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Chapter Seventeen
“How did I miss this?”I ask, scanning through the pages of Sam’s file for anything else I may have overlooked. I’m pissed at myself. I’ve always prided myself on the little details. I’m usually able to see things no one else can.
This case, because it’s Sam, has me feeling less and less like the strong, smart, intuitive woman I normally am.
“It wasn’t noted in the file. You can look all you want. You didn’t miss anything, Drea. They left that detail out. I don’t even know how Spencer figured it out. I would have asked but I saw the look in your eye. I wasn’t about to let you walk anywhere alone after Summer’s confession. She put a target on your back. On all our backs.”
“He wouldn’t strike in broad daylight,” I retort, brushing off Jay’s concerns, but there’s a nagging feeling crawling on my skin that my assumption is wrong.
If he feels we’re getting close, he might do something out of character. It could be anything from starting a fight to getting wasted and driving. Or something bigger, more aggressive, like kill again. Not necessarily me but whoever is his current object of obsession.
Should we warn the chief?
The thought crosses my mind, but I cancel it out. The town is going to be crawling with people tonight.
“We have no idea who this guy is. The last thing I want to do is risk losing you.”
Flipping the page, I find the information I was searching for, holding the page above my head and smiling up at Jay who’s looking at me like I’ve lost my mind.
“Care to share?”
“This is the list of people they initially eliminated.”
He looks at me as if to say “And?”
“Think about this. He kills Sam, takes her apron, and has to hide it. He can’t take it home because if he’s questioned, they might search his place. He’s not going to throw it away, he needs to be able to see it, to touch it. It’s a trophy of his accomplishment. Like I said before, if he couldn’t have Sam, no one could. Her apron proves that. He made it happen.”
“So, if it’s not at his place but he held onto it, where would he put it?”
“That’s the kicker. No one would suspect him so he could have put it anywhere.” My excitement is growing as the smile fades from Jay’s lips, his dimple disappearing.
“Which makes us no closer to finding it than we were before we knew it was missing.”
“Actually, that’s not true. Okay, think about this. I’m going to use you as an example because you were cleared of any involvement.” He raises his eyebrow but nods for me to continue. “If you had killed her and taken the apron, you wouldn’t have brought it back to your place. You would have taken it somewhere and hid it. Somewhere you went often and could revisit it without bringing suspicion. Where would you have taken it?”
“Probably Spencer’s.”
“Exactly. This person has somewhere they go regularly in town. A close friend’s. A family home.”
“Their business?”
“No. If they were suspected of being involved, their business would be searched as well. It would have to be a place where they could hide the apron out of sight. They’d know it well; like the place they grew up.”
“I get what you’re saying. I grew up in a historic home, a lot like this one, and there were little nooks everywhere. There was this panel in the closet under the stairs that you could pop off and I’d hide in there when I played hide and go seek with my cousins. They never found me.”
“Something like that.”
“You’re basically reinforcing the idea that he’s from town. How do we narrow it down? If it were me, I’d be searching their computers and browser history. Even now you can find a trail that could lead us to suspicious behavior. I can’t do that without a short list of suspects. We need to narrow it down to only a few people.”
“I thought you worked for the government?” I asked, confused by his sudden interest in what used to be his hobby.
“I do. That doesn’t mean I don’t still tinker with computers. And my hacking abilities are a lot better than they used to be.”
Raising an eyebrow at his confession, I wait for Jay to expand on his statement, but he doesn’t. Instead, he takes the list from my hand, sets it next to the preliminary profile I wrote out in my notebook, and begins eliminating potential suspects.
Too old.
Too stupid.
