“You’re welcome.” Abbott and the others left, leaving him alone with Olivia who had been watching him carefully since they’d left the interview room. “What?” he asked her.
“What did you understand, David?”
He wanted to sigh. Wanted to run. Wanted to look away, to lie. Instead he answered as honestly as he could. “I guess that what he saw that night still haunts him.”
Her gaze hadn’t wavered. “I’ll see you later. I have to finish an interview after our meeting, so it’ll be nine before I’m finished for the night. Where will you be?”
His heart rose from his gut to slam against his ribs. “Where do you want me to be?”
She hesitated. “The cabin was nice. I’ll call you when I’m on my way.” She turned to go, then turned back. “You promised to answer my question tonight.”
His heart kept rising. Now it was in his throat, choking him. “Yes, I did. Who am I?”
“Exactly. That’s what I want to know. Come on, I have to sign you out.”
Tuesday, September 21, 4:55 p.m.
He stepped out of his van and took a great gulp of fresh air. The interpreter’s screams still rang in his ears and his stomach still churned. If only they’d just tell, it would make it so much easier.
She’d tried to stay silent, begged for her life, sobbed about her children, but in the end, thankfully for both of us, the interpreter hadn’t held out all that long.
He had a name and a description. Kenny Lathem, sixteen, sandy blond hair, brown eyes, about five ten, wearing blue Converse high-tops. He wasn’t the boy they’d been looking for, though. They were looking for someone with dark hair and size 10 shoes.
But Kenny knew something and the cops were going to try talking to him again tonight to find out just what he knew. I have to find him first. Trouble was, the kid lived in a dormitory, in a damn school. How am I going to get him out? How will I communicate with him?
The interpreter was quite dead, but he wouldn’t have trusted her. He’d use paper and pen. But first he needed access to the kid.
He flipped open the woman’s phone and smiled at the latest text she’d received. Olivia Sutherland was tied up, wanted to meet back at the school at seven.
I’m so sorry, he typed back. I can’t help you. I have a commitment tonight. That would keep the cops from worrying when she didn’t show at seven. Then he found the most recent text she’d sent to her sons. That wasn’t hard to find. She’d told them to do their homework before watching TV after school. Have an appointment tonight, he typed. Dinner in the fridge. He had no idea if there was dinner in the fridge, but she’d sent texts like this in the past. The kids were teenagers. They wouldn’t starve.
Now, nobody would be looking for her for hours, maybe till morning. In the meantime, he didn’t want the interpreter’s body found. It would tip off the cops that he knew about the boy they sought and that wouldn’t be constructive at all. He dragged her body into the trees and rolled it into the shallow grave he’d dug while she slept off the ether with which he’d drugged her. He covered her up with dirt and drove away.
Tuesday, September 21, 5:10 p.m.
When Olivia got back to Abbott’s office everyone was already seated-except for Special Agent Crawford who stood staring out Abbott’s window. The room was very tense and Olivia was sure Crawford was the reason.
“Okay,” Abbott said, ignoring the Fed. “So where are we?”
“Lincoln is on his way to the psych ward,” Kane said. “When we’re done here, Liv and I can hit the Blue Moon bar and check his alibi. I don’t think he did our fires.”
“But he did give us something,” Barlow said. He took one of the large etched globes from an evidence envelope, turning it until the north pole pointed toward them. “VE, scratched into the glass, so light you’d miss it if you weren’t looking for it. Valla Eam.”
Crawford slowly turned, his face expressionless. “What did you say?”
“VE,” Barlow repeated. “Where Lincoln said it would be. Scratched into the pole.”
Everyone was watching Crawford and the Fed clenched his jaw. “When did the suspect say that?”
“After you left,” Barlow said.
Crawford was at the table in three steps. “Give it to me.”
Barlow snatched the ball. “I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours,” he said coldly.
His jaw clenching even harder, Crawford grabbed his briefcase from the floor and set it on the round table with a bang. “I don’t like the tone of your voice, Sergeant.”
“And I don’t care,” Barlow said evenly. “You held back information.”
“We didn’t want copycats, so we kept that detail from the press.” Crawford passed the small evidence box he’d shown them that morning to Barlow.
“We aren’t the press,” Barlow snapped. “We’re investigating three homicides. You should have told us. We could have checked this out this morning.”
“I looked at your damn ball this morning,” Crawford bit out. “I already knew.”
Abbott’s brows rose. “That’s simply… unpleasant, Crawford.”
Barlow shook his head, likely at a loss for words. “Can I see your glass, Micki?”
Micki gave him the small magnifying glass she carried and Barlow removed the smaller globe from its box and studied it. “Identical,” he pronounced.
“When did you plan to tell us, Crawford?” Abbott asked mildly. Oh, he was pissed.
“When we took someone into custody. Until then, I was under orders to share that information on a need-to-know basis.”
Abbott was visibly trying to control his temper. “So, based on your need-to-know info, you’d already determined our arsons were connected to yours.”
“I have been searching for these bastards for twelve years. That drooling psycho down there is guilty as hell,” Crawford said between his teeth. “He knows where Moss is. He can identify the others who set my fire. Doesn’t that matter to you people?”
“It matters a lot,” Olivia said. “He and others caused the death of an innocent woman twelve years ago and he should pay. But make him pay for what he did. If he’s not guilty of setting our fires, we’re wasting valuable time arguing.”
Crawford’s jaw closed with a loud clack. “Give me back my evidence.”
“After we photograph it,” Abbott said calmly. “I wouldn’t argue if I were you.”
Crawford seethed. “We are wasting time here.”
“Indeed,” Abbott said, deliberately misunderstanding. “Micki, what do you have?”
Micki glanced at the rigid Crawford from the corner of her eye. “Pictures from Tomlinson’s desk,” she said and spread them out. “We recovered a few more pieces.”
“I’d hoped not to have to see Tomlinson having sex again,” Olivia said and sensed Micki was waiting for them to discover something she’d already found.
“These weren’t taken at the same time,” Kane said. “Look at Tomlinson in this second one. He’s skinnier. Has muscle tone in his torso. He was working out. Buffing up.”
“The timeline’s wrong,” Olivia said. She blinked hard, trying to make the pieces fall into place. “Mrs. T said she found out about her husband’s infidelity and hired a PI.”
“On the recommendation of her friend,” Kane supplied.
“Right. She hired the PI and said she had photos…”
“A week later,” Kane murmured. “She said she copied her files the next day and that was June fifteenth according to the time stamp on the files she gave us. So the earliest these pictures could have been taken was June eighth.”
Olivia placed the before and after pictures of Tomlinson side by side. “So he’s white and doughy and then he’s white and toned. It must have taken him months to get this toned. In this ‘after’ picture his skin should be tanned because the PI would have taken it a few weeks ago at the latest. Tomlinson played golf all summer. These ‘before’ pictures were taken long before June eighth. That means Mrs. Tomlinson is lying.”