO RUN (Book #3)
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY ONE
CHAPTER ONE
Brittany stumbled to the front of the boat with the sounds of jumbled zydeco music blaring behind her. She’d found it enjoyable as recently as three minutes ago but right now, it sounded like a hot mess. Who the hell built an entire style of music around the accordion, anyway?
She knew these weren’t her true thoughts. No, she was simply irritated and maybe even a little alarmed because there was a searing pain currently tearing through her stomach. It had not been there until very recently. At first, she thought it was nothing but gas, maybe a little indigestion from the crawfish she’d had for dinner. But it quickly escalated into something much worse. This wasn’t going to be just a visit to the bathroom with a terribly upset stomach; this was going to be a full-fledged purging of the stomach. And as this realization hit her, Brittany understood that she was going to have to make a very rough decision: rush down to the ladies’ room on the lower level of the riverboat and hope a stall was available (and that she could make it that far) or run to the front of the boat, hope the crowd was thin, and hurl over the side.
The front being closer, that was the option she chose. And now, as the U-shaped rail of the riverboat came into view, she still didn’t know if she was going to make it. And wouldn’t that be something? Puking all over the bow of the Wheeler’s Delight riverboat while the rest of the wedding party she was with continued to take shots and step a little closer to the men they’d been flirting with all afternoon.
But she did make it. And more than that, she was pleased to find that the front of the boat was indeed empty. The zydeco band, the happy hour prices at the bar at the back of the boat, and a buffet style dinner had drawn everyone away from the bow.
So when she reached the rail and perched slightly over it, there was no one there to see the terrible display. Still, it was embarrassing, especially when it came so hard and fast. She wasn’t sure she’d ever retched so hard in her life. Fortunately, the sounds of the boat being propelled through the Mississippi River were just loud enough to cover up some of it.
Brittany threw up once, then twice, and then tried for a third time. Her stomach continued to insist there was more, that she needed to keep at it, but nothing else came up. She leaned over the rail. The beauty and majesty of the Mississippi spreading out behind her as she yakked into it. Exhausted, light-headed, and with her stomach cramping, Brittany stepped away from the rail. She wanted to instantly go find some water to rinse her mouth out but figured it would probably be a smart move to stay here just a while longer.
She was about to walk to the right, where a set of stairs led up to the second floor—the riverboat’s first balcony level. But as she made her way over, she saw a boy sitting on one of the stairs. She wasn’t sure how old he was—thirteen or fourteen, maybe. He was wearing a hooded sweatshirt and looking down at his hands. Probably because he’d just witnessed her little show.
“Huh,” Brittany said. “Did you see all that?”
The boy said nothing, but he did look up at her. She didn’t like the way he looked at her. His eyes looked menacing from under the hood and his hair hung in his face in a way that made him look older than he actually was.
Only…was that right? Maybe he was older and she had just seen him wrong at first.
She was about to say something like There’s no need to stare when the boy got to his feet. And as he came walking quickly over to her, she saw that she had been wrong at first. He wasn’t a boy. He was a fully grown man, just one of short stature. And by the time she pieced this together, he was on her, his hands coming forward. There was something in his hands and he was bringing them to her throat.
Brittany opened her mouth to scream but tasted a bit of bile in the back of her throat. Christ, was she going to puke again? Now, with this creep right in front of h—
Whatever it was he had in his hands came around her throat and with a set of small yet surprisingly strong hands, she was turned around quickly.
“Hey…” she said—or, rather, tried to say. Her stomach buckled and she did throw up again, but she was barely aware of it. Instead, all she could focus on was the feeling of being lifted and dropped. The world swayed, pivoted, and then fell.
After that, there was horrendous pain in her neck and head. She was pretty sure she hit the water at some point. It was cold, hard, but somehow also accepting.
Water started to fill her mouth, her nostrils, and her lungs and sometime after that, when her frantic brain finally realized she should maybe swim for the surface and cry for help, the life went flowing out of her, as if carried away by the flow of the Mississippi River.
