AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“When I called a second time, you were suspicious,” Sam went on. “I figured you hadn’t taken me seriously, so I decided to figure out who the next victim was and warn her myself if I had to.”
He sounded so goddamn sincere. Why does he have to be so goddamn sincere?
“So you did what?” She smiled condescendingly, just to see his reaction. “Thought you’d make a murder board like we use in Homicide?”
His cheeks flushed with color and he clenched his jaw for a second before answering. “Yes. I told you that I take my duty to warn seriously. I’m glad you find this so amusing, Detective,” he said bitterly. “At least ‘Lilac’ is safe.”
Kit kept her gaze fixed on his face, watching for his reaction to her next disclosure. “No, she isn’t. The two teenagers you pointed us to are all right. But one of their teammates went missing eight months ago. She was blond and petite and played lacrosse wearing a lilac uniform.”
The color drained from Reeves’s face. “Oh my God,” he whispered. “Did she like the TV show Avondale?”
Kit blinked at the question. “I don’t know. Why?”
“Because my client said they watched that show together. Did he kill her? Could she still be alive?”
“What is your client’s name?” Kit asked, fully expecting him not to answer.
“Colton Driscoll,” he said, still appearing horrified. “He was referred to me for anger management as a requirement of his probation after he beat his neighbor and tried to hit him with his car.”
Colton Driscoll. Excitement prickled over her skin. Now they had a name.
“And he got probation?” Joel demanded. “What the hell? I hate the system sometimes.”
“Me too,” Kit said coolly. “How old is Mr.Driscoll?”
Reeves frowned at her, confused. “Forty-five. Why?”
Old enough to have done all the murders. He’d have started when he was twenty-five. Maybe even earlier if there were victims they hadn’t yet found.
“Is he from the area?” she asked, ignoring his question. “Or did he move here from somewhere else?”
Reeves’s confusion intensified. “I don’t know. According to him, he’s from up north, the Midwest, out east, or from England, depending on which day it is. It changes from session to session. He’s a pathological liar.”
“I got that part,” Kit said. “Was there anything else that you remember about Mr.Driscoll? Anything that you yourself observed?”
Reeves swallowed. “When he talked about his ‘pretty young thing,’ he’d do this around the water bottle he was holding.” He squeezed his hands together, twisting them.
As if strangling someone. All the known victims had been strangled to death.
“It was... disturbing,” he added quietly. “That was what initially caught my notice. He didn’t make the hand motions when he was talking about his fabricated life. You know, the actors and the royalty.”
“I imagine that would be disturbing,” Kit murmured. “Do you have his address in your client files?”
“I have the address he provided on his intake paperwork, but it wasn’t the right one. When I started to become uncomfortable with his disclosures, I checked his address against his arrest report. I figured that was the correct one. The one he provided to us was a mansion in Del Mar, but he really lives in a two-bedroom in Mira Mesa.”
Kit drew in a slow breath as she understood. “Mira Mesa was the fourth dot on the map.” He’d marked on his murder board the addresses of both young women and the park where Jaelyn Watts had been buried. The fourth dot had been unlabeled. It made sense now.
“Yes.”
She leaned back in her chair, studying him. “Why did you mark his address on the map?”
He held her gaze. “I thought it might show a pattern.”
No, she thought. That was a lie. His voice had gone slightly flat. Barely noticeable, if she hadn’t been listening for it.
“Were you planning on following him?” she asked.
“Sam,” his lawyer broke in. “I don’t think you should say anything else.”
