Bound by Forbidden Lies

1. Enslee

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK

“...and between each gunshot that rang out, she’d taken a breath. Three… Two… One… and it was finally done. From homecoming queen to murder one, Melissa Cain’s freedom was now certainly gone.”

I finished speaking into my voice-to-text app, and a bittersweet smile appeared on my face. This was the last of my notes on the most recent case I’d been researching, and if all went well, I would have both my blog and podcast ready to go by the end of the weekend.

Interested in true crime since I was a child, I supposed it had to do with the fact that I’d been brought into this world during the commission of a crime.

A murder, to be more exact. My mother hadn’t survived, but her unborn child had.

I was living proof of that, dubbed a miracle child according to my grandparents, but I’d never felt that way.

As far back as I could remember, there was always a feeling of not belonging to what was left of my family…

town… school… church… or anywhere else. Growing up, it’d been hard seeing the other children with at least a mother or father, if not both, and I’d wondered what was wrong with me as I’d had neither.

I later learned it was because my father had murdered my mother in what others in our small Alabama town had called the “crime of the century” due to its scandalous nature.

It'd been the most exciting thing to happen there in decades. The quintessential all-American town with no action was a snoozefest, so when a man murdered his pregnant wife, and in the fashion that my father had, it’d made headlines.

And they stayed around far longer than they would in a city like the one I currently found myself in.

Here, it would make the news for a few nights, only to be replaced by another new and more heinous story.

Not in Brasstown, Alabama, though. There, my tragic past had been the fodder used by others to bully me over the years.

I’d bottled it all up until another crime occurred, and one I’d committed myself.

Lighting years of bad memories up in flames, then watching them burn to ashes had been cathartic for me.

It was also the reason I was now able to travel the country to research criminal cases, and it was something I was particularly good at doing.

All those years that the others would taunt me, mostly for my tarnished familial history, I’d developed a love of reading and writing.

Combining it with my unhealthy obsession for true crime, I’d been able to forge a career for myself.

I’d left in a van I now called home and traveled the countryside.

At first, I’d had to take various temporary jobs in the cities I visited, but once my blog, subscription service, and podcast took off, I made enough money through sponsorship, advertising, affiliate marketing, premium content offerings, social media followings, and now even merchandise, which had just been added to my store for purchase.

The publicity had also helped me land bigger and better cases, including the other one I was here in the city for.

“If I could crack this case wide open, I’d be fucking immortal,” I said as I glanced at the next meeting on my calendar.

Brogan Sinclair was the only son of pharmaceutical mogul Stanley Sinclair, and currently under suspicion over the disappearance of his fiancée, Layla Harte, daughter of the Harte Media empire. The blonde had been missing for over two months now, and each day that passed, the guiltier he looked.

I’d never been one to judge a book by its cover, but I knew guys like Brogan.

Not only in Alabama, but in my career. They weren’t only the most entitled, but they possessed a certain air of arrogance that irked me.

He’d been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and you could detect the entitlement from just his posture and sharply clipped words in the previous interviews I’d seen of him.

In each one, his holier-than-thou attitude came through.

And he’d also never seemed to be the slightest bit concerned that the woman he was set to marry was missing. It was the strangest thing because even murderers I’d interviewed in the past had pretended to at least care until their innocence cracked.

Instead, he was standoffish with the media.

His answers were of the two or three word variety.

If he had been you or I, he would’ve been thrown into the slammer until he confessed.

As one of the golden boys of Manhattan high society, he was afforded the luxury to be evasive, though.

The pieces always ended up fitting together, and whichever one would either clear or convict him was missing.

It'll be found, and it’s up to me to find it.

I wasn’t in this city to point or detract attention to or away from him, but rather to try to give a fresh perspective on what might've happened to Layla Harte. She was stunningly beautiful with long hair the color of golden silk, high cheekbones, and gorgeous blue eyes. She’d been living her best life as she’d transitioned from modeling to acting, even having landed a small role in a popular sitcom.

A true power couple they made, but something happened.

I didn’t like to jump to conclusions without obtaining facts, but the two had appeared to be happy.

Layla had been the perfect companion to her fiancé, judging by the slew of photographs I’d found of them online.

I’d even gone back to the time before their engagement. Nothing seemed amiss.

“I’ll find out what really happened to you, beauty,” I said as I glanced at the notebook on the seat beside me. Opening it up, I saw a few of the media clippings related to her disappearance, then flipped to the next page, which had additional clippings, but of Brogan Sinclair instead.

