“I understand; I’m just giving options,” Hans said.
It wasn’t an option Noah cared to exercise—except as a last resort.
TWENTY
Cody confronted Lucy outside the Medical Examiner’s Office on Monday morning. “You lied to me.”
Lucy blinked rapidly, at a complete loss. Her head ached from lack of sleep, the wind had picked up, making her colder than she already was, and that awful pinprick sensation of being watched had returned.
He shoved a piece of paper into her gloved hand. It was a printout of a message from Prenter’s social networking account—the deleted account—forwarded to Prenter’s personal email.
The original message was from Lucy’s “Tanya” account:change of plans—i have an errand in dc can we meet at club 10? can’t wait!! 
xoxo Tanya.
Lucy read it five times before Cody yanked it out of her hands. “I didn’t send it,” she said.
“I don’t believe you.”
She stared at him, heartbroken that he thought she was lying. A curdle of fear twisted in her stomach as she realized someone had used her account to send Prenter to Club 10. Where he’d been murdered. “You’ve known me for over three years. You don’t trust me?”
“Are you denying this is your account?” He waved the paper in her face.
“No, but—”
“Your secure WCF account?”
“Cody! Stop interrogating me like I’m a suspect.”
He didn’t say anything, but glared at her.
“I didn’t send that message,” she repeated.
“Then who?” He shot out the question as if she were a hostile witness.
“I don’t know!”
Lucy’s mind ran through every possible scenario she could think of. “It’s not impossible for someone to have hacked my account.”
“Someone would have to have known who you were.”
“No—not necessarily. If someone got hold of Prenter’s emails—hell, Cody, he had them forwarded to his personal email, anyone could see my log-in name! Maybe one of his ex-girlfriends was pissed off and didn’t want him seeing someone else. Maybe—”
“Listen to yourself!”
“I’m trying to figure out how someone used my account—or masked their account to look like mine—to send him to the bar where he died. Maybe it’s just a coincidence.” As she said it, she realized this was no coincidence. The decision to send Prenter to Club 10 was deliberate and calculating. Less than two hours later, he was murdered in the alley. Quietly, she asked, “What do you think, Cody?”
He ran a hand over his face. “I don’t know what to think, Lucy.”
“The murder was purposeful. Did you read the autopsy report? Four bullets, remember? Three in the stomach, one in the back of the head. That sounds professional, right? Not a drug dispute gone bad.”
Lucy began to shake from more than the cold.
Cody grabbed her hand. “If you’re in trouble, tell me. I will do everything in my power to help you, but you have to tell me the truth.”
“Trouble? I’m not in any trouble!”
“Did someone ask you to send that message? Or maybe you gave someone access to your account? Who are you trying to protect? Tell me!”
“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?