Chapter 24
Twenty-Four
For the second time in his life, Brian Westbury had fallen flat-on-his-face in love.
Zoe hadn’t taken a breath in over an hour, chatting with excitement about Carly and Brian’s new midnight blue SUV, about the slumber party she had been to with her friends, and about the unexpected trip with her aunt and newfound uncle.
“I can call you Uncle Brian, right?”
As he looked at Zoe in the rearview mirror and fought through a storm of emotions, Carly reached for his hand. “I’d like that.” He was still getting used to how much she resembled Carly and had to remember not to stare.
“That was fun yesterday, wasn’t it, Auntie Carly? Wait ’til you see the dress she bought for the wedding—”
“Ah!” Carly cried, putting up a hand to stop her. “Don’t tell him anything about it.”
“Duh. I know that. What do you think I am? A kid? Jeez. Can I plug my iPod into the stereo?”
Brian reached back for it. “Sure.”
“Be prepared,” Carly said, amused. “She has eclectic taste in music.”
“That’s all right.” Whatever she wants, Brian wanted to add but didn’t. He cringed when rap music filled the small space.
Carly chuckled. “Told you.”
Brian turned it down. “Did you find a dress, too, Zoe?”
“Uh huh.” She made a face that he caught in the mirror. “It’s this frilly purple thing.”
“Lilac,” Carly corrected her. “And it’s lovely on you. We found smaller versions for Lilly and Julia.”
“I’m the maid of honor. Did Auntie Carly tell you?”
“I’ve heard that rumor.” Brian tried not to dwell on how surreal it would be to have their daughter serve as a witness to their wedding. She’s not your daughter. She’s your niece. Keep telling yourself that. Maybe one day you’ll believe it.
“Does that mean I have to dance with your father?” Zoe snorted. “Me and the chief of police. How funny is that? My friends are going to freak.”
Brian glanced over to find Carly looking stricken. Clearly she hadn’t considered that pairing. “I’m sure he’ll love having such a pretty girl to dance with,” Brian said.
“How cool is it to be riding in a car again, Auntie Carly?”
Zoe shifted gears so fast Brian struggled to keep up—and to hear her over the horrible music.
“I’m getting used to it,” Carly said. “I like being able to get out of Granville once in a while.”
“I can’t imagine not leaving that boring-ass town for fifteen years.”
“Zoe. ” Carly frowned at her niece’s language.
“Someday that boring town might look pretty darned good to you,” Brian said, speaking with some authority on the subject.
Zoe shrugged. “I doubt it. I can’t wait to get out of there.”
“And go where?” Brian asked.
“I don’t know. Anywhere.” Shifting gears yet again, she said, “So you’re a lawyer?”
“That’s right.”
“I wouldn’t mind being a lawyer.”
Brian had to remind himself to take the next breath. “Is that so?”
“Uh huh. My mom says I’d be a good one, cuz all I do is argue.”
Brian and Carly laughed, and he could honestly say he had never been happier in his life than he was in that moment. It had been a long time coming.
Michael waited until Matt Collins, Nate Barclay, and the other FBI agent, Jeff DiNardo, had taken seats in the conference room.
He had spent so much time with Nate and Jeff in the last month that he’d almost forgotten they were feds.
He had called this meeting on a Sunday afternoon after finally getting the chance to talk to Carly about Luke the night before.
“We may have a suspect,” Michael announced.
“Who?” Matt asked.
“Luke McInnis.”
Matt sat back in his chair and thought about it as he tapped a pen on the table. “Hmm.”
“Remember what we said at the outset?” Michael asked him. “That it was going to be someone we knew?”
“Yeah, wow,” Matt said, looking intrigued. “Why haven’t we thought of him before?”
“What’ve you got, Mike?” Nate asked.
He told them about the odd encounter Brian had had with Luke in the cemetery.
“He fits the physical description—he’s six-three, about 220.
Big feet. Last night I sat down with Carly and asked her what she knows about him.
She said there’s no way it’s him, that she’s known him since kindergarten and always thought of him as a friend. ”
“Is that how he thought of her?” Jeff asked.
“She thinks so. She can’t recall anything outside the bounds of normal friendship with him. Except recently.”
“How’s that?” Nate asked.
