‘I have a Snickers bar. I’ll split it with you.’
Scarlett wolfed her half down. ‘Now I’m only half a monster.’
‘You’re not so bad.’
‘High praise.’
Jill sat silent for a whole minute and a half. ‘I know what they’re doing.’
‘Who?’
‘Marcus, Gayle, Lisette and the others. They’re using the Ledger to expose abusers or turning their investigations over to the cops so that the abusers can be arrested.’
‘And you know this how?’
‘Because a lot of the threats on that list didn’t make sense because the stories were never printed in the paper. So why would someone threaten Marcus? But then I cross-checked those threats against arrest records. Almost all of the people making threats had an arrest record for some kind of abuse in the past. I’m not as stupid as Marcus seems to think.’
‘He doesn’t think you’re stupid at all, Jill. That’s why you make him nervous. You’re smart, but he doesn’t know where your loyalties lie.’
‘They lie with Gayle. She took me in.’
‘And she’s all you have left. Don’t you think he knows that?’
‘I guess.’ She mimicked Scarlett’s pose, leaning her head back and staring at the ceiling. ‘It wasn’t really his fault,’ she said softly. ‘Gayle’s heart attack, I mean. She’d been having issues for a while but she wouldn’t let me tell anyone.’
‘That was stupid of her.’
‘She’s proud. And she doesn’t like to worry Stone and Marcus. She walks on eggshells around them. It’s like she’s afraid they’ll break.’
‘Maybe they will.’
It was Jill’s turn to snort. ‘Those guys are tanks. Nobody bothers them.’
‘Not now. Doesn’t mean it’s always been that way. You got your phone?’
‘Duh.’ Jill fished it out of her pocket. ‘Why?’
‘Do me a favor. Google “Matthias Gargano”, “Lexington” and “1989”.’ Scarlett closed her eyes while Jill did so. The girl’s gasp told her that she’d found the articles.
‘Oh my God. I didn’t know. Stone and Marcus . . . they had another brother?’
‘Yeah. Matty was killed by the kidnappers and Gayle was the one who kept that family together afterward. She’s seen those big tanks as small, scared little boys and that’s a hard image to erase. Maybe you understand their relationship a little better now.’
‘Yes, I do. And then Mikhail dying too? No wonder Della takes all those sleeping pills. I wouldn’t want to be awake either. Poor Aunt Gayle. She grieved Mikhail so much. I kept thinking, Hello! What about me? Am I chopped liver or something? I didn’t understand.’
‘Now you do. Ball’s in your court as to what you do with it.’
She blew out a breath. ‘I have been a brat, haven’t I?’
‘Yep.’
Jill huffed a laugh. ‘I’ll do better.’
‘Good.’ Eyes still closed, Scarlett kept talking, partly to keep herself awake and partly to keep Jill distracted from the terror that would return once she started thinking about Gayle’s current situation. ‘I will throw you a bone, though. Gayle’s heart attack was indirectly triggered by the team’s efforts, so you were right about that. Your concern was well placed. Just not well acted upon.’
‘How do you know that, about her heart attack?’
‘I was listening at the door yesterday when Gayle told Marcus about the letter she was reading that day. The letter writer threatened to “take away” somebody that Marcus loved just like he’d taken away somebody she loved. Her husband had reportedly committed suicide in prison. Gayle read the letter when Mikhail was missing. Given their past experience with kidnapping . . .’
‘Holy shit.’ Jill sighed, frustrated. ‘That was the worst timing ever. I wish I’d given her the letter when I got it. At least she wouldn’t have had to worry about Mikhail.’
Scarlett rolled her head, opening her eyes so that she could see Jill’s profile. ‘What do you mean? When did you get the letter?’
‘The week before. Gayle had missed a few days at work because she was so tired – I guess that was a warning sign for the heart attack. I’d locked the mail up in my desk because she wasn’t there. The Ledger has a clean desk policy, you know. But I had a big project due for school, so I took a few days off in between. I didn’t give her the letters until the day I came back. That was the day she had her heart attack and then later we found out about Mikhail being dead. I know that Mickey was alive when the letter arrived in the mail. If I’d given it to her then, she wouldn’t have been so shocked.’
Scarlett frowned. Something wasn’t right about that, but her tired brain wasn’t sure what. From her pocket she fished out the folded papers that Stone had printed for her earlier that day.
‘What’s that?’ Jill asked.
‘Stone’s story about Woody McCord, the husband of the woman who wrote the letter.’ Getting her second wind, Scarlett rose and paced while she read to herself. She didn’t want to share any more with Jill until she knew where she was going with this.
After a minute, she stopped pacing and turned the paper over to write the key dates on the back. ‘What day did you actually receive that letter, Jill?’
Puzzled, Jill scooted to sit on the edge of her seat, her brow furrowed. ‘Thursday. I remember because Halloween was the next day and I was going to a party with Mikhail and his friends. We went to the party store to pick up our costumes.’ She looked away. ‘He didn’t run away until the weekend, but the party was the last time I saw him alive.’
‘I’m sorry to dredge this up, but it’s important.’
‘Why?’ Jill frowned. ‘How do you know?’
‘I feel it.’ Scarlett made a face. ‘Too weird, I know, but I’ve learned to trust my gut. Usually my gut remembers stuff my conscious mind has forgotten.’
Jill gave her a look. ‘Maybe you are a super-cop,’ she said with mild sarcasm.
Scarlett shook her head, ignoring the girl’s attitude. ‘No. That would be Deacon. The guy remembers everything. He kills at Jeopardy. I’m just good at Wheel of Fortune.’ She looked at her page of scribbles. ‘If you received that letter on Thursday, it had to have been mailed Monday or Tuesday. Wednesday at the latest.’ She wrote that down too.
‘Okay,’ Jill said. ‘So? What does all that mean?’
‘So . . . I don’t know yet.’ Scarlett rearranged her scribbles into a timeline.
Mon. 10/27–Wed. 10/29: letter written/mailed by Leslie McCord
Wed. 10/29: McCord tells his attorney and prosecutor that he will name names
Thurs. 10/30: Letter received at Ledger by Jill via USPS
Thurs. 10/30: Woody McCord found hanged in his cell (murder or suicide???)
Mon. 11/3: Leslie McCord ODs on pills (estimated by ME)
Wed. 11/5: Gayle reads letter, has heart attack; Mikhail’s body found; Marcus shot
Thurs, 11/6: Leslie’s body found in her home per police report
Reviewing the dates, Scarlett saw what she’d been missing. What it means, she thought, is that Leslie McCord wrote a letter referring to her husband’s death before he died. She looked up from her notes to meet Jill’s curious gaze. ‘It means I need to see that letter.’
‘Another gut feeling?’
‘Yeah. Do you know the combination to your aunt’s safe?’
‘No. She wouldn’t trust me with that. I tried to break in once, to see if I could, but I couldn’t.’
Scarlett bet that Diesel could. ‘Come with me. You can’t stay here alone. It’s not safe.’
Jill frowned, but got up. ‘Why did you tell me to earlier?’
‘Because I was too tired to think. I’m not tired anymore.’
Scarlett jogged back to the main waiting room only to find a full-fledged argument in progress. Marcus and Diesel were nose to nose. Deacon had returned, and he and Scarlett’s father were trying to calm the two men down.