Hyper Lynx (The Lynx Series Book 6) Fiona Quinn (the dot read aloud .txt) 📖

They should know, but compartmentalized secrets sure did wear on me. I wanted to know everything rather than dangling in the dark.

Trust.

I missed Striker already. We’d only been apart these two days, but he’d just come home from his own assignment.

We were two ships passing in the night.

It was important that when we were together that we made it special.

I needed to figure out how to uncork Destiny’s information and hand this mission back to the FBI. Sleeping in my own bed with Striker would be my reward for fast action. It would be helpful if I knew what was relevant. Tomorrow, Monday, Finley had set up a meeting for us. We’d do some information exchange then.

And to that end, I had a plan. I didn’t have warrants, so I couldn’t place audio in the garage apartment, but nothing stopped me from placing nanny cams. They covered the apartment except for the bathroom and would send to a feed in the cloud. We could go back and scan them later to see if Destiny had any visitors when I was away or if she led us to any top-secret stash of information.

Though, Prescott said that what they needed was all in her head.

So nothing for me to find wandering around the near-empty apartment.

I was lying on my sleeping bag with the box fan blowing air across my body, making my next tactical plans, when Destiny came in and double-locked the door behind her.

“If you had called, I would have come to get you,” I said, waggling my phone.

“That’s okay. I got a ride from Huahine.”

“Whose that?”

“Short order cook on the weekends.” She picked up a towel. “I’m going to go take a shower and wash away this fry grease.”

She moved to a window and forced it open. “There’s supposed to be a storm later tonight.”

“That’ll be a welcome relief from the humidity.” I gave an exaggerated yawn. “Right now, it’s sapping me of all my energy.”

I closed my eyes and must have fallen asleep, waking again with the shriek of unoiled hinges as Destiny exited the bathroom.

When Destiny emerged, she was wearing a loose cotton dress like the ones that Deep had put into my backpack. It fell nearly to her ankles and had a Laura Ingalls vibe to it.

So did her hair, now in a thin French braid, hanging down her back all the way to her hips.

“Oh my goodness.” Frowning down at my burner phone, I clutched the top of my shirt with my other hand as I cast my hook.

Destiny looked up and froze.

“No way,” I mumbled in astonishment. I scrolled up the article that I had queued as my way to broach my own past and hopefully demonstrate a parallel with Destiny’s. “Wow.” I lifted my gaze to catch on hers. “Did you read the news today?”

“No. I have enough troubles of my own. No need to go borrowing any.”

I canted my head. “Then how do you know?”

“What?” Her face was a blank.

“What’s going on in the world? What’s safe and unsafe? I mean, growing up, I wasn’t really aware of anything that happened outside of our compound. It took me leaving and, you know, expanding my awareness to see all the things that I had no clue about. Things to keep me safe, things to make me think. Even laugh.” I smiled and turned back to the article. “Things that make me grateful that I had the courage to separate myself from my upbringing.”

That set the hook. Now I just needed to slowly reel her in.

Destiny moved over to the chair in the living area. Spinning it, she could face me where I lay. “What does the article talk about?” She pulled her feet up onto the chair and wrapped her arms around her legs, peeking at me from behind the barrier.

“Well, let’s see.” I scrolled back to the top. “This is out of Denver.”

She leaned forward and rested her chin on top of her knees.

“It says here that they’ve arrested seven members of a cult-like group.” I glanced up at Destiny. “Cult-like? In my experience, you’re either in a cult, or you’re not.”

She nodded tight little bobbles without lifting her chin.

“Though people in a cult really hate the word. I only learned it once I’d run away.” I didn’t wait for her to show surprise or ask any questions. As I looked at my phone, I could feel her concentration as she laser-focused on me.

“Craziest thing—which is saying a lot for a cult—it looks like the seven are being charged with abusing a corpse and child abuse.”

“The child that was abused was it some kind of sacrifice or something?”

“No. The kids—” I scrolled down to that part. “According to the sheriff who found them, there was a thirteen and a two-year-old.”

“Not hurt, though?”

I shook my head. “It says they’re fine. They were taken in by social services.”

“Okay.” She breathed out. “What happened about the dead body?”

“Let’s see…Okay, here it is. They had the corpse set up in the corner of the back bedroom. It was wrapped in a sleeping bag and draped with strings of Christmas lights. And they had put glitter eyeshadow on the face, but there were no eyeballs.” I glanced up from my phone. “Mummified. Do you think they did that ritualistically like, I don’t know, like the Egyptians?”

Destiny stared at me wide-eyed, shaking her head.

“Maybe they just left the body outside in the desert? I read somewhere that if you bury a body in the sand and it kind of bakes under high heat, the body mummifies by having all the moisture vaporize. I can’t tell you if that’s true or not, something I read.”

“It says mummified?” She made