Chapter Twenty #2
His expression tightened. “For a second, I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. Then I got close enough to know she was gone and called nine-one-one.” He glanced at Sean. “My son’s a detective up in Columbus, Ohio, so I knew enough not to disturb anything.”
“And we thank you for that—” Sean broke off as one of the uniformed deputies suddenly cursed and bolted toward the dunes. The second deputy was right behind him, and together they intercepted a news crew before it could make its way farther onto the beach.
He stared after them. “How did they hear about this?”
Mr. Simmons shook his head at once, his expression darkening as he looked toward the commotion. “Wasn’t me. Those vultures can stay the hell off this beach.”
Sean believed him. The man looked genuinely disgusted.
Beside him, Griffin’s scowl deepened. “My deputies and dispatch handled this by phone, per my orders. Nothing went out over the radio.”
That narrowed the possibilities in ways Sean didn’t like. Either the leak inside the sheriff’s department still hadn’t been plugged, someone in the medical examiner’s office had loose lips, or there was a third possibility none of them could ignore. The killer himself could have tipped them off.
Sean dragged a hand down his face, his thoughts already moving ahead. “Matt, do you have any judges on speed dial?”
The sheriff frowned. “Yeah. Why?”
“We need a warrant for Daly’s desk and computer before her name gets leaked. One for her house, too, but I want to hit the station before her bosses get there and touch anything.”
Matt was already pulling out his phone. “On it.”
Once Brian finished jotting down Mr. Simmons’s contact information, he and Sean thanked the witness and headed back across the sand toward the body.
Rafe was speaking with Dr. Hansen while two assistants carried over a stretcher from the coroner’s van.
The crime scene techs were still documenting the area, moving through their process with practiced precision.
Brian glanced toward the dunes, where the deputies had forced the news crew back beyond the crest. “They didn’t get close enough for any shots, and none of us knew it was Daly until we got here. We should still beat everyone to her office.”
Sean gave a distracted nod, already mentally organizing the next several hours. Then Brian clapped a hand on his shoulder. “So how was Grace this morning when you left her bed?”
He stopped and shot his brother a sharp look. “Seriously? Don’t embarrass her, and don’t go running your mouth.”
Two hands were lifted, palms out. “Come on. You know me better than that. Giving you grief is one thing. I’d never do anything to make Grace uncomfortable.” His grin widened. “Besides, you’ve never reacted like this when KC or I teased you about anyone else. You’ve got it bad, don’t you?”
The question landed closer to home than Sean wanted to admit.
He drew in a breath and let it out slowly.
“Yeah.” The admission came easier than he expected because denying it would have been pointless.
“No other woman has ever had me thinking long-term this fast. It’s only been a little over a week since she showed up at the beach house, and I’m already catching myself wondering what it’d be like if she lived with me. ”
Even saying it aloud gave him pause. He’d never once pictured sharing his space with anyone—not until Grace.
Something about the ease between them, the way being with her already felt natural, made the thought less unsettling than it should have.
His brother’s grin spread wider. “And another Malone brother falls.” He gave a mock shiver of his shoulders. “Thank goodness it isn’t me.”
Sitting at Jessica Daly’s desk, Sean sorted through the cluttered stacks of paperwork with gloved hands while a computer forensics tech carefully disconnected her hard drive beside him.
Across the cubicle, another tech was emptying files from a locked cabinet into a cardboard evidence box.
The warrant had come through before word of the reporter’s death had leaked, giving them a narrow window to search her office before the newsroom erupted into full-blown chaos.
From across the sprawling newsroom, three station executives stood clustered with a uniformed deputy, their dark expressions making it clear they were far more upset about the seizure of company property than the violent death of one of their reporters.
Their muttered complaints carried across the rows of cubicles, though none of them were foolish enough to interfere.
While Sean and Brian handled the news station, Brad and Rafe were executing the warrant at Daly’s condo. Matt had headed to the medical examiner’s office. All of them were working with the same hope—that the killer’s break from routine meant he had made a mistake.
Brian approached, carrying another evidence box, and set it beside the desk. Whether the station liked it or not, every scrap of paper in Jessica Daly’s possession was coming with them.
