Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
MINA
Corrine had been in there for a while. I knocked once to ask her if she was all right. She didn’t answer. I didn’t know how long I should wait before becoming more forceful.
She could not identify Daniel Palicki. I told myself it didn’t mean he wasn’t the one who hurt her.
His hair had changed. His beard. It hadn’t been enough to throw Amy Pasko off.
But doubt swirled around my head. Amy Pasko only saw Lara’s abductor from afar.
Corrine had spent a weekend and been intimate with him.
“Mina!” Dennison caught up with me. “Is she gonna be okay?”
“She just needs a minute,” I said.
“Amy Pasko was absolutely sure,” Dennison said. “No doubt in her mind Palicki’s the one who was last seen with her sister, Lara. This is the WhisprMatch guy. I feel it in my bones.”
“It’ll take more than Amy’s ID to charge him on Lara Pasko.
They’ve got physical evidence tying him to Gretchen Small, not Lara.
As far as Corrine’s case, it’s dead in the water.
She knows it. I just lied to her face saying we weren’t giving up on her.
I had to say something. She seemed so desperate. ”
“We’ve got warrants based off Palicki’s DNA in Gretchen’s car.
We’re building a timeline and tracking Palicki’s movements over the last few years.
He’s been in and out of prison and on probation the whole time.
That’ll make things much easier. And we know where he’s been living when he’s not locked up.
The search of his house is underway. If he took Lara there or anyone else, we’ll know.
It’ll take a few weeks, but we’ll get forensics on his cell phone and any computer he has. ”
“Stay on it, Roy,” I said. “Just make sure they do everything by the book. We can’t risk Palicki getting off because someone didn’t know how to properly write a warrant.”
Detective McCallister called to Roy from down the hall. He gave me a nod and went to talk to her. I still heard the water running from inside the restroom.
A moment later, three deputies came around the corner with Daniel Palicki in tow. They were all headed right toward me.
I put my hands behind me on the bathroom door. It opened inward. I couldn’t hold it shut or warn Corrine not to come out. For my part, I pressed myself against the wall.
Even in cuffs, Palicki managed a swagger. He would pass me with merely inches between us. He muttered something to one of the deputies. Whatever it was, it earned him a light shove forward. The other deputy gestured to his colleague and pointed at me. They knew who I was.
Palicki slowed as he walked in front of me.
He seemed startled. Then, his lips curled into a smile.
He was good-looking. If I superimposed Amy Pasko’s police sketch over his face, the match was clear.
But that picture didn’t capture the menace in this man’s eyes.
Cold. Heartless. Were they the last things Lara Pasko, Jade Darby, and Gretchen Small saw?
Palicki let his eyes lewdly travel down my body. Then he moved as quickly as a snake. Leaning toward me, he whispered.
“Nice suit. But you’d look better in red, sweetheart.”
The two deputies jerked him forward, admonishing him to keep his mouth shut and his eyes forward.
I felt as if I’d melted to the wall. The air was thick.
The bathroom door swung inward as Corrine stepped out.
Palicki was just passing by. The deputies made him pick up his pace and escorted him quickly around the corner.
“Mina?” Roy sprinted toward us with McCallister right on his heels.
“What the hell was that?” Roy demanded of her. “What are your guys thinking bringing him down this way?”
“So sorry,” Detective McCallister said. “You ladies all right?”
Corrine looked puzzled but not upset. Palicki hadn’t fixed his cold eyes on her like he’d done to me.
You’d look better in red, sweetheart. Why would he say that? The ribbon around my wrist felt like it had caught fire.
“It’s nothing,” I heard myself say.
“Are you okay getting home?” Roy asked Corrine.
“I’m good,” she said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be more helpful.”
“You did fine,” I said.
She gave me a half-hearted smile, then disappeared down the opposite hallway.
Roy put a light hand on me. He thanked McCallister for including us. I struggled to put one foot in front of the other as we made our way outside.
Daniel Palicki was just a man. A psychopath, perhaps. But I’d faced many like him before. And yet, there was something different about him.
I felt like he knew me.