If beautiful could be used to describe a man, he’d be the poster child for it.

Standing at six foot three, his dark hair and black eyes added to his already striking appearance, but behind the granite-like cheekbones, full lips, and a smoldering gaze, there was still an air of mystery to him.

Since landing this interview, I’d studied everything I’d been able to obtain about him.

And I’d maybe ogled him more than actually needed, but hey, it was research.

Despite his handsomely rugged looks, there was also danger in his dark gaze. The man oozed power, which radiated off him with nothing more than a stare. I’d even seen different interviews with him, both before and after Layla’s disappearance. His demeanor hadn’t changed from any of them.

He also exuded power in his walk, his very presence drawing the eye of everyone in the room. Having lived a life where I was mostly invisible, I had no idea what it’d feel like to be so exposed for nothing more than simply existing.

Realizing I was actually sympathizing with him, I slammed the notebook shut. In my line of work, I liked to let the facts obtained speak for themselves, so I hated to come up with any preconceived notions. I let myself be in the moment and made decisions after all was said and done.

My cell phone chimed, and I knew it was time to meet Brogan Sinclair. His attorney normally did most of his talking, so landing this meeting was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me. And it wasn’t one I wanted to fuck up.

I exited the back of my van and spent a few seconds messing with the soft tendrils of dark hair fanning my face before pulling my hoodie down. Armed with my cell phone, notebook, purse, and keys, I began to take deep breaths as I moved to the elevators within this level of the parking garage.

It wasn’t lost on me that there were hardly any vehicles here because the interview had been set after normal business hours— eight fifteen p.m..

It was one hell of a time, but I supposed that Brogan wouldn’t want me interrupting him during work hours.

He wasn’t the first to want to meet privately, so I’d agreed to it and stepped into the elevator.

Sinclair Pharmaceuticals was on the top floor of this forty-five-floor building, and as I approached the elevator, I realized that it required a key code to access it. Thankfully, I saw a woman at the desk in the front who was busy cleaning up and smiled politely when she looked up and saw me.

“May I help you?”

I cleared my throat and plastered on my own smile. “I’m here to see Brogan Sinclair.”

She arched her brow. “You a reporter or something?”

“A something,” I responded.

“Mr. Sinclair doesn’t see guests without an appointment. Please call his office and make—”

“I actually do have one,” I hurriedly said, then pulled up the email from his office.

“I see,” she said as soon as she verified the authenticity of it, and her facial expression softened. “Follow me.”

My sneakers made a slight squeaking noise that blended in with the clickity-clacking of her heels on the concrete floor below as I followed behind her. Once we reached the elevator, she typed something in the keypad, then made a sweeping motion with her hand when the door opened.

“This goes directly to Sinclair Pharmaceuticals. Enjoy your visit,” she said as I stepped inside the elevator.

“Thanks,” I said, and laughed aloud the moment the door closed between us. “Enjoy my visit… Doubtful!”

This was already the most important interview I’d done to this point, and I knew it had the potential to make or break my budding career.

Even I’d been shocked upon getting the acceptance email because he never did interviews, especially once Layla had disappeared.

I used the entire ride up to the top floor to gather my bearings.

By the time the elevator came to a jarring stop, I was as prepared as I was ever going to be.

The doors opened and I stepped out into a small lobby of sorts.

There were doors lining both sides of the hall—some with nothing but glass walls and others more private.

The place was so silent that had I dropped a pin, I’d be able to hear it.

A slight shudder wracked me, but I moved down the hallway.

None of the doors were numbered, or even titled, and I decided to wait to find an open one before I started to check all the ones closed up.

“Brog—Mr. Sinclair, it’s Enslee Byrne,” I said as I continued down the hallway. When there was still no sound, I spoke a bit louder. “I have an appointment. I…”

My voice trailed off when I saw a sliver of light coming from the last door on the right.

I could tell it was slightly parted, and assuming it was his, I quickened my steps.

The closer I got to it, however, a chill crossed over me that I ignored until I stepped into the office and looked ahead at the man now seated behind his desk.

A chill raced down my spine, and I straightened mine as I tried to make my five foot seven height appear taller. The moment he looked up and leveled me with a hollow gaze, I nearly shrank into my oversized hoodie so my earlier effort had been for naught.

“Who the hell are you?” he said in a low tone.

“Enslee Byrne, sir. We have an interview.”