Page 116 of I’ll Be Watching You

But I couldn’t sleep. I was too wired, too worried. I felt in my gut that we had solved Devin Klein’s murder, but I didn’t know how we could prove it to the satisfaction of the court. Did Stockman pull the trigger himself? Or did he hire someone to do it? Where was this key card that Tim mentioned? A way for Stockman to get in and out without anyone seeing? Or was it for someone unknown to us?

I’d seen Peter Stockman’s picture. He was a pleasant-looking fortysomething. An average, generic businessman type. He didn’t look like a killer. But most people didn’t.

“Talk,” Cal said.

“Is this enough to get my dad out of prison?”

“I would love to tell you yes, but I don’t know. There are a lot of steps in the process. His lawyer will have to petition the court stating that there is new evidence. The court would then need to decide whether to grant a hearing. Then, I don’t know if the judge can release him, or if there would need to be a trial. Or if the county attorney would need to agree or not. I think in the end? If we have the evidence, and your dad explains about the threats, there’s a better than even chance he gets out. It won’t be tomorrow.”

Cal reached out and took my hand. “All we can do is collect the evidence,” he said. “If Tim Miller has something solid, especially something tangible to back up his statement, that will go a long way.”

“Everything else is just circumstantial,” I muttered. “But at least we can destroy these people and make their lives miserable, even if they don’t go to jail.”

But would that help my dad? Why would Stockman confess to killing Devin, or having him killed, when that would most assuredly get him locked up?

“If Miller has evidence of conspiracy to commit murder, I don’t think they walk.”

“But they won’t go to prison for falsifying drug trials.”

“Probably not.”

“Has anyone?”

“There have been a few cases,” Cal said, “but I believe everyone who was convicted were investigators or worked at the trial site, not those in the company that ultimately benefited. I’d have to do research if it was important for the case.”

“So Willa Blankenship might go to prison if we can prove she directly changed data.”

“Yes, she would be the one.”

“And she’s sitting in Australia,” I muttered.

“We can extradite from the land down under,” he said. “Trust me on that one.”

“You’ve done it?”

“Twice. Usually criminals try to go south, to Mexico or South America. We can get them there, but it’s harder for a whole host of reasons, mostly because money is more powerful down there and in some areas, it’s dangerous to go in and grab wanted criminals. But Australia? We have a good working relationship with their government and law enforcement. We would need hard evidence, but a witness statement from Tim Miller may do it, if the AUSA feels it’s sufficient enough to indict her. Again, it won’t be overnight.”

I pondered all that, and it was going to have to be enough.

“And Stockman would also go away for murder even if he hired someone to kill Liz Swanson, correct?”

“That, most certainly. Hiring a hit man is as much first-degree murder as pulling the trigger. But he could have done it himself.”

“I don’t know,” I muttered. “He looks too much like a weasel. Though, it would explain why she rolled down her window for the killer. She may have known Stockman.”

Justice would make me feel better, but I still mourned the loss of an innocent woman and her husband who probably didn’t even know why they had been killed.

Just outside Flagstaff, I started seeing snow along the side of the highway, and that was when I realized I was not dressed for the cold. Cal had already turned on the heat to low about thirty minutes back. I’d left beautiful 75-degree Phoenix for—I glanced at the dashboard—42 degrees. And falling.

I looked at Cal. He was in jeans and a T-shirt. He wasn’t dressed for the weather either. That made me feel less unprepared.

“Yeah,” he said as if reading my mind. “I didn’t think to stop and grab a jacket. We might need to pull over at a gas station and buy overpriced Grand Canyon souvenir sweatshirts.”

But we didn’t take the time to stop now. I looked at Tim’s location again. He had chosen a cabin pretty much isolated from his neighbors, north of the city off Fort Valley Road. There were other cabins, but by the looks of things, nothing within shouting distance.

“I don’t know about you,” I mumbled to Cal as he navigated through the city streets, “but if I had a killer after me, I wouldn’t hide out in the middle of nowhere. Didn’t this guy ever watch teen horror movies?”

I texted Tim when we were ten minutes out. He didn’t respond.