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“Everything okay?” he asked.

“My mother has a brain tumor.” Cassie’s casual tone surprised herself. “I think I’m still processing it, but my sister said they don’t think it’s cancer. We’ll have to wait until it’s removed to find out.”

“I’m so sorry.” David’s face was a mask of concern. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Let’s solve one problem at a time,” she said. “I could use the distraction.”

Thirty-Five

The inside of Langford’s house was more impressive than the outside, but Cassie didn’t have much time to look around. It was big and open and somehow devoid of any real personality. It wasn’t like she wouldn’t be happy to live in a house of this size, but a home needed some warmth and a welcoming atmosphere. This one felt sterile.

She followed David up the stairs and tried to not think about the fact that this was where Lucy had lost her life. She focused on the task ahead of them.

Harris met them at the door. “Everything okay?”

“Some personal stuff. Nothing I can do about it now.” Cassie looked over Harris’s shoulder. “Did you find the letters?”

“Right where he told us they’d be.” Harris stepped to the side.

Cassie’s breath caught in her throat. Langford’s bedroom was at least three times the size of her own. He fit a king bed, two dressers, a TV cabinet, and several bookshelves in there, and it still felt open and airy. Comfortable.

And she had been right about the floor-to-ceiling windows.

“Impressive, right?” David asked. “Why do terrible people always have the best stuff?”

Cassie shrugged. She had been wondering the same thing. Langford was a doctor, and it was clear that he either made good money or came from a wealthy family. Maybe both. She didn’t know how much a house like this cost, but she knew it wasn’t cheap.

“Why would he risk losing any of this?” Cassie wondered. “I mean, I know money isn’t everything, but was he so bored with his life that he thought he’d spend some time murdering people?”

“It doesn’t always make sense,” Harris said. “And you’ll drive yourself crazy asking why.”

“She’s right,” David said. “We have to be satisfied that we caught him. The next step is to make sure he goes to prison for a very long time.”

“Actually,” Harris said. “The next step is finding out who his blackmailer is.”

Cassie walked over to Langford’s bed and looked at the letters spread out across the top of it. There were at least a dozen of them, and they all looked ordinary. It was strange to think they had been used to instruct Langford in committing such horrific crimes.

“Okay.” Cassie blew out a breath. “What are we working with?”

Harris handed Cassie a pair of gloves. “So far, everything adds up. We’ve put them in chronological order as best as we could according to what Langford told us and using our best judgment. It starts with the initial requests, then goes into the letters about the women.”

“May I?” David looked at Harris.

“Go ahead.”

“What I found interesting is that whoever wrote these letters was familiar with Dr. Langford. He called him by his first name, Richard, and used phrases that implied they must’ve crossed paths at some point.”

“So, Langford does know who the blackmailer is?” Cassie asked.

“Not necessarily.” David leaned forward and used a gloved hand to point out a couple lines here and there. “The blackmailer says things like ‘I know it won’t be hard for you to take a life, given that your profession deals in death every day,’ or this one that says ‘Your competency and willingness to take risks is what drew me to you.’”

“Maybe he was a patient?” Cassie asked. “Is that possible?”

“Anything’s possible at this point,” Harris said, “but yes, it seems like the blackmailer could be one of Langford’s patients or someone who was aware of him.”

“And that’s why they chose Langford? Because Langford was smart enough to get away with murder and cavalier enough to not care that he was playing with people’s lives?”

“Seems like it.” Harris pointed to the first letter. “In this one he talks about seeing the newspaper article describing Lucy’s disappearance. He put two and two together and figured it out. He said Langford was too smart for the police, but not smart enough to outplay him.”

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