“Which is why you’re at your office with your own car instead of at your parents’ with his truck,” she summarizes.
I suck my lower lip into my mouth. “No, I’m just being awkward. There’s a difference.” I grab my whiteboard marker, uncap it, and then throw it at her. “Are you going to help me or what?”
“Sure. It’s not like I have my own clients.”
“Do you want me to dock your wages for bitchiness?”
“You’d never do that. If you do, I’ll start my own business and we’ll be rivals.”
“Bek, I filled out your tax return this year. You won’t start your own business.”
She opens her mouth to argue, grimaces, and pushes her auburn hair from her face. “Damn. Okay. Let’s get started.” She puts my marker cap on the desk and grabs her own marker before walking to her own whiteboard.
I write Toni and Melissa at the top of my board, and she writes Annabelle and Tracey. I add Lilly Paul with a question mark since she hasn’t been found. We run through all the similarities we can think of.
“Here’s what bothers me,” I say once we have everything we know written down. “Why Tracey?”
“She’s Catholic?”
“Aside from that. Why would they go for a married mother of three with a respectable job instead of another student? Or if they have gone for another student”—I tap my marker against Lilly’s name—“why haven’t we found her? That doesn’t make much sense.”
Bek shrugs. “Opportunity? Do you know if she went to church on Sunday? Maybe the younger girls are all sticking together right now, making them harder targets. It would make sense. And maybe Lilly really did run away.”
“Yeah… If I were a teenager, I wouldn’t go anywhere alone. Hell, I don’t want to anyway.” I nibble on the skin at the side of my thumbnail. “Now what though? Tracey’s being killed takes away the age as a common factor. Now, all we have is religion. I know I’ve said it a few times, but is that really a strong enough reason to kill so many people?”
“Of course it is. One word: terrorism.”
“But that’s just…interpretation of religion. Isn’t it?”
“And Satanism isn’t? Catholicism isn’t?”
“Point well made, my friend,” I agree. “So, what do we do, honestly? Our killers are extreme Satanists hell-bent on killing a bunch of Catholics. Oh sheesh. Sounds like the seventeen hundreds or something.”
She nods slowly. “You know what we need? Someone who knows a ton of stuff about religion.”
“Like…the library?”
“Yeah? How’s this working out for you and your research?” She snatches The Satanic Bible from my desk and holds it up.
“Shut up,” I mutter, grabbing it and throwing it down on my chaise. “We could go and see Alex… He did help before, after all. But…I don’t know.”
“Still don’t trust him, huh?”
“He just pops up everywhere.” I tell her about church yesterday. “Drake says he’s okay, so he must be…but…”
“Drake also said to go to your mom’s, and here you are. In your office.” She holds her arms out and spins. “Which shows how much you listen to him.”
“Hey! I listen to him.” I recap my marker and smack my lips together. “Occasionally.”
Bek rolls her eyes. “Come on. Alex can’t be that bad. I saw him at the fair—he seems like a nice guy.”
“How about…” I tap my marker against my lips. “How about we follow him? Then if he does nothing suspicious, we talk to him?”
“Isn’t that, like, going against absolutely everything Drake said to you?”
That’s kind of the point. “I believe it’s in the best interests of the case for me to follow my gut. So follow my gut I am. Anyway, he should have known better than to allow my little brother to take me away.”
He should know by now that Brody is pretty much my best friend, and despite my younger brother’s telling me that Bek and I are double trouble, we all know it’s really me and Brodes. Always has been.
Bek takes a deep breath. “Oh boy. I’m gonna regret this.”
“Well, that went well.”
We managed to find Alex at the Oleander. We followed him halfway around town—stealthily, of course—but thirty minutes into our great investigation, he entered the police station. We’ve now been waiting an hour, and it’s becoming painfully obvious that he isn’t coming out.
“What if they’ve arrested him?” I whisper.
“Why are you whispering?”
“Shut up. What if they have?”
She shrugs. “Why don’t you go in and find out?”
Because I’ll get in major trouble? My ass will be kicked? I’ll be super-duper hated?
Okay—maybe hated is a slightly strong word. I’ll still be in trouble though. It is blatantly flouting Drake’s ass-backward request.
Then again, he does know I’m working, and we are in Bek’s car, not mine. I could always say we came out for lunch and decided to swing by. Yeah—yeah, let’s do that. I explain this to Bek, and she agrees to wait outside and use that excuse if anyone asks.
This is ridiculous. I do it anyway. Of course I get out of the car and I walk toward the station and I open the door. Of course I do. I’m far nosier than I am sensible.
Charlotte looks at me with pursed lips. “Oh, you’re gonna be in trouble.”
“Seems like that’s the general mood of the day. Where is he?”
“In his office with some guy with black hair.”
“Did he arrest him?”
Her light eyebrows draw together. “Not that I know of. They’ve been in there a while though.”
“Huh.” I tap my fingers again the counter. “Did he say his name?”
“Alex… What are you up to?”
“Nothing.” I hold my hands up and step back. “Nothing.”
“Oh, Jesus,” Trent groans. “What are you doing here?”
I turn to face him. “I’m working. I’m drawing up similarities between the victims and wanted to see if you had anything about Tracey yet. Or maybe Lilly?”
“All right.” He shoves his hands in his pockets. “I’ll bite. Sheriff Bates just got off the phone with Austin PD. Lilly Paul turned up at school this morning like nothing happened, so she’s alive and safe.”
“Phew. And Tracey?”
“Nothing yet. Tim just started the autopsy. We do have a little evidence we didn’t before though.”
“Oh yeah?”
He waves me over, but Drake’s door opens and he looks out. His eyes scan the floor before they come to rest on me, hardening instantly. They go from ice to diamond in a split second.
“You. In here.”
“Er…I’m good out here, thanks.”
“Noelle.” That was a growl.
“I guess I can come in for a minute…” I pause as his eyes narrow. “Or a few. Yep. A few it is.”
I shuffle across the floor to the sound of my brother’s quiet chuckles, not missing the tension that zings between me and Drake. It’s tight and palpable, and honestly, I’m a little scared of it. Not of him—of it. Of the intensity of the feelings being passed between us. I stop right in front of him, and his eyes soften the barest amount before he steps to the side so I can move into his office.
Alex is sitting in one of the chairs. “Your friend should know she’s not the stealthiest driver in the world.”
Oh God. My cheeks flame. “Yeah, her new SUV isn’t exactly made for undercover operations. Sorry. Like… Really, really sorry.”
He grins. “Don’t worry.”
I narrow my eyes. “Wait—you’re not mad?” I glance at Drake but quickly change my mind. Oy, he’s mad.
“No.” Alex laughs. “I knew you were wary of me from the moment we met. I guess I tried to be friendly, but I just freaked you out more.” He shrugs, his lips dropping into a smirk. “You were right to be wary.”
Um, what? “I’m really confused right now.”
“Promise you won’t be mad? At anyone?”
“I’m a woman. I’ll never promise something that easy to break.”