“Is Larry our only suspect?” O’Shea asked.
“No,” Lincoln said. “Number two on our list is Barry.”
Lincoln laid out his alternative theory, same as he’d done for Carter, and O’Shea’s agitation escalated. He pushed out of his chair and paced the area in front of the patio doors. “Anyone else?” he asked.
“Jeremiah Kline,” Carter said.
Lincoln gasped. “He’s not old enough. And just no!”
“Why not? He’s from a founding family, has gray hair, and is always under our feet. He’s too young for the older kills but maybe he’s connected somehow.”
“Fine.” Lincoln leaned back in his chair, arms folded, crossing one leg over the other. “If that’s your outside-the-box pick, then mine’s Lydia.”
Now O’Shea gasped, while Drake just looked confused. “Who’s Lydia?” the younger agent asked.
“Lydia Osler,” Lincoln said. “Psychologist at the hospital and adjunct psychology professor at Apex U. She’d have access to the victims at the hospital, she’s also prematurely gray, and she’s tight with the town gossips.”
“That all makes sense, given the diagnoses.”
“Yes,” Carter said, “except, according to Clyde Weathers, the copycat said he was operating on his clock. And it would put her in her teens when she started killing.”
“That didn’t stop you from accusing Jeremiah,” Lincoln sniped. Apparently, he’d developed a fondness for the grad student. A tiny part of Carter turned green, but the bigger part of him hoped Lincoln was right. He liked Jeremiah too.
O’Shea braced his forearms on a chair back. “Suspects aside, next steps?”
“If Dr. Fear sticks to their pattern,” Lincoln said, reverting back to their, accounting for his Lydia theory, “which we can’t be sure of after the Weathers murder, and if Barry and Trudy are currently held by them, we’ve got seventy-two hours from when they were taken.”
Carter checked the time on his phone. “I say we estimate twelve hours have elapsed. They didn’t show at FP this morning.”
Lincoln nodded. “Agreed.”
“Do we bring Larry in?” Drake asked. “Or any of the other suspects?”
“Not yet,” Carter replied. “Jo has an eye on Larry, and the others won’t go far. We’ve seen each of them this morning already. If one of them is Dr. Fear, they must be keeping Barry and Trudy close.”
“We’re also working against the clock on Clyde Weathers,” O’Shea informed them. “His arraignment is scheduled for Wednesday. If he pleads duress, it’ll officially connect Stacy’s murder to the police station fire and to the Dr. Fear case.”
“At which point the press descend like locusts,” Lincoln said, fingers plowing through his gold-and-silver strands.
“They haven’t picked up on it yet,” O’Shea said. “I convinced Larry to list Stacy’s cause of death as an OD”—he pushed off the chair back, forcefully—“which if he’s Dr. Fear makes sense that he agreed. Fuck.”
Another point in the Larry column. “I don’t want to risk another escalation,” Carter said. “Especially with Barry’s and Trudy’s lives at stake. That’s a hit this community shouldn’t have to take. We need to move fast.”
“I want to go back to the library,” Lincoln said. “Talk to Molly. Get back into the archives.” He rose from his chair and shrugged into his jacket. “Now that I know who I’m looking for, I can make faster work of the photos. Get us the evidence we need to connect him to each of Dr. Fear’s cycle.”
“We’ll coordinate with Jo,” O’Shea said. “Keep working the meth angle.”
“There’s something there,” Carter said as he rushed to catch up with Lincoln, who was already halfway to the door, in his own world. “Babe, wait!” Lincoln teetered to a stop over the threshold, Carter catching him by the back of the coat. “I need to go to the hospital with O’Shea and Drake. I want to talk to Weathers and see if he can connect any of our suspects to Stacy. I also need to check in with Beverley and tell him about Barry and Trudy and see how they’re coming along with Baxter. It’s all there. We just have to make the pieces fit.”
Lincoln nodded absently, making mental to-do lists in his head, judging by the fountain of questions that followed. “And can you or someone on the team there check our suspects against hospital logs? Or get the logs to me, and I’ll check them? Again, now that we know who we’re looking for, it should be faster work.”
“I can do that,” Drake said.
“And we’ll give you a lift to the hospital,” O’Shea told Carter.
“Thanks,” Carter said. Without thinking, he leaned forward to kiss Lincoln goodbye, like Jo had O’Shea.
Lincoln turned his cheek up to meet it, just like a married couple, or so Carter thought, only to suffer the crushing hammer of disappointment as Lincoln moved his cheek out of kissing range, his attention directed over Carter’s shoulder. “Give us a minute?” he said to the agents behind them.
