Sean concurred. “She wanted Peter to go with her. When I wouldn’t let him, she shot at me.”
“She could be fixated on him,” Suzanne said.
“If Peter isn’t a target, why was he stalked for so many years? In high school and college? Why did Alexis pretend to be someone else?” Lucy looked through the scrapbooks again. “Except…” She hesitated.
“What?” Noah prompted.
“There are two distinctly different targets. Those who elevated Rachel’s murder and minimized Camille’s-in the eyes of the Todds-would be Rosemary Weber and any law enforcement involved in either investigation. Then there is Peter. Peter had nothing to do with any of it. He didn’t talk to Rosemary Weber; he didn’t do anything to make himself the center of attention. If anything, he diminished himself and became inconsequential. He moved, changed his name, disappeared. And still, they sought him out.”
“Or,” Suzanne said, “one of them did.”
“You’re not thinking that Alexis isn’t part of this whole thing,” Joe said, “or being manipulated by her brother? She attacked a federal agent and shot a civilian.”
Lucy considered Joe’s comment. “I think Alexis is fully cognizant of her actions. I don’t think she’s being manipulated by her brother. They planned everything out, from Agent Theissen to Rosemary Weber to Tony Presidio to Hans. It’s Peter who doesn’t fit. Especially since Sean says she aimed to kill him, not Peter.”
“Alexis and Kip could be in the middle of a falling-out,” Noah said. “And we need to capitalize on it.”
Suzanne and Lucy laid out their theory about Kip and Alexis Todd to Peter. He didn’t say anything for several minutes. Lucy didn’t blame him-it was an incredible story.
“Why do they hate me? What did I ever do to them?”
“Nothing,” Lucy said. “You became the object of their sociopathy. When their sister was killed, they had no one to blame. They blamed the police, the media, your family, everyone, because they felt helpless.”
Suzanne added, “You were a convenient target for them.”
It was clear that Peter didn’t believe them, not completely.
“There may be another factor we haven’t uncovered,” Lucy said. “There’s a lot we don’t know about their childhood. There’s a lot we don’t know about their relationship. Detective Mead gave Sean your file, which helps with the time line.”
Suzanne slid a recent picture of Kip Todd in front of Peter. “Do you recognize this man?”
Peter stared at it. He shook his head.
Suzanne then slid a picture of Kip Todd from Peter’s yearbook ten years ago. Kip had changed a lot-his hair was darker and he was heavier in high school.
“What about him?”
Peter stared and frowned. “Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
He shrugged. “I remember a short, pudgy kid when I was a freshman. We didn’t have any classes together, but his locker was near mine. He talked to me a few times, but I didn’t have friends and didn’t want to make any friends.” He looked at them. “My grandmother had just died. My mother was a slut. You’d think after everything that happened, how humiliated they were when their sex parties were exposed, that she’d clean up her act. Instead, my mom goes to one extreme and sleeps with every breathing male, and my dad goes to the other extreme and becomes a fire-and-brimstone-preaching dictator who says sex is evil. I missed my sister, but I missed her even more after Grams died.” He paused, looked at his clasped hands. “Which seems weird after five years.”
Lucy said, “It’s not weird.” She hesitated, then said, “When I was seven, my best friend-my nephew-was killed. He was practically my brother; we saw each other every day. Like Rachel, he was kidnapped from his bedroom. Senseless. I still miss him, and every once in a while, even now, I feel almost overwhelmed with loss. It comes and goes quickly. On the one hand, I want to hold on to that feeling because I want to remember him; on the other, it feels so real, so painful, I never want to feel it again.”
Peter seemed to find peace in her understanding.
Suzanne showed him a recent picture of Alexis. “Do you recognize this woman?”
“It’s Cami. But different.”
“But you think it’s the same woman.”
“I know it is. I loved her. She had lighter hair back then-I knew she’d dyed it, but I never saw her with brown hair. And her features are a little different-maybe fuller? Rounder? But it’s her.”
“Her name is Alexis Todd Sanchez.”
He frowned. “She’s married?”
“Divorced.”
Lucy considered something. She opened the file and looked at the birth records of Missy Sanchez. Alexis said she’d just turned four. That meant she could have been conceived in October, right before Alexis left Syracuse after allegedly putting the dead pig in Peter’s bed-Lucy needed Alexis’s medical records to know for certain.
Or they could call her ex-husband.
“Excuse me,” Lucy said.
Suzanne looked at her oddly, but Lucy slipped out.
Noah and Joe were watching through the one-way mirror in a room next door.
“What are you thinking?” Noah asked Lucy.
“The time frame-what if Alexis wasn’t the one who put the pig in Peter’s bed?”
Noah was skeptical. “She scrubbed down the apartment, lied about where she lived, was never a student. She lied about everything.”
“They were having sex. I think he’s Missy’s father.”
“That’s a big leap.”
“The timing is right.”
“She’s involved, Lucy. Even if Tony was poisoned in New York, or if his death was truly a coincidence, she attacked Hans.”
“I think she did both, no doubt in my mind. I think she’s as much involved in all of it as her brother. Except for Peter. I think she truly wanted to warn him, to protect him.”
“I trust your hunches,” Noah said, “but that doesn’t help us find her, or her brother.”
“I have an idea to draw Alexis out,” Lucy said. “But I need to confirm my theory.”
“All right,” he said. “What do you need?”
“To talk to her ex-husband.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Peter had quietly agreed to the plan when they debriefed him, but Lucy wasn’t at all sure that he was psychologically ready to confront Alexis. She’d been the first person he’d trusted after what happened with his sister, and Alexis had done more than destroy his trust-she’d killed his hope. He’d become a hermit, outside of teaching young kids. He had no friends, no social life, no future.
Because Alexis and possibly Kip had seen Sean, Sean would be Peter’s visible bodyguard. Alexis also could have seen Sean at Quantico and know that he was involved with Lucy, but they would have to take that chance. Lucy was banking on her psychological analysis that Alexis would come to warn Peter or try to justify what she’d done.
Lucy had enough experience with psychopaths and sociopaths, plus a master’s in criminal psychology, to make this call, but she’d always had backup. She’d always had Dillon or Hans to help talk things out. Now she had no choice but to go it alone.
Sean and Peter went up to Peter’s apartment. Joe was coordinating NYPD on the street. Sean set up a camera so that Noah and Lucy, who were in a vacant apartment down the hall, could watch and listen. Suzanne would remain hidden in Peter’s apartment.
Lucy’s theory was that Alexis would act quickly, possibly tonight and no more than twenty-four hours from now.
Noah shook his head at the screen as he watched the living room of Peter’s apartment through a phone that Sean had programmed to transmit to his laptop. “Sean has all the toys,” Noah told Lucy.
“Private sector,” Lucy said. “It pays better.”
Sean was trying to get Peter to loosen up a bit, but Peter was wooden and worried. Finally, Sean turned on a baseball game that had been played earlier in the day, keeping the volume on low. It was late, after one in the morning, and Peter drifted off to sleep in his chair.