Sean tugged on the top kneehole drawer and found it locked. He raised his voice to be heard over the din of the newsroom. “Anybody have a spare key?”
The three men standing with the deputy shook their heads.
Without a word, Brian reached into the inside pocket of his sports coat and handed over a lockpick set. When Sean raised an eyebrow, his brother gave an innocent shrug. “Haven’t met a reporter yet who doesn’t keep their best contacts locked away.”
He snorted. It had been a while since he’d picked a lock, but the mechanism was simple enough.
Less than a minute later, the drawer clicked open.
Inside sat the usual office odds and ends—pens, paper clips, sticky notes, and stationery.
Toward the back, there was a small stack of mail.
He pulled it free and began sorting through the envelopes, opening each one and scanning the contents.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Then he reached the last envelope, and his pulse kicked. “Hey, Brian, look at this.”
His brother leaned over his shoulder, reading the newspaper letters pasted onto the plain white printer paper. A low whistle escaped him.
For the first time all morning, something close to cautious optimism stirred in Sean’s chest. They might finally have a real lead if it wasn’t a gag.
He slipped the note and envelope into a clear evidence bag, labeled it with the date, time, location, and his initials, then rose to his feet. “Finish packing everything.”
The techs nodded.
Ignoring the barrage of shouted questions from Daly’s bosses, Sean headed for the door with Brian on his heels.
Twenty minutes later, they were bouncing down a cracked industrial driveway in the Mustang. The suspension protested every pothole, each jolt earning a grimace from Sean as the tires dipped into ruts deep enough to swallow half the wheel. Next time, they were taking Brian’s truck.
The uneven drive stretched nearly three-quarters of a mile through dense trees and overgrown brush before opening onto a wide expanse of property. The sight waiting for them turned Sean’s stomach cold—fire trucks, an ambulance, and three patrol cars.
And where the abandoned tobacco factory should have stood, there was nothing but a massive heap of blackened, smoldering rubble. The structure was gone.
Brian stared through the windshield. “Well, that’s not good.”
Sean slowed as they passed a weathered roadside sign bearing the faded name of the former cigarette company. Then something caught his eye, and his foot slammed onto the brake.
His brother jerked forward. “What is it?”
Sean pointed through the passenger-side window. Pinned to the sign was a large brown mailing envelope with “Federal and Local Pigs” spelled across it in cutout letters that were big enough to come from newspaper headlines. With every first responder focused on the fire, no one had noticed it.
Brian climbed out, already pulling his phone from his pocket to photograph the envelope in place. After snapping several shots, he slipped on the disposable gloves he kept tucked inside his coat and carefully removed both the envelope and the thumbtacks securing it.
Sean retrieved a clean evidence bag from the glove compartment and held it open while his brother dropped the tacks in. Neither expected much from them, but Sean had learned long ago that cases often turned on the smallest overlooked detail.
After getting back into the passenger seat, Brian lifted the unsealed flap and slid out a single sheet of printer paper. The cutout message across it made Sean’s jaw harden.
I took care of the reporter. Now back to the others. Someone has to rid society of them. S.S.
Brian exhaled sharply. “Well, Hansen was right. Daly got under his skin. I’m guessing S.S. stands for Seaside Strangler.”
Sean’s gaze shifted to the smoldering ruins ahead. The fire had erased whatever evidence might have been waiting inside. Still, the note told them something. The killer had wanted them to know this had been deliberate. And he wanted credit for it.
“Come on.” He stepped on the gas pedal. “Let’s talk to the fire chief.”
Unfortunately, there was nothing else for them to find.
While there were sections of the huge building that hadn’t been completely burned to the ground, there were no signs of a murder scene in them.
An accelerant had been used, and the fire had been burning for a while, starting in the early morning hours, before someone had reported the smell of smoke two miles away.
It had taken some time before the source had been discovered, as the sunrise finally made it possible to see the black and grey smoke rising from the building.
It was an hour after they’d arrived that Brian and Sean left the scene in the hands of the Arson and Crime Scene techs to sift through the debris for any evidence that might have miraculously survived the flames. And once again, they were back to square one.