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“No! Cody, what are you thinking about me?”
“Then you told someone.”
“I told no one! I’m the one who told you that I thought something was odd about Prenter’s murder. I came to you, remember?”
“Maybe to see if you’d screwed up.”
Lucy stepped back, pulling her hand from Cody’s tight grasp. It became clear that Cody thought she had conspired to kill Brad Prenter.
“Please,” Cody pleaded. “Let me help you.”
“You don’t believe me.” She bit back the bile of betrayal that burned her throat and said in a shockingly calm voice, “If I were going to set Prenter up, I wouldn’t send you to another bar. I wouldn’t have let you know that I had him on the hook. I wouldn’t have him killed in your jurisdiction, since you knew I was working him online. And I certainly would never have come to you to look into the odd circumstance of his murder.”
Cody slumped, the truth of her words hitting him, but as far as Lucy was concerned she could never trust Cody again. “I—I’m sorry,” he stammered.
“How could you think I am capable of doing such a thing?”
He didn’t say anything, and Lucy knew exactly why he’d believed the worst of her. Her hands came up to her mouth and she swallowed a sob.
It was because she had killed before. Six years ago she’d shot Adam Scott at point-blank range. Few people knew the whole story, but Cody did. When she and Cody had been dating she had told him about her past.
She turned and walked away, as fast as she dared on the icy sidewalk. Cody called after her, but she ignored him. She called her boss on the way back to the Metro station, told him she was ill, and headed home. Tired, cold, and sick at the loss of a friend.
But under it all was a simmering anger that someone had used her to kill Brad Prenter. She had to get home and look through all her records and accounts and figure this out before whoever killed him realized she was suspicious.
Unfortunately, with Cody looking into Prenter’s death, it might be too late.
In the back of her mind, Lucy knew that if not her, someone else at WCF would have worked on Prenter. WCF had dozens of volunteers, but only a handful of paid staff. Fran ran background checks on everyone. Some of the volunteers had tragedy in their own lives; others were retired law enforcement; others were active in public safety and used their free time to help. All had to pass a security check, but they weren’t foolproof.
Lucy couldn’t tell Fran unless she was certain. It would devastate the director to think that her organization had been used to kill a rapist. Their donors, their funding would dry up. All the good work they’d done in the past would be scrutinized. The active cops associated with them could be in jeopardy. Like Cody.
The people Lucy worked with didn’t kill predators, they put them in prison. It sickened her to think that their work might be tainted because one person wanted Prenter dead.
When Lucy arrived home, she smelled the roses before she saw the bouquet on the table next to the stairs. Red roses in a clear glass vase. She saw the card on the table next to it with her name. On the notepad next to the phone, Kate had scrawled, “These were delivered as I was leaving. Gorgeous! I want the scoop when I get home.”
The tension from her contemplative Metro ride and walk home began to fade. She opened the card.
I had a terrific time at the ice rink yesterday. I’ll see you soon.
He hadn’t signed it, just added a scrawl of something illegible. She smiled and smelled the flowers. Roses had never been her favorite, but today they were. Sean had quickly become important to her. She’d liked him when Patrick first introduced them but thought Sean wasn’t at all serious. His car, his plane, his computer toys—he seemed to be all about his stuff. But the last few days spending time with him, getting to know him better, kissing him…she felt a peace and comfort she hadn’t felt for a long time, and a deep attraction that surprised her. Sean might appear frivolous on the surface, but Lucy saw a depth of character and raw intelligence that was as captivating as his Irish charm and good looks.
She reluctantly put the card down. She hadn’t ditched work to sit around, but needed to find out exactly what had happened to Brad Prenter.
His killer knew how WCF tracked paroled sex offenders and sent them back to prison to complete their original sentence. Did someone in WCF have a vendetta against Prenter?
The most logical explanation was that one of his victims had gone after him.
Lucy went to her room and logged onto her computer. She could access WCF files from home, though she rarely did. She pulled down Prenter’s criminal records, though she knew them by heart, just to reread and make sure she hadn’t missed anything.
He’d been convicted of raping Sara Tyson. Two other women came forward to testify against him, and Lucy didn’t know why they hadn’t filed charges. Lack of evidence? The judge had allowed the testimony, but as Lucy reviewed the transcripts she realized that their testimony had been limited. They spoke only to facts that could be corroborated by a witness—both of them had appeared intoxicated at a public place and Prenter had taken them home. Prenter never denied having sex with them, but said it was consensual. They had likely been drugged—hence the appearance of drunkenness—but there was no proof; however, it looked bad to the jury that Prenter on two occasions had taken advantage of a drunk college student. Coupled with the proof that he’d drugged Sara Tyson, the jury had convicted him.
Lucy further researched Sara and the other two women. All had graduated from college. None of them lived within a hundred-mile radius. One was engaged to be married, and Sara attended law school in Texas.
Not in Prenter’s file, but in Lucy’s personal notes, was the information about his high school girlfriend in Rhode Island.
Evelyn Oldenburg had come home late on Saturday night from a house party. Her parents were asleep and didn’t hear her come in, but her younger brother said he’d heard the garage door close at 1:40, over an hour past her curfew. He didn’t want to get her in trouble, so he didn’t say anything. The next morning, her mother went to wake her and Evelyn was unresponsive. The girl had vomited on the floor next to her bed, indicating that she’d likely been conscious when she came home. The parents and paramedics believed it was alcohol poisoning, and her best friend, Sheila, tearfully confirmed that she’d driven Evelyn home in Evelyn’s car, then Sheila had walked to her own house.
It was what happened between 11:45 and one a.m.—when Sheila couldn’t find Evelyn—that was suspicious. No one, not even the police or hospital staff, had thought that Evelyn had anything but alcohol poisoning. Drug tests came back inconclusive. Further tests confirmed that she had ingested an unknown anabolic steroid—similar but not identical to GHB.
