Ella and Ripley showed themselves out.The door clicked shut behind them and the sound of a woman crying followed them down the stairs and all the way to the cruiser.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Dusk had leeched all of the color from the city as Ella aimed the car towards Charles Street and Jared Novak’s house.Ella’s mind was doing laps.She shot a glance at Ripley, who looked how she felt.Gears turning with no destination.
She spoke first.‘So, let me get this straight.The snowman around Amber Holloway’s neck is from Rose Michaels’s music box?’
Lily Michaels had recognized the figurine a mile off, and that was good enough for Ella. ‘That’s what we’re going to find out.’
‘And Rose donated the music box a while ago, but we don’t know where.’
Ella gripped the wheel a little tighter.‘Here’s what I keep coming back to.Amber Holloway worked at Dollar General and drank like a fish.Rose Michaels was a custody-wrecked musician who barely left her sister’s apartment.These two women didn’t know each other.Nothing in their finances, their social media, their daily routines puts them within a mile of the same orbit.’
‘But the figurine does.’
‘The figurine does.Someone took a piece of Rose Michaels’s life – an object given to her by the father of her child – and left it on a stranger.That’s not a coincidence.That’s either a message or a mistake, and this killer doesn’t make mistakes.He brings glue.’
‘So, first we have Amber, fresh out of an ugly divorce.Then Rose, a wannabe rockstar who just lost custody of her kid.Both were forced to move in with family members.I’m seeing a link.Are you?’
‘Yeah.They have terrible taste in men.’
‘Come on Dark, you know how good guys are at hiding their flaws.Then once they’ve got you hooked, that’s when the real person comes out.’
Ella glanced sideways at her.‘You’d know all about that.’
‘Low blow.’
‘Sorry.So, where does Jared fit into this?Either he gave Rose the music box and some random stranger picked it up from the donation shop, or Jared knew she’d got rid of it and went and retrieved it himself.’
‘And if he retrieved it, he had access to the figurines before either woman died.’
‘Which gives us a man with motive and means.He knew the music box existed because he bought it.And a man with opportunity, if he tracked down the donation.But what I’m wondering too is what does the ballet dancer mean?’
Ella didn’t like to admit it, but she had to.‘I don’t know, but let’s focus on this lead first.’
Ella followed the GPS through a residential stretch toward Lakeview.The houses out here were modest but well-kept.She turned a corner and the GPS told her she was four hundred yards out.
Ripley said, ‘What’s with these youngsters and their fancy houses?Most twenty-somethings I know can barely afford to eat, let alone get on the property ladder.’
‘Lily said Rose’s ex had a good job.’
‘I guess.’
‘There’s a problem with the theory though,’ Ripley said.‘About the figures, I mean, not the houses.’
‘I know.If Jared killed these women, why would he use a figurine from a music box he gave to his ex-wife?It’s a neon sign pointing straight back at him.’
‘Exactly.I know killers are prone to bad decisions, especially spree killers, but even so…’
‘Maybe that’s the point.’Ella had been chewing on this since they’d left Lily’s kitchen.‘Think about it.What criminal is stupid enough to leave his own property on a victim?Nobody.Which means if the cops trace the snowman back to the music box and the music box back to Jared, his lawyer’s first argument is that somebody’s framing him.It’s too obvious, therefore it can’t be him.’
‘A double bluff.’
‘Make it so blatant that it looks planted.The best place to hide is in plain sight.’
‘You know, I worked a case in Connecticut back in the day.We were in this café, and in walked this guy who looked exactly like Michael Bolton.He had the mullet and satin shirt and everything.’
‘And?’
