Chapter 17
“Look at this!” I said, handing Reed the article after he stowed away his phone. “Recognize anyone?”
He’d have to be blind to miss it.
Reed scanned the article, his gaze paused on the image. His eyes widened, and he tipped his head slightly to the left. “That’s Samantha.”
“Yes! What is Selene’s sister doing standing next to the condo developer Lisa hated?” It was a rhetorical question since I knew he didn’t know either.
“And the same developer who tried to buy this home from her,” he added while reading the article. “The image caption says it’s his daughter.”
They had a lot of beef, and her son was dating someone related to him.
“Either Selene and Samantha lied about being sisters or Casey is dating the daughter of his mother’s mortal enemy,” I said, moving a half pace around him. The walking did help with the thinking a little.
“Was dating,” Reed threw in, still reading.
I stumped over a step. “Oh, right.”
Images of Casey’s dead body sent my brain into a recoil. I’d probably never forget what he looked like lying on the stone pathway. I shivered.
“Where did you find this?” Reed asked.
He handed back the article, and I carried it to the small kitchen table in the front part of the home. “Hidden in the back pocket of Lisa’s purse.”
“Where was Lisa’s purse?” he asked. He’d swapped out his black polo shirt for a baby blue colored T-shirt. Just like his work polo, his arm muscles stretched the fabric in all the right places.
I leaned up against the table, trying to get a better look at his full image to take it all in. He didn’t care about any of the important stuff.
“In the closet.” I waved my hands in the air between us. “That’s not the important part.”
He lifted one shoulder a little higher than the other. “Shouldn’t the police have her purse if it was on her that night?”
“Who knows? We have to stick to the facts in front of us, and this just blew up the entire case. It’s the smoking gun.”
Too bad we didn’t have an actual smoking gun, but since no one was shot, I guess it wouldn’t actually be that helpful.
“How exactly?” Reed asked. From the furrow of his brow, he hadn’t come to the same conclusions as me.
I did the hand wavey thing again. “Clearly, Lisa saw the photo in the article and recognized Samantha.” It was a wonderful photo of her. Anyone would recognize her, even with the low newspaper quality image. “Lisa put the pieces together just like we did. Well, I did.”
He smirked at my correction, but I still didn’t get the feeling he followed my logic.
“Don’t you see? Lisa wanted to meet Casey that night to tell her son he’s dating a housing hussy.” It all made perfect sense.
“Okay, but,” Reed said, drawing out the word but like he didn’t quite buy my theory. There was always a skeptic. “Why meet at the bar where Selene works?”
That was the beauty of Lisa’s plan. The perfect cherry on top. How did he not see?
“To catch her off guard, obviously.” Lisa was a mastermind. A horrible thought hit me. “Do you think Selene got Casey to put her name on this home before he died? What if she planned on taking out the entire family?”
We had to do something to stop her. Well, actually, it seemed she was out of Boyd family members to kill. But she shouldn’t be allowed to inherit this home if she’s the one who killed both Lisa and Casey.
“My word,” I said and put my hand around my neck to clutch invisible pearls. “We’re staying next to a serial killer.”
I didn’t know how many people you had to kill before you got the serial killer title, but it seemed fitting in this situation.
Reed stayed quiet. Of course, he wasn’t that worried. He got to walk around with a gun.
“We’ve got to talk to Bud. Let’s go.” I grabbed my jacket from the chair and shoved my arms through the sleeves. He didn’t move from his spot. Definitely didn’t leap into action like I expected. “What?”
“Bud?” he asked.
Did he forget about Bud? The man we helped find his apartment after a drunken evening out at the local bars. “Yeah, Casey’s long-term resident. We’ve been to his place.”
Maybe he wasn’t good with names.
“Yeah,” Reed said, pursing his lips. “I remember Bud. Why do we need to interview him right this second?”
I grabbed the recorder from the table and checked the battery life.
Good to go. I’d never had to charge the thing since the clues in this case were so light.
But now we finally had the big thing that blew everything wide open and, for some reason, Reed wasn’t jumping with joy.
