The video was a compilation of the news coverage of the case, the notebook’s stunning revelations, the shoot-out in the swamp, and the coverage of Leland Ticholet’s trial. But the thirty seconds of footage at the end always made Alexa cry. The shot had been recorded by a news camera with a very long lens, near the LePointe family tomb in the city-sized cemetery in Metairie. It showed Casey LePointe West’s body being buried beside those of her deceased ancestors. It wasn’t the fact that she had seen Casey die, or that she blamed herself in any way for any of what had happened, that made her cry. Alexa had done her job to the best of her ability, and Casey West had been killed by her own devices.
And what made Alexa cry while watching the tape wasn’t the sight of an old man with gray hair wearing sunglasses despite the overcast, who walked very slowly down a path toward a waiting black Bentley.
What devastated Alexa Keen was the fact that William LePointe’s pace was slowed because of the angelic, towheaded, smiling grandchild who, hand clasping his, walked uncertainly beside him.
Get well soon, Gary West. That little girl desperately needs you to protect her from evil-to make sure she doesn’t grow up to be a LePointe.
She put the snapshot away, closed the drawer, and took a deep breath.
Pausing just long enough to take a sip of lukewarm coffee, Alexa Keen bent forward in her chair to concentrate on the crime-scene photographs from the Akron field office. When she’d done that, she had to review the in-depth case file and search for any edge there might be that had been overlooked.
Alexa Keen had a lot of work to do because, unless she could pull off a miracle, time was extremely short for an abducted Ohio businessman.