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“No. We pulled the phone records, though. He didn’t make many calls and the folks he texted or emailed all dealt with normal stuff. There were no incoming calls.”
Gibson looked at the shelves of comic books. “Your guys go through all those?”
“We looked through some. I guess adults collect stuff like that, baseball cards, you name it. Maybe sell it on eBay.”
“Only he wasn’t online,” pointed out Gibson. “There are no electronics in the house that I saw.”
“Yeah, that’s right,” said Dawson. “So what do you think is going on?”
Sullivan shrugged. “What we’re trying to find out.”
“Mind if we look around?” asked Gibson.
“Knock yourselves out. I’m not too proud to ask for help. I can email you the file we have, Detective Sullivan.”
“Sounds good, thanks.”
Dawson and Barbara Cole left.
Sullivan eyed Gibson. “Thoughts?”
She didn’t want to share what was on her mind right now, but Sullivan looked determined.
“I don’t think we know enough to draw any preliminary, much less definite, conclusions. Why don’t I search the upstairs and you check the rest of the house? If something pops we each call the other.”
“Okay. Do you really think this is a coincidence—the two phrases on the wall, I mean?”
“There must be a connection. We just have to find it.” What she didn’t say was that the handwriting on Oxblood’s wall was quite different from the handwriting back at Stormfield. But Sullivan might have already noted that.
Now that Gibson had committed herself to solving this case, as the only way to protect herself and her kids, she wanted to do it as rapidly as possible. Thus, she was itching for Sullivan to leave, because she had seen something that she wanted to check out.
As soon as he left she made a beeline for the comics.
They were all neatly laid in their respective piles. All except for one.
On top of one pile a comic book was sticking out, like a sore thumb, she thought. She didn’t know if the cops had done it, or someone else. Like Ms. Frazier?
She put on latex gloves and picked it up. She opened it and stopped.
Was that blood on the inside of the cover?She looked closer; it seemed like blood. Had Oxblood’s killer taken the time to pick up this particular comic book?
Then she noted the initials in the heart shape next to the drop of blood.BD and RE?
She had brought an evidence pouch with her and slipped the comic book into it, then folded it over and put it into her bag. Gibson was sure that someone, either the killer or killers, or Clarisse/JuliaFrazier, had picked up this comic book out of all the others and opened it to that page. And seen the initials inside that heart. And what had that meant to them or her?
And what does it mean to me?
CHAPTER46
T?HEY STAYED OVERNIGHT AT ANinn near The Plains. They had dinner in the small, quaint restaurant. Sullivan said, “So we didn’t really find much back there, did we?”
Gibson thought of the plastic evidence pouch in her room containing the comic book with the dried blood on it. She had brought her kit and checked it, but found no prints on the blood mark. The person had probably worn gloves.
She knew removing potential evidence from a crime scene was a crime in itself. But she had thought long and hard about this and had arrived at one difficult conclusion.
I can’t just walk away from this or bury my head in the sand, because I’m exposed. I’ve been exposed ever since I stepped foot into Stormfield and found Harry Langhorne dead. And Clarisse is probably a psycho and she knows where I live. And after I visited his father, Nathan Trask can easily find out who I am. Or, hell, Clarisse might decide to rat me out to the man, if she already hasn’t. The only way to protect myself and my family is to get to the truth as fast as possible. And the only way I can do that is to become a detective again and hope I’m still good enough to solve this mess.
She said, “Maybe it’s staring us in the face?”
