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She just didn’t see that angle.
I’m Not Me had been pretty detailed about all of Didi’s life, and the Los Angeles and Las Vegas parts of it were pretty much known to all of her friends and coworkers and other people she’d run across in her life. There had been some newspaper and magazine articles about her—not national, but still available.
But her growing-up years? Who
would know about those besides her family and close friends in the Midwest? Her parents were dead, but Settler intended to talk to Vera Gibbs and Billy Hutchinson, Didi’s sister and brother, if she could locate them. Maybe they could shed some light.
Then there was Remmi’s father, the mysterious man without a name. And Noah Scott’s father, whom Scott claimed his mother had told him was in prison and hadn’t been. Instead, he’d left Cora Sue and her son and raised another family. And, of course, Didi’s twins’ (if they existed) father who probably died in the conflagration in the Mojave that night twenty years ago. Lots and lots of daddy issues in the case. Lots of missing people, including Didi and her infant children.
And now, with Karen Upgarde and Trudie Crenshaw, two more victims.
So far.
Settler had requested info on everyone Remmi Storm had mentioned when she’d first come to the department. Tomorrow a lot of that information should be waiting. Maybe then she’d find some answers. Perhaps she’d even catch a killer.
She finally drifted off to sleep somewhere around 5:00 with a final thought that she should call her own dad, forgive him for finding happiness with a woman who wasn’t her mother, and try to kick-start their once tight father-daughter relationship. Could they repair the fences she’d tried so hard to knock down?
She hoped so.
* * *
The Subaru hadn’t moved.
Not in the last two hours.
According to the Marksman’s GPS, which recorded information for up to two weeks, Remmi Storm had returned after spending hours at the Crenshaw place in Sacramento, arriving there soon after he’d finished the job. He only wished he’d been able to stick around. He would have finished her off, too. Wouldn’t that have been tidy?
But because of that prick Crenshaw and the damage he’d inflicted, the Marksman had been forced to leave.
And you left your DNA there. What about that? Unless the cops are complete idiots, they’ll have proof that you were there.
He needed to end this.
Soon.
Tonight?
Before dawn?
No. He didn’t have cover. And he needed time to recuperate, at least a little time. His entire body felt as if it had gone through a meat grinder and back again, and tomorrow it might not feel a hell of a lot better; then he’d take some over-the-counter painkillers, but nothing too strong that would push him off his game. How hard could it be to kill one woman?
Tomorrow night. Under the cover of darkness.
He’d take care of her.
For good.
CHAPTER 26
“Guess who was flat broke?” Martinez said as Settler was hanging up her coat on the rack in the department the next morning.
“You?” she said. She was dragging a bit from her interrupted sleep. She’d finally gotten about an hour’s worth of shut-eye before her alarm blared at her; her eyes felt like sandpaper, and she was dying for a cup of coffee. Martinez, damn him, looked like he had slept a solid eight hours and was ready for a marathon.
“I mean besides me,” Martinez said, teeth white against his goatee as he flashed her a devilish grin.
“Let me take a guess: You got the bank records on Karen Upgarde.”
“That I did, and man, that girl was drowning in red ink,” he said.
