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"So they were trying to make it look like a suicide so that they could avoid suspicion?" Amber shook her head even as she said it, knowing that couldn't be the answer. "No, that doesn't work. If so, the second murder makes it too obvious that this is a series of murders. The killer has to know that the police would make the connection between the two."
"Maybe he was hoping they'd think it was a series of linked suicides?" Simon suggested, but he didn't sound as though he thought it was likely.
Linked suicides, or even suicides inspired by one another, did happen, but by picking such a strange method, the killer seemed to be deliberately drawing attention to his work. Maybe the wholepointwas to grab attention.
“Anything from the victims’ cell phones?” Amber asked. She guessed that the Verdice PD would have been through them almost immediately.
“Nothing. There aren’t any messages to suggest that they were lured to their deaths, and there’s nothing in there to suggest anyone threatening them.”
Amber glanced over at Simon, looking away from the road for a moment. "Do you think this is the first time the killer has been killed?"
Simon raised an eyebrow as he looked up from the file at her. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, it seems like he knows what he's doing," Amber said. "You haven’t mentioned any DNA evidence, and the victims didn't have a chance to get away. Is there a chance that he’s done this before, or worked up to it, somehow?"
"It's possible," Simon said. "But we don't know for sure. We can't assume anything until we have more information."
Amber nodded, but she still found herself wondering about it as she drove. Amber shook her head. "It doesn't make sense if he's trying to make this look like suicide. The killer is taking a huge risk by continuing to commit murders. He has to know that there will be an investigation and that it will lead to people assuming it's murder. Each one increases the chances that he'll be caught."
"Unless he's confident that hewon'tget caught," Simon said. "Maybe he just thinks he's too clever for the police to catch up to. Or maybe he just wants the attention so much that he’s prepared to take the risk."
That seemed much more likely as an explanation for the MO of the crimes. In that sense, were the bridges just a convenient place to display the victims, or was there something more to it than that? Was there a significance to the choice of the bridges as display sites that they weren’t seeing yet?
"How hard would the killer have to work to find different bridges to display his victims?" Amber asked. They were getting closer to Verdice now. It wouldn't be long before they got there, and Amber wanted to have some idea of how they were going to find a way into this case by the time they got there.
"In Verdice?" Simon said. "From what I've read, not that hard. The town is built on either side of a river, with a couple of islands in between and plenty of bridges to choose from."
Maybe theywerejust convenient sites then, or maybe the killer had an obsession of some kind with them in a city with so many bridges to choose from. Without seeing the situation on the ground, though, Amber suspected that they weren't going to make inroads into the case.
She was about to ask Simon more about the contents of the case files when his phone went off. He answered quickly, speaking in soft tones as if he didn't want Amber to hear too much of the conversation. In the confines of the car, though, it was impossible to avoid overhearing fragments of it.
"Hey, Francesca. How are you? Sorry, I can't talk much right now. I'm in the car with Amber on the way to a case."
Francesca? That had to be Detective Angelique, with whom the two of them had worked on their last case, chasing a serial killer obsessed with the Greek Tower of the Winds. Was she calling to follow up on something to do with the case?
There was a brief pause. Amber saw Simon smile at something Detective Angelique said, and it occurred to Amber that this call might not be entirely work-related. After all, she'd seen the two having a personal moment together at the end of that last case, and they’d spent most of the case with half their attention on one another. It was clear that the two of them were attracted to one another, even if they were on opposite sides of the country. Was there a chance that the two of them were trying to make a relationship work in spite of that distance?
"I know," Simon said. "I'm looking forward to you coming over to DC too. I'll call you as soon as I get a moment alone, okay, and we can talk properly? Good, I'm looking forward to it."
He hung up, leaving Amber wondering if she should say something. Maybe she should just stay quiet and focus on the case. Simon was her partner, but that didn’t mean that Amber got to be involved in his personal life. Amber had her own life, her own boyfriend.
Ultimately, though, she couldn't help herself.
"So, you and Detective Angelique..."
Simon looked momentarily embarrassed, but he recovered quickly. "Well, you know that we hit it off when we were working on the last case."
That was one way of putting it. The way Amber remembered it, the two of them had barely been able to take their eyes off one another.
"So we decided, maybe we should give things a try. Francesca is going to come visit DC, and we've been talking pretty regularly. I guess we both just want to find out if there's something there."
Amber suspected that there wasdefinitelysomething there between her partner and the detective. She'd been able to see the spark there from the moment the two met. It brought up the strangest of emotions in Amber: jealousy. She felt jealous right then of Francesca and how close she was to Simon. She felt jealous of their whole relationship.
That feeling was quickly followed by a sudden surge of guilt. Amber had no right to feel jealous when it came to Simon and Francesca or Simon and anyone. She and Simon weren't a couple; they weren't anything but partners. She was seeing Joseph. Joseph, who had been hurt because of her. Who had been attacked because of her? Who deserved so much better?
"Well, so long as it doesn't distract you from the case," Amber settled for saying, half joking.
"You know it won't," Simon replied.
