AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Yes. I think the killer dropped the rock he’d knocked her out with in the pile, then threw her on top of it and finished the job.”
“Why?” he asked.
She narrowed her eyes. “Are you asking me why I think it happened that way or why he killed her?”
“Why you think he killed her that way?” He got to his feet to demonstrate. “Come here, Riley.”
“Great. I get to play the victim again,” she said.
“Stabbings are typically personal, sick as that is. They’re crimes of passion and often by someone the victim knows, often intimately,” he explained.
“It’s horrifying to think so, but yes, that’s my understanding as well,” Harper said, standing.
He turned Riley to face him.
Christian and Andi stood and shuffled to get a clear view as well.
“Most men—and stabbings are predominately by men—will overtake the woman, push her against a solid object if one is available. If not, they’ll grasp hold with one hand”—he demonstrated by gripping Riley’s left upper arm—“and stab with the other.” He simulated a handful of stab wounds as had occurred with Anne Marlowe. “If it’s a crime of passion, it doesn’t make sense to stab an unconscious victim. What’s the point? If she’s knocked out, why not slit her throat or strangle her?”
“Deckard!” Riley said.
“I’m not saying anyone should. Just trying to approach it from the killer’s perspective.”
“My theory?” Harper said.
“Sure.”
“It wasn’t a crime of passion. It was premeditated, staged as a crime of passion, and the shirt left behind was left on purpose. And to top it off, apparently Judge Simmons and Anne Marlowe used to meet up at the hiking area she was found adjacent to.”
“So you’re suggesting it was premeditated to look like a crime of passion?” Deckard asked.
“Correct,” she said. “And set up to make Judge Simmons take the fall.”
Andi leaned forward. “Mitch Abrams had an alibi. He was at a conference in Las Cruces. But when the prosecution submitted the DNA evidence I processed, they argued that the three-hour trip to and from Albuquerque fit within the parameters of his committing the murder.”
“Judge Simmons’s alibi was easier to prove,” Deckard said. “Clint, the defense attorney, said he had last-minute judicial company, a Judge Sawyer and his wife, who decided to stay for the night, as it was late.”
“So whoever intended to set him up was unaware of the alibi he had,” Andi said.
“Any way Judge Simmons could have snuck out?” Riley asked.
“The visiting judge’s wife has awful insomnia,” Deckard said, the facts of the investigation seared into his mind. “She said she was up until well past four a.m. Simmons would have had to walk right past her to get out of the house.”
He ran it all through his mind, then fixed his gaze on Harper. “So you not only think Andi was set up but that the murder was a setup too?”
“Most definitely.”
Deckard tilted his head.This should prove an interesting investigation. He looked at Harper.And an interesting woman to work it with.Most people he could easily categorize, but not Harper Grace. He couldn’t pin her down, and something about that was appealing.
¦¦¦
Cyrus smiled. So they were preoccupied with Andi’s case. He’d done his homework. Found who Ambrose Global would send out when Tad Gaiman’s galleries were robbed. She had an interesting past, to be sure. And, as long as that kept their attention divided, the better. Knowing Enrique, his brutish force, and sick perversion for killing people in dramatic ways, it wouldn’t be long before they found the girl’s body. It was coming. He could feel it. As long as it didn’t draw them to him or get in the way of what lay ahead...
Andi returned to her seat beside the giant, averting his attention.
His muscles coiled, the odd heat of jealousy rippling through him.Not again.Last time he fell for a woman, it’d landed him in jail.
He gripped the microphone scope harder.No. He’d admire the beautiful woman from a distance and that was it. Unless she got close to catching him, and then she’d meet him face-to-face.
