AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Amanda just wanted Malone to get to his point. She was on the verge of exploding with what she’d just uncovered.
“He sent this picture over right away. It’s from the taxi that was seen outside Jane Burr’s house the night of her murder. Timestamp says it’s nine fifty-five. You’ll see that he’s wearing a Washington Nationals baseball cap. Here…” Malone gave it to Amanda, but Trent was already to his feet and standing with them. “Tell me you recognize him.”
“Ian Moss,” they said at the same time.
“I reached that conclusion, Sarge,” Amanda rushed out, almost breathless. “Just before you got here, I was about to share my findings with Trent. To start, Moss didn’t always look like he does now.” She grabbed the photos of him from her desk and pointed him out to Malone and Trent.
“He was right there. I didn’t recognize him at all. He looks so incredibly different now,” Trent said.
“Don’t give yourself a hard time of it. I didn’t recognize him at first either. The guy, as you can tell from the taxi photo, Sarge, is trim and good-looking. From talking with him in person, he has bright-white flawless teeth. He’s shed at least a hundred and twenty pounds. His skin has cleared up.” She realized she was talking fast, rattling all this off, but it felt like their efforts were about to pay off. “Trent, you saw all that research that Kelley did.” She elaborated for Malone’s benefit. “She had gathered a bunch of studies that showed attractive people are more likely to be successful, get promotions, and make more money than those who aren’t so genetically blessed.”
“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me,” Malone said.
“Moss was overlooked because of how he looked fifteen years ago—or at least that’s how he might have felt. He probably hated Naomi Chapman for being everything he wasn’t, having what he didn’t have. And from what Trent and I have found out, Chapman pushed her money and success in people’s faces. It’s not a stretch to imagine that she picked on Moss. That’s if she paid him any attention at all. But look at this…” She took the photo back from Malone, showing the younger Moss holding a beer glass. She tapped a finger to the image. “See the pinkie ring, Trent? Do you remember that?”
He met her gaze. “Yep. I saw it when I shook his hand.”
“That was what pulled it together for me. And then Felicity named the killer in the book she’d been working on Isaiah Miller. That was probably on purpose too. Otherwise, why pick a name with the same initials as Ian Moss?”
“Word games aside, we have enough to move on this,” Malone said.
“We’re going to need to notify the Metro PD in Washington that the PWCPD is coming to town,” she replied.
“You let me handle that.” Malone gave the stack of photos back to Amanda and walked toward his office.
Trent was standing there, shaking his head. “We said the killer needed to be keeping tabs on Felicity. Moss fits.”
“Felicity must have come across something that had it all clicking together. One of the jewelry items, as we’d thought before?”
“And in his case, that would most likely be the cuffs. At the champagne lunch? Why be so bold? Especially if he knew what she was working on, which he must have.”
“Remember, though, the cufflinks weren’t public knowledge.”
“Here’s another thing, he had to see the similarities between Felicity’s book proposal and Naomi Chapman. Why didn’t he reject it from the start?”
She had the answer to that one. “Turning it down could have looked bad for him. He probably didn’t want to risk drawing any unnecessary attention.”
“So, we can assume he approved the book and kept a close eye on Felicity. He would have known all about her sleuthing. He felt threatened and did what he felt necessary to keep his secret.”
“It all fits, every last bit of it. Meanwhile, he’s top dog at a large publishing house, smiling, shaking our hands. The whole time he was probably freaking out inside while outwardly overcompensating. Then he takes it upon himself to send the list of employees, making it seem like he was doing us a favor.”
“Yeah, when really, it was all so he could leave his name off the list,” Trent inserted.
“He’s a real piece of work, who was doing a good job of covering his ass until Felicity Kelley turned up to ruin his life. And now it’s time to finish what she started.” She could hardly wait for the arrest and search warrants to hit her hand.
FORTY-FIVE
For the past few hours as Amanda and Trent waited on the warrants to come through and for everything to be arranged with the Metro PD, they did a deep dive into Ian Moss. It didn’t reveal a criminal record, but it shone a light on his upbringing and background. Presently thirty-eight, Ian had grown up below the poverty line. His mother had died during childbirth, and his father was an alcoholic and couldn’t hold down a job. The family home was a rundown shanty in a rural part of Prince William County. The fact that Ian had been able to pull himself out of that wreckage, excel in school, and get himself a paid ride through college was nothing short of impressive. It was just everything that came after that tarnished his crown. Now, Amanda looked forward to ripping it from his head and seeing that smug look of his disappear when she read him his rights and slapped on the cuffs.
The time eventually arrived. Warrants were in hand. While they were bringing him in, officers would be searching his residence and car. The latter turned out to be a BMW of the same model that Chapman had—a fact Amanda didn’t view as a coincidence.
She and Trent entered Garrison & Marrow, accompanied by two uniformed officers with the Metro PD. They announced themselves to Cara at the front desk and said they were there to speak to Ian Moss, but she was not to notify him they were heading up.
Cara said they should be able to find him in his office. After which, she gave them directions. “Should I let his assistant know to expect you?”
Amanda shook her head. It was best that they have the element of surprise on their side. If they were right, Ian Moss had killed an innocent woman just to muddle the investigation. He clearly saw life as disposable when it served his purpose.
The four of them loaded into the elevator and made their way up to the twenty-fifth floor.