CHAPTER TWO
Camille already liked her New Orleans apartment much more than the place she’d had in Birmingham, but there were times when she felt that it was haunted by the ghost of her sister. Even though she now had reason to believe Nanette was still alive, her sister’s presence seemed to loom over the place. It had been especially bad ever since she’d found out that her family had been keeping secrets from her. As Camille dug deeper into her sister’s cold case, the sensation grew ever worse, like a strange humidity within the apartment.
But she loved the apartment itself and all it stood for. At first, she thought it was just the freedom of living on her own again, but after a week or so, she came to understand that it was the apartment itself. The neighborhood was really nothing special; she was about eight blocks away from the bustling energy of where the French Quarter began and just far enough away from any other touristy places to keep the streets quiet and reserved.
It was a small place, so she’d gotten a good deal on it. There was an exposed beam that ran up through the floor and connected to the ceiling, serving as the separating article between her small living room and even smaller kitchen. The hardwood floors were old but in a special sort of charming way, and the window by her small kitchen table looked out onto a small strip of puny forest between the complex’s back lot and a small park.
In other words, not too shabby for a second shot—for a shot at starting over.
She’d also purchased a small couch from a second-hand furniture store in town. It was the only piece of furniture in her living room, but she loved it. It’s where she read and relaxed, where she napped and occasionally watched television. But, more than anything else, it’s where she sat when she went over the details of her sister’s case.
She’d only managed to find a few notes on the disappearance of one Nanette Grace from nearly fifteen years ago. A young woman that seemed to have simply disappeared without a trace one night after performing with a small up-and-coming jazz band in the French Quarter. Most had presumed her dead, but she now had reason to believe her sister was very much alive. She printed them out in secret from her secluded little office at the field office but had elected to take them to her apartment and leave them there. She’d not yet fully earned the trust of her new assistant director, a friendly yet no-nonsense woman named Marie McCutcheon, and the last thing she wanted was for McCutcheon to find that she was looking around in case files from over a decade ago. Not to mention case files pertaining to a personal matter.
Currently, though, it was not the files on Nanette’s disappearance that interested her. Instead, she was looking through her Aunt Deanna’s social media. Not that Deanna was really her aunt; that’s just how Camille had always thought of her. Although, as of about ten days ago, she was finding it quite hard to think anything positive about Deanna Lewiston. As a constant fixture in Camille’s life since birth, Deanna had always been fun and dependable, helpful and nurturing.
But ten days ago, her father had let it slip that Deanna had seen Nanette twelve years ago—three years after Nanette had disappeared. And all this time, no one had told her. She’d been left in the dark for reasons she didn’t care to think about. This sort of betrayal from her father didn’t really surprise her, but when it came from Deanna, it was heartbreaking.
Deanna had texted twice in the past ten days. She had no idea that Camille knew about the visit She’d just been checking in, wanting to see when they could get together again. Camille had ignored both texts, not quite ready to face her just yet.
For the past two afternoons, Camille had been going through Deanna’s social media accounts. The woman was a bit of a homebody and, though she had Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts, she wasn’t very active on any of them. In fact, her last Twitter post had come nearly two full years ago, providing a link to a local pottery class. Still, despite Deanna’s inactivity, her accounts provided a snapshot into the people she knew. And while Camille had no illusions of accidentally stumbling across a Facebook page for Nanette, she thought there might be clues of some kind. It was a very faint trail of breadcrumbs to follow, but it at least gave her the smallest bit of hope. Besides…one of the main reasons she took the bureau job in New Orleans was to be closer to the community where she’d been raised. And she’d known it would eventually lead to her looking deeper into her sister’s disappearance.
Camille had been looking through the accounts of Deanna’s social media friends for nearly three hours when she came across a face that looked eerily familiar. It was a woman named Rose Dawson, from Oxford, North Carolina. With just a passing glance, the woman bore a striking resemblance to Nanette. The age was right, and the hair color was spot on.
