Chapter 21
TWENTY-ONE
Amanda picked up a small pizza on the way home to carry on the tradition of Pizza Tuesdays as she and Zoe marked the day.
For them it was an act of rebellion against the rest of North America’s Taco Tuesdays.
She ate two slices on the couch and considered calling Carter, but her body craved sleep.
The sitting around only amplified that desire.
She pushed herself until nine o’clock before turning out the lights and heading to bed.
She drifted off quickly but jolted awake from a vivid nightmare in the wee hours.
A woman cloaked in black fired a gun on her three times in quick succession.
She didn’t even have a chance to respond.
Then Amanda was outside of herself looking down on Christine Lane’s dead body from above.
There were two bullet holes in her chest and one in her forehead.
Blood drained from the wounds, seeping from her chest and forehead.
It trailed down the bridge of her nose and off the point of her chin.
Amanda was left catching her breath. It didn’t matter that the sequences didn’t make any logical sense. It didn’t take a therapist to determine the source of the dream.
Three times… An execution… Like a hit…
Those words floated up from her subconscious. Phrases from the last two days of the investigation.
Three taps and now we have a silencer… Trent’s words from yesterday.
What if his implication was closer to the truth than she wanted to accept?
She made out the time on her alarm clock. 2:05 AM. The witching hour. Chills spilled over her legs and arms and had her burrowing beneath the covers. She’d blame it on the energetic residue from her nightmare.
Amanda lay there, staring at the ceiling, letting her heart rate come down. But it was hard to shake the imagery or the message.
Three times… An execution… Like a hit…
Even assuming a mystery jogger existed and was the killer, how could she have known Christine would be in the house on Charmed Court Friday night?
She could be a stalker they hadn’t uncovered yet, but even so, why choose to target her there?
This woman would know Christine was there to show clients the house.
But what if she and Trent had been investigating from the wrong angle this entire time? They hadn’t been able to find anyone who wanted Christine Lane dead. What if someone else was the true target?
The homeowner, Dominique Sharp, was a lawyer. It was a career that made enemies more readily than a real estate agent. The woman was also abrasive, based on Amanda’s first impressions, and she doubted that opinion would lessen with further encounters.
And Dominique’s trip to Washington was last-minute…
If the mystery jogger was their killer, the timing would suggest she was around when Christine showed up at Dominique’s house. She may have seen her pull into the driveway. Had she assumed Christine was Dominique arriving home?
When Amanda was looking at the photos on Spencer’s phone, she thought Christine looked familiar in some.
It took until now for it to click in as to why.
The two women shared similarities. Same hair color and build.
At nine thirty, it would have been dusky, but not dark.
The house was a distance from the street though.
Also, the jogger, presumably the killer, may not have seen Christine’s face when she was driving in.
What if all of this was a case of mistaken identity? If so, that made Christine Lane collateral damage, and it meant that Dominique Sharp was still in grave danger.
Amanda jumped from bed and called Trent.