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Well, that’s lucky. I was away killing Simon. Thank God I stopped and left my cell at home. It will give me an alibi if she thinks I’ve done this.
“You think I killed them?”
I toss the photo down on the desk, trying to rein in my annoyance.
“I don’t know what to believe, Alden. Do you know what all these victims have in common?”
I glance at them again.
“They all know you. Those three you dated at some point in your life.”
She picks a photo and holds it up for me.
“You dated her in college.”
Then another.
“Senior year of high school.”
And another.
“Her, two years ago for two months.”
Death has distorted their faces, but now that she mentions it and I look closer, I do recognize them.
“Your brother died after he spoke to Emily about the case. So, if you didn’t have anything to do with this, and Emily is lying…either she is the killer, or she knows who it is and she’s protecting them.”
I sit back and steeple my fingers.
“That’s a huge leap, Hiller,” I say, but the wheels are turning in my head.
“Is it?” She pokes at the file. “You and Emily are the only people connected in any way to this case.”
“It’s starting to sound like I may need to get myself a lawyer?”
“Something is off, and if you’re not the killer, and this pattern holds…”
She grabs the photos and puts them back in the folder.
“Then maybe you should be watching your back.”
Jen marches out the door. I pull open my bottom drawer and grab my special laptop. A dark shadow settles over me as I power it up. Who the fuck is coming after me? The question festers in my mind. No matter how hard I try, I can’t figure out who knows what I did to my father and knows these women from my past. I’ve never dated anyone very long, so it’s not like they were important to me. Why target them?
Is it to set me up? Do they want to make me look like a suspect?
My fingers hesitate…this feels like a violation. I hate that Hiller has put these thoughts in my head, but I need to know.
Okay, Emily Walker…who exactly are you?
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
ALDEN
The lab called today. They ran every test possible, and there was absolutely nothing in the alcohol or on the glass.
I’ve searched every website, used every trick I know, and the first eight years of Emily Walker’s life are as she says. She grew up in poverty, and her mother was in and out of trouble with the law for prostitution and public intoxication. There is no father’s name listed on her birth certificate, and Walker is her mother’s last name.
The last time her mother got out of jail, they moved, and Emily disappeared until six months before she opened her flower shop. The time in between is blank. It’s as if she never existed. No school records, no hospital visits, no driver’s license, just gone. How? Did no one look at her and think to call social services?