Camille’s chest tightened for only a moment, though. A glance of more than two seconds revealed that it was not Nanette. The angle of the eyes wasn’t right, and the lips were too full. Even though she’d not seen her sister in fifteen years, she could tell this woman was not her. While she knew Nanette would not be the eighteen-year-old version of the girl Camille remembered, she had no doubt that something inside of her—be it her instincts or the very core of her heart—would recognize her sister.
So she scrolled past Rose Dawson and continued to search. Within a few more profiles, her phone buzzed in her hand. She was fully expecting it to be Deanna again. She knew it would not be her father because he’d been avoiding her. Not only had he angered her, but he was also afraid she was going to continue to push him to get treatment for the cancer diagnosis he’d been dealt nearly a year ago.
But when she reached her finger up to cancel the notification, she saw a name she’d thought of a few times in the past ten days. Zack Hayes. A zoologist out of Chalmette, Zack taught at a community college up that way and helped the smaller police departments from time to time when it came to coyote and gator attacks. They’d spoken only briefly during her time on her last case but it had stuck with her—and him, too, given that he’d tried convincing her to stick around and have dinner with him. She’d ultimately declined, because she wasn’t ready to date having just moved to a new city, and she’d been waiting for his text ever since.
Didn’t want to be presumptuous and call first, the text read. So I figured I’d text. Now that I’ve officially texted, can I call?
She smiled, glad to be looking away from the monotonous stream of Facebook profiles. And rather than respond to the text, she called him instead. It rang only a single time before he answered.
“Is this like a powerplay or something?” he asked. “You had to call me to make the first move?”
“This isn’t a move,” she argued. “Sorry if you feel emasculated.”
“Not at all. If anything, it feels nice not to be the one to make the first call. So…how are you? How are things in N’ollins?”
“I’m still getting acclimated. And by the way, no one in this city actually talks like that. Well…maybe a few. But no one says the city name like that.”
“I’ll make a note of that. It’ll be good to know for the trip I’m about to take out to your neck of the woods.”
She smiled, instantly excited about the news. “And what brings you my way?”
“My great aunt’s memorial service.”
“Oh…oh, I’m sorry.”
“Eh, at the risk of sounding insensitive, I barely knew her. I’m really just going to support my mother. They were really close. But yeah…I’ll be there in two days. The thing is…I won’t really have a lot of time to spend. I have to get back home pretty quickly. So that really only leaves me with a very unorthodox suggestion.”
“Which is?”
“There’s a potluck afterwards, at the church my mother attends. Want to meet me there?”
It wasn’t at all what she was expecting. Everything her told her to say no; even though she was very interested in Zack, the situation was just too weird. Even stranger, though, was that when she opened her mouth to answer, “Sounds good,” came out.
“Really? That’s not too weird for you?”
“Oh, it’s all kinds of weird,” Camille said. “But it’ll be interesting. I guess that’s the right word to use. What’s the church?”
“Cornerstone Baptist on Weaving Street. You know it?”
Camille was glad they weren’t speaking face to face because she couldn’t help but cringe. Yes, she knew the church. It had some very unpleasant family connections for her—connections she’d rather not bring to the surface.
“I know it,” she said. “And now that I think of it, I don’t know—”
Her phone beeped in her ear as another call came through. She quickly glanced at the call display and saw that it was the office. More notably, it was Assistant Director McCutcheon.
“Hey, Zack, I have another call and I have to take it. It’s my director.”
“Say no more. Want me to just give you a buzz when I get into town?”
“Sure thing. Do that. And thanks for reaching out.”
“Hey, you’re the one that called me,” he pointed out, and then ended the call.
Camille switched over to the other line. As it was nearing 10:30 at night, she could only assume the call from McCutcheon would put her on a case—if not immediately tonight, then tomorrow.
“This is Agent Grace,” she answered.
“Grace, I need you to be in my office at 7:30 tomorrow morning. There’s a case I’d like you to run with.”
