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“Something’s not right. It doesn’t fit—something doesn’t fit. This murder just doesn’t mesh with the other two. Unless—” Jo cropped one of the pictures she’d taken at the crime scene so it only included Helen’s face. “We need to verify she didn’t work at The Volcano. I’m sending this to Hailey. She’ll know if Helen worked there.”
The text came back within a minute—Hailey hadn’t ever met Helen at The Volcano or elsewhere.
“Dammit,” Jo said again. “I don’t understand.”
“I don’t understand what you don’t understand,” Arnett said. “That clinches it, and now we know where to point our resources. Lopez will have the phone shortly and will find any other connection that exists.” He pointed to the shops in the strip mall. “Meantime we canvas these stores and check out their security footage. If he intercepted her coming or going into the restaurant, somebody saw something or caught something on film. Worse comes to worst, we at least have options now. We can even send someone in to Triple-B undercover to pretend to be a pregnant client and try to trap him that way.”
“Right. Let’s get on it,” she said gruffly.
“No, hold up.” Arnett grabbed her arm as she passed. “Talk to me.”
“I don’t know.” Jo rubbed her eyes again. “The logical part of my brain says that there’s clearly only one answer here—a serial killer who’s stalking women in Beautiful Bouncing Babies. But the rest of my brain is screamingthat makes no sense. Multiple murders in just a few days is generally a spree killer with a personal motive, not a serial killer unknown to the victims. And the trappings at the scene—why go to all the trouble to build the altars and paint strange symbols, then suddenly abandon most of that? And the choices he’s making—leaving the phones on, leaving the clothes on the bank where anyone can see them—it’s almost like he’s trying to get caught. Nothing is lying right, and I feel like a child that’s being taught to repeat a poem without understanding what the words mean.”
“I hear you,” Arnett said. “But we’ve done solid work to bring us to this point, and we’re narrowing in on him. We need to trust this is getting us where we need to go.”
“Right,” she said, and started toward the buildings again. “But it better get us where we need to go fast, because this guy is killing at a furious pace and doesn’t show any sign of stopping.”
CHAPTERFORTY-FIVE
Jo pushed down her frustration and tried to put her faith in canvassing the strip mall. The grocery store had a video of Helen’s car driving past the front of their store, the camera didn’t extend far enough to show where she eventually parked, but Panda Express’s had no video of her.
“She must never have made it into the restaurant,” Arnett said.
“That suggests our killer was waiting for her rather than following her,” Jo said. “He must have known her schedule, which makes sense—her boyfriend said she picked up the food every Wednesday, it was their special treat. Chelsea said the guy she thought was watching them was in a dark sedan, so I say we go back an hour before she was due and pull plates for any dark sedans that drive through the parking lot.”
Four cars matched that description, and Jo was able to capture visible plate numbers for each. They self-eliminated almost immediately—one was driven by a seventy-five-year-old woman, another by an eighty-year-old man who walked with a cane, and the last belonged to a woman who showed up with her three children on the grocery store’s interior footage just minutes after her car parked.
Eyewitnesses didn’t fare much better. Nobody saw anything suspicious—no lurking men, or even multiple people walking through the parking lot at the same time. The only eyewitness who even remembered seeing a light-skinned black woman reported she wasn’t alone, but was walking and talking happily with a friend.
Just before midnight, Lopez appeared at their desk, eyes bloodshot and weary. “I’m heading out before my eyes fall out of my head. Just wanted to update you that I found zero-zip-zilch that was helpful on Helen’s phone. No contact with Chelsea, Madison, Julia, or Naomie directly, although she does have past calls to Beautiful Bouncing Babies. Her location tracking confirms she went to Triple-B each Monday and Wednesday from five to six, and then on to Panda Express every Wednesday. Nothing to connect her to The Velvet Volcano, including location tracking. Unless she left her phone behind when she worked, she’s got nothing to do with the place. And I’ve got two people on the paper puzzle, but it’s slow going.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it. Hopefully piecing them together isn’t just a huge waste of everyone’s time.” Jo rubbed her face with both hands, as though she could rub away her frustration. “It’s looking more and more like a serial killer who has nothing to do with the stolen money or with The Volcano, except maybe as a place where he first caught sight of Madison.”
Lopez’s head tilted, and she plopped herself on the corner of Jo’s desk. “You okay? It’s not like you to give up on any lead, however small.”
Jo forced a smile. “I’m okay, I just can’t shake the feeling we’re missing something important, and the more I try to figure out what, the more my brain shuts down. And since there could be another dead woman by sun up, I’ve been pushing myself as hard as I can.” She stood and grabbed her blazer. “But, it’s clearly to the point now where it’s counterproductive, so I’m going to follow your lead by going home, getting some sleep, and allowing my subconscious time to connect whatever dots it’s trying to string together.”
Lopez held out her fist for a bump. “And we’ll come back in the morning and dive into everything, and we won’t stop until we’ve got ourselves a killer.”
* * *
Deep sleep pulled Jo under the moment her head hit the pillow. But when she woke the next morning, her subconscious hadn’t come to any new conclusions—the voice from the back of her head was agonizingly silent as she showered and yawned over her Moka pot.
Her phone chimed a notification as she pulled open the door to HQ, causing her to wince—Hayes would be calling at some point to chew her out, and she wasn’t sure she could face it without more coffee. Tempted as she was to ignore it, she paused to check it as Arnett appeared behind her.
“Oh, thank God,” she said. “It’s just Lopez asking us to come to the lab.”
Arnett smiled and shook his head, well aware why she was relieved.
Lopez greeted them with a broad smile, practically bouncing with excitement.
“Either you have good news, or someone left you a free case of Rockstars.” Jo laughed.
“You owe me one after this.” Lopez jumped out of her chair, snatched a narrow piece of yellow paper off her desk with her gloved hand, and held it up for them to view. “It’s not a full sheet yet, but it’s enough for a go-directly-to-jail card.”
Jo stepped closer, careful not to touch. As she did, she realized it wasn’t a single piece of paper, but a number of strips that had been matched up and taped together. Not one of the white documents as she’d been hoping for, but rather one of the yellow legal-pad sheets.
Madison Coelho’s signature was scrawled repeatedly across the page.
