Ghost City

53

Damien's POV
"Why the fuck are you two here?" I asked Sarah, who still kept on averting her eyes.

Carter answered, "Meet Emily and Sierra Miles."

I shook my head, "Her name is Sarah Hamilton, and her mom's name is-"

Rico shook his head, "They've been living under secret identities, little man. Just like how we have ways of making sure somebody's identity is never tracked down, we have ways of finding out fake identities."

"I thought you said Detective Miles' daughter died though?" I frowned.

"That was the younger daughter. He had two," Nathan answered. "We found that out after we had a deeper background search ran on his wife, and that's when we discovered their aliases as well."

Mother frowned, "Damien, where do you know these two from?"

I answered, "I used to data Sarah...Sierra, back in college." I then frowned, "You lied to me about having an abusive father all these years?!" Sierra sighed and looked away and I shook my head in disappointment. She had to have been the most manipulative person I had ever known. I wondered if this was how betrayed Sagacity felt by me. "Why?"

Sierra remained quiet, so Carter drew his gun and put it to her head. "He asked you a question," Carter enforced, and Emily immediately grew worried.

Speaking up for her daughter, Emily answered, "I told her to so that we could get closer to you and find out what you knew about my husband's death. I was there when your mother came by the house the day before he was killed, and I had been trying to keep track of her ever since. Went she went off the radar and left you behind, I figured that getting close to you was the best way to find her." Emily cocked her head in my mother's direction, and I sighed.

"Well, we don't know who killed your husband, but I'm betting it's the same person that killed mine," Mother said. "We have records of him receiving funds from a charity that doesn't exist. Did he ever mention anything about that?"

Emily shook her head before elaborating, "I asked about where he was getting the money from to pay for Katy's medical bills, and he told me gambling."

"Do you know where he gambled?" Junior questioned.

"Starfish Rivers, I think he said it was called," Emily answered.

"Starfish Lakes," Rico corrected. "One of my exes work there."

"See if Ryan can pull some footage from there," Carter said, and Rico nodded before making the call.

Mother frowned, "That was years back. Do they even keep video footage for so long?"

"If we want info, we get it," Junior said. "Our men know how to pull strings, even when they're fine."

Carter nodded, "That's why we stay atop. Once we get the footage and facial scans of everyone that came in contact with Detective Miles, we'll be able to narrow everything down some more. Until then, what else do you remember about that night, Diane?"

Mother closed her eyes to jog her memory before saying, "Honestly, other than what is written in the files, nothing else comes to mind."

"Yeah, well, we don't know what else Miles omitted from the files, so..." Nathan shrugged.

Mother sighed before informing, "Damien and I had just gotten home from a school basketball game. Brian normally would be at the games to support Damien, who played on the basketball team. That night, he said that he wouldn't be able to make it because he had some last minute things to take care of before the night would end. Midway into the game, he sent a text to my phone asking me how the game was going. That was the last I spoke with him." Mother took a break before inhaling a quick breath. "When the game was over and I arrived home with Damien, I noticed the door unlocked, so I sent Damien to stay with one of our neighbors so that I could check out if we had been robbed or something. Everything was in place, and that scared me even more. I entered the first room in the house, the first room being the living room, and that's when I saw Brian's lifeless body on a chair in the middle of the room. One of the windows were open, and the other shattered from the bullet that pierced Brian's head."

"The person that shot Brian was a guy named Marquees," Carter informed, but I had already learned this information from Rico.

Mother nodded, "When I heard he died, I figured you were responsible."

"Yeah, but he was interrogated before we killed him. He claimed he was working by himself and that he had thought he caught Brian lacking. His lack of usefulness is what got him killed," Carter said before pointing his gun at Sierra and Emily.

A/N: I want to give an apology for not posting or keeping you all updated this past week. A lot has been going on, and I'm trying to manage everything (but clearly doing a poor job at it 😭) I'll try to be on track from now on. We only have a few chapters remaining though so hang in thereeeee 🙏🏽💖🥲