“He asked her to go with him to their class reunion over Fourth of July weekend. But she saw that as a mercy thing more than a date. He was trying to help her feel better about going, since she still wasn’t talking then. She got the feeling he was just doing her a favor.”
“Was he disappointed when she said no?” Nate asked.
“She said he seemed to be for a moment, but then he was fine about it. He was a regular customer of hers at Miss Molly’s, along with two other guys she’s known all her life. The three of them work for the father of one of the others.”
“If he fits the description, why haven’t we taken a look at him before?” Jeff asked. “Especially since he went to school with Carly and Brian. Was his name on the shoe store list of special orders?”
“Nope,” Matt said. “But he could get shoes anywhere—online, out of town. Who the hell knows? He hasn’t been on our radar at all.”
“Earlier, I rechecked the videotape from the candlelight vigil when Alicia Perry was missing, but there was no sign of him in the crowd,” Michael said. “You know how sometimes perps like to turn out for gatherings like that because they get off on witnessing the suffering.”
“We know what this guy gets off on,” Jeff mumbled.
“What did Carly and Brian say about his social standing in school?” Nate asked.
“Interestingly, in separate interviews they both used the same words to describe him. They said he was always just there, but neither of them was close to him. Carly said she’s been friendlier with him at Miss Molly’s than she ever was in school.”
“And neither of them got the sense he wanted to be closer to them when they were still in school?” Nate asked.
“No,” Michael said.
“I say we pick him up and have a talk with him,” Nate said. “I’ll also see about getting a warrant to search his house.”
“Isn’t that premature?” Jeff asked. “I mean, we have one odd conversation in a cemetery—and isn’t every conversation in a cemetery odd? That’s not enough to bring him in. Not to mention if it is him, we’d be tipping our hand that we’re on to him.”
“While I hear what you’re saying, Jeff, we’ve got three murders and multiple aggravated sexual assaults on our hands here,” Nate said. “And this is as close as we’ve come to a suspect. I want to talk to him.” To Michael, he added, “Pick him up.”
“Sorry, Jeff, but I agree with Nate,” Michael said.
“For what it’s worth,” Matt said, “I’ve been rereading the reports and interviews with the victims and their families. I noticed something interesting.”
“What’s that?” Jeff asked.
“Well, I kept asking myself—why would he kill two of the girls, and the boyfriend of one of them, and not kill the other girls? So I started looking at common characteristics between Alicia and Kelly Graves, the girl from the carjacking. Both their mothers used similar words to describe them—one said firecracker, and the other said spark plug.”
“So what’re you thinking?” Nate asked.
“That they fought him and pissed him off, so he killed them.”
Michael sat back in his chair to think about that. “And the other girls, the ones who lived to tell, didn’t fight him.”
“That’s right,” Matt said. “Tanya Lewis told us that she kept quiet and let him do what he was going to do. She said she was too petrified to say a word, which is apparently how he likes them, nice and docile. Alicia’s mother said she would’ve fought him like a tomcat.”
“Tanya also said he seemed to like it when she cried out in pain,” Michael recalled.
“The others said that, too,” Nate added. “So the secret to staying alive is to lie there and take it?”
“Apparently,” Matt said grimly. “The autopsies on the carjacking victims indicated Kelly died an hour or so after the boyfriend, which I take to mean he made her watch him kill her boyfriend.”
“Among other things,” Jeff said.
“Most likely,” Matt concurred.
“So we know he likes to be respected,” Nate concluded. “Even by girls he’s about to rape. This guy just gets sicker by the minute, doesn’t he?” To Michael, he said, “Have you gotten anywhere with Brian about letting us set something up using Carly as bait?”
Michael shook his head. “I think that’s a dead end.”
“Well, let’s pick up this Luke McInnis and see where that takes us,” Nate said.
The late afternoon sun was warm as Brian rested facedown next to Carly on the blanket they had spread on the beach in Falmouth, Massachusetts. Zoe had wandered down to the water’s edge to collect some shells to take home to her brother and sister.
Carly reached across the blanket to hold his hand. “How are you feeling?”
“Content—something I haven’t experienced very often.”
“She likes you.”
Brian couldn’t believe how much that pleased him. “You think so?”
“I know so.”
