Chapter 30
I replay the news interview video for my mother, and the moment Marshall’s face emerges near the end, my entire nervous system feels like it’s shutting down, followed by explosive anger.
Marshall converses with the reporter wearing an expression of saintly concern, like he didn’t spend the better part of the last two weeks singlehandedly destroying my business and my life.
Mamma fills a plate with two more biscotti and a mug with freshly brewed coffee and hands both to me. This is her way of saying it’s going to be a long night.
She taps her fingernail on Marshall’s face and frowns. “Is that the young man who assaulted your brother?”
Apparently Luca made up his own version of the events, but I nod anyway. “Yeah, that’s him.”
“So he’s back in our lives again, huh?”
Again. As if Marshall is a recurring sinus infection instead of the man I am ninety-nine percent sure has been torturing me.
Police always talk about motive, and Marshall has plenty: First my rejection, which spurred his retaliation by posting the cruel review.
Then Luca kicking his ass added fuel to the vindictive fire.
But he’s taken it way too far. It’s time to put a stop to this.
“What was he doing at the waterfall in the first place?” Mamma asks.
My skin prickles. “Stalking me, I guess. I was there right before he happened to find the dead woman.”
“Any idea who she is?” she asks at the same time I’m thinking it.
After double-checking the woman’s name on the news video, I open up another web browser and start typing into my search engine:
Janet Vick, Doomwood Falls
A dozen search results fill up the screen, along with photos of various Janet Vicks.
But only one link associates her with Doomwood Falls, along with a picture of her when she was alive and smiling.
She’s standing in front of an office building with a dog at her hip.
The dog in particular leaves me with an odd sense of familiarity—it’s a Bernese mountain dog.
I follow that link, and the headline tells me everything I need to know:
Janet Vick, Private Investigator, Found Dead
Our mystery woman isn’t Fred’s mistress but a full-on, licensed, business-card-carrying private investigator. Mamma’s eyebrows shoot up her forehead. My laptop with my attorney’s pen drive is still open, and I navigate back to the main folder name: Vick
“She wasn’t Fred’s mistress,” I deduce slowly. “She was the private investigator my attorney hired to look into Gillian.”
In addition to the dog, there is something strangely familiar about Janet Vick, like I’ve seen her before. I can’t quite pull up her face, but my memory is stuck on her dark hair and I have no idea why.
“I feel like I know her,” Mamma murmurs.
“Me too…”
We stare at each other until it clicks. At the exact same time.
“She was at the hit-and-run accident,” Mamma says right before I say, “With Fred!”
By now I’ve eaten three biscotti and drank two cups of coffee. It’s the most calories I’ve consumed in days, and the sugar rush coupled with caffeine are doing wonders for my energy.
“But why would an investigator hired to look into Gillian be talking to Fred? There is no connection between the two that I’m aware of.”
“Unless you’re right that Zala is Gillian,” Mamma suggests, “in which case the private investigator might have wanted to talk to Fred since he lives next door to her.”
I turn on my mother, because I haven’t told anyone about my suspicion over the connection between Zala and Gillian—that I believe they are one and the same. “Were you eavesdropping on my conversation with Detective Yankovic?”
“The walls are thin!” she defends herself, her arms lifting in a full-body shrug. “It’s kind of hard to ignore a police officer interrogating my daughter in the living room.”
I’m trying to put all of the various events in some kind of logical order, like a mental conspiracy board with the red yarn linking private investigator Janet Vick to Gillian to Zala to Fred to Ivory to Marshall to me. My brain hurts just imagining the convoluted knotted mess.
While Marshall is the one who found Janet Vick’s body, do I think he is capable of killing her?
I don’t know him well enough to peg him as a killer, and there’s no motive that I know of.
That leaves me with Fred next in line as the murderer, since I saw Janet Vick speaking with him out on the sidewalk in town when I got hit by the car.
And I’m pretty sure Janet was who Ivory saw when we were at the coffee shop, because I’d recognize a Bernese mountain dog anywhere.
It seems Janet was making the rounds and it got her killed.
Mamma adds a fourth cookie to my plate, and even though I know I shouldn’t, I take a bite.
So who murdered Janet? And why? What did she undercover that was worth killing her over?
Whoever murdered her would be the person with the most to lose.
I think I know who it is, and the knowledge makes my stomach twist.
“Fred killed Janet,” I blurt. “He’s the most logical suspect because they were seen together at least twice.”
“What’s the motive?” Mamma asks grimly.
“Well, Janet was tailing Gillian before Ivory disappeared. I’m sure Gillian was here on Hemlock Drive watching me.
It wouldn’t be unrealistic for her to see what the other neighbors are up to.
Maybe she caught Fred cheating during her reconnaissance and threatened to tell Ivory. Then he wanted her quiet. Permanently.”
My theory still feels like it’s missing something big.
It wasn’t part of Janet’s job to investigate Fred.
He has no connection to Ramsey or Gillian.
There’s a hole in my puzzle, and no piece seems to fit quite right.
Then something even worse than Ivory’s disappearance and Janet’s death occurs to me.
“Oh no…” The words fall out before I can stop them. “What if—what if Fred killed both Ivory and Janet Vick?”
Mamma stiffens. “Honey, that’s unlikely to be the case—”
“No, listen.” I can already picture the events, a deadly domino effect.
“Fred cheats on Ivory, and when Ivory finds out,” and I don’t mention that it’s all my fault she found out, “he kills her in a heated argument. Then while Janet investigates Gillian—or Zala—while visiting our quiet little street, she witnesses the murder and confronts Fred. Maybe she wants paid to be quiet. Or maybe she cares about justice. Either way, the cheating bastard kills the PI to cover up his first murder. Then to cover up his second murder he plants Ivory’s necklace on her to make it look like Ivory did it.
” I finally take a breath, and I almost think I’ve solved the case.
“What do you think—am I brilliant or am I crazy?”
Mamma chuckles, and any excitement I had wheezes out of me like a deflated balloon.
“You’re probably a little of each,” she answers. “But if what you speculate is true…” she gulps audibly and her voice trembles, “and Fred killed more than one woman…”
She pauses, and I fill in the gaping hush. “We have a serial killer living across the street.”
I head toward the window. The blinds are half-open, slanted so anyone can peer inside if they want to. I step so close I can feel the cold outside air penetrating the glass as I nudge a larger gap between the slats.
Fred’s house sits directly opposite mine.
And behind his living room window—and I know this because our floor plans are almost identical and I’ve spent countless hours sitting in the very spot I’m looking at—Fred stands completely still, watching me.
His face is blank, and his eyes are locked directly on mine.
I yelp and flick my blinds shut, jumping back from the window. Fred doesn’t look surprised. He looks like he’s been waiting for me. And the creepiest part? He doesn’t look away.