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Sam’s brow quirked up. He knew Bridget and Reese had become friends, but he didn’t realize Bridget had called on her to use her resources.
“Don’t worry,” Bridget hurried to add. “She doesn’t know that we are working a cold case. I said it was about an old friend from a former life. I hope I didn’t just get her into trouble.”
“Nah. I’ve asked her to do things off the record for me too.” Sam leaned back. “Eve’s family probably wanted to move away from it all. But moving here is quite a coincidence. People often move near relatives, though. Could just be that simple. Besides, the police cleared the father. Eve would have been too young, but… did she have an older brother?”
Jo met Sam’s eyes as she picked up a slice of cheddar. “She did. Barry. But he was never a suspect.”
The room fell silent for a moment, the atmosphere thickening.
Sam took another sip of his beer, placing it on the table. “That’s a good find, Bridget. We should look into this further.”
Bridget looked puzzled, still holding a cracker. “How?”
Holden leaned forward, catching Sam’s eye. “First, find out how long they stayed in town. Are they still here? Any relatives? Were children abducted from this area while they lived here?”
Jo shook her head while she chewed on a cheddar-topped cracker. “Unlikely. Their last name was Duchamp, and there are no Duchamps around here.”
“But relatives could be on the mom’s side,” Sam pointed out, taking a piece of cheddar from the board. “Different last name.”
Holden nodded. “Still, it’s a long shot, thinking their move here has anything to do with them being involved. But every angle’s worth investigating.”
He paused, taking a sip of his own beer. “One thing’s for sure—this case is different from most others I’ve worked on. Typically, serial killers go after adults. Tammy was a child.”
Sam looked at Holden then at Jo and Bridget. “Which means we are looking for someone who is a true monster.”
CHAPTERSEVEN
The thumb drive clicked into the slot with a sense of finality. Kevin’s fingers danced across the keyboard, his brow furrowed in concentration. Access denied. He tried another combination. Denied again. Each attempt was a hope rising and falling in the span of a heartbeat.
He reached for his water, the glass cold against his palm, the sound of his swallow loud in the silent room. His eyes were locked on the screen, the blinking cursor a taunt, the password field a chasm between him and the truth.
Why the heck can’t I remember?
He was sure that the drive was some sort of evidence in a case, but why had it been in his possession on the day he was shot? His brother Brian had dropped it off with Kevin’s personal effects at the station while he lay unconscious, mind and memories adrift. He didn’t remember any visits from Brian while he was in the hospital.
The knowledge that Brian had been the one to bring his personal effects to the station was unsettling for Kevin. They hadn’t seen eye to eye on most things, their lives taking divergent paths early on. Brian’s path had always skirted the gray areas of legality, his career choices a series of get-rich-quick schemes that never quite panned out.
That Brian had been there, talking to the doctors and nurses on his behalf while Kevin was unconscious, felt out of character. It gnawed at Kevin, this niggling suspicion that Brian’s presence wasn’t rooted in familial concern. Why now? After all these years of distant, sporadic meetups during obligatory family gatherings, why would Brian suddenly care about him?
Brian had not visited and had only called once since Kevin had woken from the coma. Another fact that proved Brian probably didn’t really care. There was an edge to Brian’s voice on the call, a probing undertone as he asked about Kevin’s recovery—no, not the recovery but specifically about when he’d be back at work, what cases he was on.
What are you up to, Brian?
But that was one mystery that might not be solved. With Brian, one never knew. The thumb drive, though… Well, Kevin hoped he could solve that. It could be important.
When he’d first looked at the drive, he thought it was empty. But after talking to Wyatt, he’d discovered that drives could seem empty if someone really wanted to hide what was on them.
Wyatt hadn’t seemed at all suspicious as to why Kevin was asking all the questions. In fact, he seemed glad Kevin was interested in computer forensics, and it had been simple for Kevin to get more ideas from him on how to find out if the drive had data on it without actually telling Wyatt he had a drive.
Kevin still wasn’t sure why he didn’t want Wyatt to know. With his memory being all messed up, he was operating on instinct.
He’d discovered there was data on the drive, but of course, it had been locked behind a password. He’d been trying to crack that password for weeks now. With each failed attempt to breach the drive’s defenses, Kevin’s frustration mounted.
Maybe this was all for nothing. Kevin squeezed his eyes shut, trying to remember why he had that thumb drive and how to access it. But somehow in the dark recesses he felt like he actually never knew the answers in the first place. He was just keeping the drive because it was somehow important. And if it was that important back before he was shot, it was probably pretty important now.
The drive was but one of the foggy memories that eluded him. There was also something about a corner. He had no idea why that kept tugging at him. He felt it was loosely related to Lucy and Sam but had no idea why. Apparently that was important too. Sam had asked him about it and said he mentioned it when he’d been in a coma.
He turned his thoughts back to the thumb drive. Foggy memories emerged. Tyler Richardson, the officer who was shot last year. Lucas Thorne. Did the drive have something to do with them? The names flickered at the periphery of his consciousness, elusive yet insistent. He inhaled sharply, the air cutting through the fog of uncertainty.
