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At least, she needed to make sure that it was fully turned off, so Liam couldn’t track it. With that in mind, Cami reached into the bag, pulled it out, and disconnected the battery. Now it was dead, for the moment. He could not possibly communicate with it or with her.
Seeing the street crossing ahead, she shoved it back in her bag, shouldered it, and got off the bus.
Connor must have been nearby, because just a minute later, she saw his car approach. He stopped at the intersection, and she scrambled inside.
To her extreme relief, Connor seemed focused on the job ahead and not worried about where Cami had been. At least, not for the moment.
"We've got another suspected serial," he said.
It would have taken nothing less to distract Cami from her misdoings.
"A serial murderer?"
"Yes, it seems so. We've had two deaths in the space of a few days, and the circumstances are very strange. The second one was discovered this afternoon, and the crime scene is still open. It's on the eastern outskirts of Boston, so it’s not far from here." He glanced at her again, as if reminded of the question about what, exactly, she'd been doing out this way.
"What are the similarities between the cases?" Cami asked hurriedly, needing to distract him from that line of thought.
"Two stabbings. Both women were stabbed in the back with a long bladed weapon. Suspected to be the same one, no sign of it at the scenes. The victims both stay in nearby suburbs, in good areas. Both had home security in place. Both crimes occurred when they were home alone. And in both cases, there's strange evidence that the victims, or people close to them, noticed."
"Such as what?"
"Personal items in the house being moved, things being out of place."
Cami frowned. "I'm not sure I understand you."
Connor sighed, clearly impatient that she wasn't following him. "In the first crime scene, the victim had recently come back from overseas. The housemaid, who found her body in the morning, said that all the items that she'd bought as gifts for friends while on her trip had been unpacked and were on the shelf in the lounge. She'd specifically told the maid to leave them in the packaging as they were going to be wrapped, and the housemaid swore that they were in the packaging when she left the day before."
"That's weird," Cami said.
"Then the second scene, where we're heading now, the husband is already reporting similar issues. He left the day before yesterday for a business trip. He was supposed to get back last night, but missed his flight. He became worried when he couldn't call his wife, and she didn't respond to his messages. He got back to find her, just inside the front door, stabbed to death. No sign of a break in. That's all I know for now."
Cami swallowed. That was terrible. She didn't want to imagine the spine-chilling fear that the woman must have gone through. What had played out in the house? Had the killer been inside? It sounded like it. And if so, how had he gotten in without activating the alarm?
"What are their names?" Cami asked. She knew that her first job would be to look up their online personas and see what she could find about these two victims.
"Caroline Elder and Shiree Williams," Connor said.
"I'll look them up now," she said, getting busy on her phone. Within a minute, she had basic details on the two victims. Linked to their home addresses, Cami could start getting serious.
“Wait a minute,” she said as Connor pulled up outside a large, double-story home set in a neat yard with a well-swept path.
There were about five cars parked outside, all clearly belonging to law enforcement and paramedics. But more importantly, there was a way into Shiree Williams’s home wifi. It wasn’t protected with a strong password at all. She could get beyond it, even if the information was not totally clear.
“I can’t see much at a glance,” she said. “But what’s interesting is that someone in the house has recently been researching divorce lawyers. That’s the most recent fragment I’m picking up from one of the home computers. I’m not sure who it was. But it’s something to bear in mind.”
Connor looked at her, surprised and impressed. “It is important, for sure. The husband’s here at home, I understand. Let’s keep that in mind when questioning him.”
He climbed out and headed to the house.
CHAPTER FOUR
This was where his latest Mama Bear lived. That was how the killer visualized the house, with a wry twist of humor. And it felt like his home. This two-story, three-bedroom house was well known to him.
He was very far in looks and personality from the fairytale Goldilocks that most people knew. Few were aware that this fairytale had its origins in an earlier version, where an old woman, bad mannered and foul mouthed, disgraced and rejected by her family, broke into the bear’s house. But he’d done his research and knew the roots of the tale. There had been more than enough time for reading, because in some of the places, they’d kept him for a while.
Now, he felt that he was creating a brand-new version of this famous tale. It was the first one ever where the intruder did not run away. What a wonderful twist!
Instead, the Goldilocks figure fought back, killing the bear.
