Chapter 18 #2
“I should have brought my own car so we could have used that extra time for more fun activities instead of driving,” she said, and all I could think of was all the things I could do with those extra minutes.
Jeez. I was forty years old, acting like I was fourteen.
“We can pick this back up again later if you want, but we both have to get to work,” I told her, kissing her one last time on her neck—or at least I told myself it was the last time.
“How about I just drop you off at work, and then I’ll pick you up when you’re done and we’ll head back to your place,” I suggested.
She agreed, and we reluctantly climbed out of bed, got ready, and made our way to work. The bright spot was knowing we had plans to see each other again that night.
I was mid-bite of my sandwich, daydreaming about Iris’s naked body, when there was a hard knock on my half-open door.
“Okay, hear me out,” Agent Andrews said from my doorway as she leaned against the frame, with my boss, Superintendent Carl O’Connor, standing beside her.
I braced myself, because people usually said that before they told you something they knew you weren’t going to like or agree with.
“I think we should go talk to our podcaster, Steve,” Andrews said.
My only response was to roll my eyes in annoyance.
“I decided to listen to the most recent podcast from our guy who wrote the letter,” Andrews said.
Internally, I groaned—and also externally. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I sighed.
If I make it through the day without stabbing someone with a fork, it will be a miracle.
“Again, hear me out,” she said, finally walking into the office, O’Connor on her heels as he closed the door behind them. “Yes, he’s an eccentric weirdo, but he may actually be onto something.”
“Like what?” I asked, wondering if I would regret it.
It was possible, but I also knew she wouldn’t blow smoke up my ass unnecessarily, so this had to be leading somewhere.
“Not sure how, but I’m guessing he talked with the parents of the missing girl we found,” she explained. “Yesterday, he mentioned on his podcast that the girl was a collegiate athlete and had gone missing at a tournament.”
“Okay…” I said, not sure where she was going with this. “He could have looked some of that info up. The name of the woman was announced to all the local TV news stations, so it wasn’t a secret.”
“I know,” she said, holding up her hands as if to tell me to let her talk. “Honestly, the specifics of how he found out aren’t the main concern here. It’s what he mentioned after that got my attention.”
She paused, took a deep breath, and dropped a verbal bomb.
“He said there were seven other collegiate female athletes who went missing while at tournaments or competitions across the country over the last several years. All of them have never been found. And here’s the kicker—all were the same age and same appearance.
In fact, three of them could have been doppelg?ngers for each other. ”
My head jerked back at the sudden realization that this may not have been a one-off.
“The icing on the cake…” she said, likely pausing for dramatic effect. “All the venues the women were competing at were within ten miles of a large lake.”
“Shit,” I said, leaning back in my chair.
“So, here’s the thing,” she said, moving to sit down in the chair across from me at my desk. “Steve is definitely a weirdo, but he specifically mentioned the names of all the women in his podcast, so I looked up them and their case files. Each woman went missing roughly six to eight months apart.”
“When was the most recent one?” I asked, trying to figure out a timeline here.
“We believe Miss Simpleton from Lake Echo was,” Andrews spoke up.
“Okay, but she was reported missing a year ago,” O’Connor pointed out.
“Which is why I reached out to the FBI to pull any missing female cases within ten miles of a large body of water within the last year that also match the description of the other athletes,” Andrews said.
Damn, she had her work cut out for her.
“How can I help?” I asked, since she clearly wasn’t here just to tell me this.
“That’s the same question I had for her, but she told me I had to come here to find out in person,” O’Connor said, and I noted his mild annoyance that she wouldn’t just tell him this information over the phone.
“I want to drop him a bone,” she said cryptically. “I want to give Mr. Stanton some info that is not public knowledge.”
“To see if he puts it on his podcast?” O’Connor inquired.
“So she can narrow him down as a suspect,” I chimed in.
“Yes,” she confirmed, smiling at me.
“If Stanton was involved in any way with these crimes, depending on what the information was, he might choose to withhold or alter the information before sharing it to make sure he isn’t caught,” I explained to O’Connor.
“If he’s just an overly excited crime nut, he would share all the information as we give it to him. ”
“So what do you need from us?” O’Connor asked.
“A couple things,” she hedged. “First, I want you to send in another dive crew to Lake Echo within 48 hours. And we’re going to invite him to come out.”
“Hell no,” O’Connor interrupted. “We have no reason to bring another dive team in, and that’s money and resources we don’t have just to appease some weirdo podcaster.”
“Second,” she continued, ignoring O’Connor’s rejection of the first request. “I want you to be there, Hector. You had enough years of working undercover with the LVPD to give you insight into people like this. I want you to watch him while he witnesses the fake search dive. See if you can get a read on him one way or another.”
“I appreciate your vote of confidence, but my undercover specialty was the mafia, not potential serial killers.”
Her hands waved in front of her as if she were dismissing my comment as trivial. “It’s still more insight training than I have. My specialty is dead bodies, not live ones.”
She turned to O’Connor and positioned her hands in front of her as if she were about to deal with a petulant child. “And the ISB will cover the cost to bring in a dive team. You just need to provide the park staff.”
“Fine. What exactly do you want them to pretend to do?” O’Connor asked.
“They need to pretend to find something—it doesn’t matter what,” she explained.
“Your men will come and talk to Hector and tell him they found it. Hector, without telling him what it is, will inform Mr. Stanton that it’s the break you were looking for in the case, because this piece of evidence could be the smoking gun for who the killer is. ”
“What if he doesn’t believe it?” O’Connor asked.
“He will,” I said, and Andrews smiled at me, letting me know she was thinking the same thing I was.
“If he’s not involved directly in the crime but just doing this to build up his audience or podcast numbers, he’ll be so excited to get a scoop for his listeners that there's no way you'll be able to get rid of him. If he’s involved, he’ll be too paranoid about what it would mean for him, so his desire to get out of there fast should become more important than sticking around to find out what the piece of evidence is. ”
O’Connor nodded in response. “Alright. You’ll have a dive crew for tomorrow.”
He left quickly, leaving only Andrews and me in the office.
“By the way…I passed Diden and Jennings on the way in, and they told me to be cautious entering your office because you were acting weird,” she said to me with a smirk.
“I’ve been tucked away in my office most of the day,” I said. “I can hardly be a dick if I’m not out there.”
“That’s just it,” she said, getting up from the chair. “Diden said she saw you smiling when you walked in today, and Jennings reported you smiling when he walked by your office.”
I groaned. “So first they bitch because I’m grumpy, unapproachable, and don’t smile enough. Now they don’t like it when I smile?”
“I think they just weren’t sure what to make of it,” she said, heading toward the door. “Whoever she is…maybe see her again so you can keep that smile. It’s a good look for you. I’ll be in touch.”
With that, she walked out, leaving me to think about what she’d said.
Iris.
That’s who’d put the smile on my face. Thinking of her naked. Thinking of her with my dog. Thinking of her in my house.
Jesus, I needed to get my shit together. I was acting like some down-bad Romeo. It wasn’t real love—yet. That took time. No, this was just infatuation, a desire to be around her…and only her.