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“You should have told her you’re half angelus,” says Remi. “And see what she had to say then.”
“I doubt it would have made her more forthcoming,” says Storm.
“So I’m guessing she didn’t know about Jared Everett’s little tryst with Astrid Wikander in Ireland?” says Remi.
“She denied any possibility of Jared having an affair vehemently. She said he worshiped the ground that Lynesse walked on.”
“What about Silverstone or Caprio?” asks Leo. “Did she think Jones might be having an affair with either of them?”
“She laughed at the possibility of Caprio being Lynesse’s lover. Said Lynesse would never give a mere assistant the time of day. But she did have her suspicions about Silverstone. Said he visited the house far too often when Jared was not home.”
“But Diana was sure Lynesse was not having an affair with Silverstone,” Remi points out.
“Diana could be wrong,” Storm says shortly. He isn’t sure he fully believes this, but he is determined to keep an open mind. Beatrice had refused to confirm an affair too, but she had not denied it either. “Even so, we do know Jared and Raif could not have been the father of her baby, so we need to confirm who else she may have been seeing.”
Monroe clears his throat. “Didn’t the chief want us to investigate this Diana Bellona as a suspect? Her adoptive family were murdered in a similar copycat crime when she fled California. Lynesse Jones and she were both former patients of this Dr Carrington fellow. Diana could have known Lynesse…”
His voice trails off as he realizes that Storm and Remi are both glaring at him.
“Or maybe not…?” he finishes in a weak voice.
Storm looks at Leo. “Where are we with that alibi?” he asks.
Leo grins wolfishly. He has already finished his wings and had been looking around to see where his main is.
He shakes his head. “It’s not her. I managed to get CCTV footage from a neighbor's house that covers her front door. She came home just before 7:00 pm on Friday and didn’t leave again until 6:30 am on Saturday morning.”
Storm lets out a breath. He knew that had to be the case, but it’s a relief to have the evidence.
“But aren’t there other exits to the house?” Monroe insists.
“No rear exit. She lives on the third floor, so unless she jumped from a window several stories high, it’s not her. Even then, the footage would have most likely caught it at street level.”
Storm’s shoulders, which had been slightly tensed up, finally relax. “So what do we know?” he says. “Let’s run through this from the start. The murders took place at Lynesse Jones’s home between 11:00 pm on Friday night and 2:00 am on Saturday morning. Lynesse turned the security feed off because she liked her privacy, so we have nothing there. Raif Silverstone was visiting her at the time. Given the time of night, there is no clear security footage of the killer from the neighboring houses. Are we all agreed that the focus of the killer’s rage was on Lynesse? And that Raif got in the killer’s way and was collateral damage?”
He checks to see if anyone wants to propose a different theory, but no one does. “We do need to keep investigating the possibility that Raif’s dealings with freeing water sprites got him into trouble,” he says. “But let’s run through the first theory for now. So who had motive to want Lynesse dead?”
“Number one,” says Remi. “The housekeeper, who had an airtight alibi.”
“Number two,” says Leo. “Her fiancé, who works with axes on his film sets, and could have had sufficient time to fly down from Ireland, commit the murder, and then fly back. He says he’s never seen the murder weapon before, but we’re checking to see if that axe came from his set.”
“Number three,” says Remi. “Astrid Wikander, known to despise Lynesse, could also have flown from Ireland — with or without Everett — to commit the murder.”
“Erm, maybe not Astrid,” says Monroe. “Her Instagram feed has a video that shows that she was in Ireland at the beach cottage at 4:00 pm on Friday, so it makes it a pretty tight window for her to travel. I’m still trying to contact Astrid or her assistant to validate an alibi though. And she was walking all around the cottage in that Instagram video, by the way, and there was no sign of Everett in it.”
“Good work!” says Remi, beaming. “Right?” She looks at Storm.
“Sure,” says Storm.
Monroe blushes, and says hurriedly, “Number four, the unknown father of her baby.”
“I still think it’s possible that could be Caprio,” says Storm. “He said he stayed on set in Ireland when Everett went to the beach cottage, but I need you to pin that down Monroe.”
“So five is Caprio,” says Remi.
“And six is Beatrice Grictor,” purrs a voice in Storm’s ear.
Storm stares at Diana in shock. She has arrived at the table with several main courses balanced on her arms. She unloads them expertly, placing two veal scaloppinis and a steak in front of Leo.