His lack of excitement was really starting to be a real downer to my theory.
“Because I promised Delaney an exclusive to win her the Halloween spot.” For that I had a direction we could run at it. Boots on the ground.
“An interview with Bud is your exclusive?”
Okay, the questions got super annoying. Didn’t he see the overall picture?
Selene was out there killing everyone, and we had to stop her.
And also make sure Delaney won the Halloween spot on the podcast. Which she would definitely do if we solved the murders and took a serial killer off the streets.
Now that I’d figured out the killer, we could gather a ton of evidence against Selene and make the case for Delaney. And the police.
I paused by the door when Reed still hadn’t moved. He had his attention glued to the articles on the table. It felt weird to be investigating Selene. She’d been so nice.
But she’d also killed Casey so…
“What?” Reed asked, finally turning toward me and taking a step.
I shook my head. “Nothing.”
Nice or not, we had to get her behind bars. Literal lives depended on it. Possibly ours. We circled the home, hurrying, but trying to make as little sound as possible.
Well, I did because I didn’t want Selene to see us and ask questions. Reed stopped to wave at the mailwoman as she dropped something in the neighbor’s box. I waited for him to catch up—he was the one with the gun, after all—and knocked on Bud’s door.
He answered it rather quickly, but from the way he narrowed his eyes at me, he didn’t remember us.
“Hey, Bud,” I said, stretching my smile out. “Do you remember us from the other night?”
His eyes widened, and he opened the door an inch more. “So, I didn’t dream it?”
“Nope. Do you mind if we come in? I’d like to ask you some questions.”
He closed the door a fraction. “About what? If you’re a cop, you have to tell me, or else it’s an improper search and seizure.”
That was… a weird thing to say. But since we weren’t cops or planning to search anything, I just held up a hand in defense and said, “No cops here. Although he was in the Navy for a while.”
“I can tell.” Bud gave me a quick nod. “Okay, you can come in.”
He opened the door enough to let Reed and me into his place.
We followed him to the same living room we’d put him in to sleep off his buzz earlier in the week.
His speech wasn’t slurred, and he had good posture as he sat on his couch.
I preferred standing, so I took up a spot on the other side of his coffee table that was littered with empty beer cans.
Great. We were all in place. Now we just had to get the evidence. I hit record on the digital recorder.
Now, how did you question people?
I left Delaney’s questions for Bud on our table, and it seemed weird to go back for them now. My heart thumped along in my tight chest, urging me forward. But how?
Shit. I’d have to wing it and hope for the best.
“Did you like Casey?” I asked, picking up one of the beer cans from the table. It had a small amount of liquid still in it.
He nodded and watched me as I shook the can. “Yeah, he was a stand-up guy. It’s too bad what happened to him. He always seemed healthy.”
“Yes, it’s too bad. Do you have a place you recycle these?” I waved the can again.
“Umm.” His eyes grew, and he pointed at the kitchen. “There’s probably a bag in there.”
Reed did a quick jog to grab it. He held the bag open next to me and I dropped the can into it. “Did you like Lisa?”
“Yeah,” he answered quickly. “She cut my rent two hundred dollars last year when they reduced my hours at work.”
Wow, that was nice of Lisa. I grabbed another can and dropped it in Reed’s bag. “What about Selene?”
Bud crinkled his nose for a fraction of a second, but long enough I caught it. He shrugged. “She’s okay.”
Another can tossed into the bag. “Just okay?”
“She can be a little snotty,” he said and watched me toss away another one of his cans without bothering to help.
“Did Selene ever have issues with Casey or Lisa?” I asked, stopping to watch his reaction with a beer can in my hand.
He flinched. “You could say that. These walls are thin and sometimes you hear things.”
I glanced at Reed with horror. The walls were thin? Hopefully, not so thin that people heard what happened between us earlier. My core throbbed at the memories, and I bit my bottom lip. Reed raised his eyebrow at my expression.
“What happened?” I asked, turning back to Bud while trying to forget the muscular SEAL next to me.
“I don’t eavesdrop, but sometimes a fella can’t help but hear. And this one got loud.”