“She’s fabulous. I feel like I need a bigger word, though, because even that one doesn’t do her justice.”
“I know what you mean. Did you talk to your mother?”
“Just for a few minutes, when you and Zoe were swimming.”
“How’s she doing?”
“Okay, I guess.” He pushed himself up on one elbow. “It’s a lot for her to absorb. Maybe I shouldn’t have told them. I don’t know.”
“You were right to tell them. She’ll see that eventually.”
“I guess we can only hope so. I called my dad, too. He said they’re bringing Luke in for questioning.”
Carly frowned. “They’re barking up the wrong tree there.”
“What if they aren’t? What if it is him?”
“I just can’t imagine a guy I’ve known all my life—someone I’ve thought of as a friend—being capable of the kind of things they’re saying this man has done. That Luke McInnis could be the one who caused the accident, who killed Sam and the others . . .”
“I know, hon. It boggles my mind, too.”
“He came to my defense.” Carly sat up as she remembered. “I was so rattled last night by your dad suggesting it could be Luke, I forgot to tell him.”
Brian sat up, too. “What do you mean ‘came to your defense’?”
“There was a guy in the coffee shop giving me a hard time because I couldn’t talk. He was obnoxious. Luke got in his face and said, ‘No one treats Carly that way.’ He was quite intimidating. What do you suppose that means in light of everything?”
“I don’t know, but it’s interesting. My dad would want to know about it.
” Brian reached into Carly’s beach bag for his cell, pressed number one on his speed dial, and waited.
“Dad? Hey, Carly remembered something else about Luke. I’ll let her tell you.
” As he handed the phone to Carly, Zoe returned to the blanket.
Carly got up and walked away with the phone.
“What did you find?” Brian asked Zoe.
She held the hem of her T-shirt, which she had filled with shells. “This scallop shell is the best one. Lilly will love it.” She glanced at Carly. “Who’s she talking to?”
“My dad. Something about the case.”
He watched as a shadow descended over Zoe’s sunny disposition. Just like Carly, Zoe’s every emotion showed on her face.
“Sit down. Let’s see what else you’ve got there.”
She did as he asked, but her enthusiasm for the shells was gone. “I hope they catch him. Soon.”
Brian wished he could hug her. “I do, too.”
She turned to him. “He killed your brother, right?”
“We think so.”
“What was his name? Your brother?”
“Sam.”
“You miss him.”
Touched by her sensitivity, he said, “Always.”
“Does it ever stop hurting so bad you think you’re going to die, too?”
This time he didn’t resist the urge to take her hand and hold it between his. “Yes, it does. You think it won’t, but eventually you’ll be surprised when you get through a whole day without the hurt.”
“Carly said the same thing. That’s good to know. The other people in the car with your brother, they were your friends, too?”
He nodded. “Other than your Aunt Carly, my very best friends.”
“I’m sorry. That’s an awful lot to lose all at once.”
“Yes,” Brian said, surprised by the pain. He couldn’t believe it was still possible to feel it so acutely. “It was a terrible time for everyone.”
“My mom said you were Auntie Carly’s boyfriend in high school.”
“That’s right. Four and a half years, in fact.”
“So why didn’t you two get married before now?”
What to say? “We went through a bad time after the wreck, and circumstances kind of came between us. I had to leave for college, and Carly wasn’t able to come with me like we’d planned.” He shrugged. “We never saw each other again until recently.”
“Do you wish you’d gotten married back then?”
Brian smiled. “You have no idea how much I wish we had. But you can’t undo the past. All any of us has is right now, and you’ve got to do the best you can with today.”
She nodded in agreement.
“I’m very sorry you lost your friend in such an awful way,” he said.
“Thank you. I’m sorry for you, too.”
Brian looked up to find Carly staring at their intertwined hands. He released Zoe and made room for Carly on the blanket.
“Everything okay?” she asked tentatively as she sat next to him and returned his phone to her bag.
“Zoe and I were just having a very nice chat,” he said with a wink for the girl.
“That’s right.” Zoe’s face lit up with a smile that was in sharp contrast to the sadness of a few minutes earlier. “I was just making sure he’s worthy of you.”
Carly laughed. “And?”
Brian waited breathlessly for Zoe’s reply.
With an impish sideways glance at him, she said, “He’ll do.”