Chapter 44 #2
Roy finished reading the text and handed my phone to Lock. The color drained from his battered face as he read it. “I never sent that, Mina. I swear. I didn’t send that. She had my phone.”
“That wasn’t you?” I asked, my breath catching in my throat. In my heart, I desperately wanted to believe it. Could I?
“No!” he cried. “Mina, I’m so sorry.”
“Did you text Mark Gilchrist?” Roy asked.
Lock shook his head. “For what? No, I haven’t had access to my phone for days.
She did something to me. Three days ago, I was sitting in a meeting in Manhattan.
I got two texts from an unknown number. One was a picture of you, Mina.
You were asleep in our bed alone. Then I got a second one.
It was a picture of a dead dove strangled by a red ribbon right on our front porch.
It was a direct threat to you. I was out of my mind.
So I called the number. It was Andrea, I mean Corrine.
She told me she’d do much worse if I didn’t meet with her.
She told me not to call the cops. Mina, I tried to call you to warn you, but you weren’t answering.
She gave me the address to her apartment and told me to meet her there.
I ditched my meeting and was on the next flight out.
When I got there, I told her what would happen if she hurt you, Mina.
And I was going to come straight back and come with you to see Roy.
I was going to tell you everything. I told her that.
I called her bluff and tried to get you on the phone, but you wouldn’t answer.
I was terrified she’d done something to you.
She wouldn’t admit it, but the way she was acting, I thought for sure she’d already hurt you.
And she just sat there, pouring me coffee like everything was normal.
She must have spiked my drink. I blacked out.
You can check my facts. She had me park at this gas station around the corner from her apartment.
My car’s probably still there or towed away by now.
When I woke up, I was in her bed. In her apartment.
She had me zip-tied to one of the bedposts. ”
Lock held his hand up. His right wrist was bruised. I’d seen enough crime scene photos to know those were ligature marks.
“I was in and out of it for days. Hallucinating. At one point, I thought I heard you, Mina. I tried to call out, but it was like a nightmare where you scream but no sound comes out.”
“You heard me,” I said. “Roy. You know I went there. I went to Corrine’s, telling her to stay away from me. From us. You were inside. I didn’t know. I didn’t hear you.”
My stomach churned at the thought of it. Lock had been just a few feet away when I confronted Corrine at her door.
Roy remained expressionless. He finally pushed himself off the wall and came to the other side of Lock’s bed. He opened his phone and showed Lock a photograph.
“Do you recognize this woman?” I did. It was Jade Darby.
“No,” Lock said.
“This one?” Roy flipped to a second photo, one of Lara Pasko.
The lawyer in me came roaring out. “You do not have to answer any of these questions.”
Lock looked at me with pure confusion. “I don’t know this woman either. What does this have to do with me?”
“What about this one?” Roy swiped to the next photograph of Fiona McBride. Lock turned his head. His eyes widened as he focused on the picture.
“Fiona,” he said. “That’s Fiona McBride.”
The room started to spin.
“Where do you know this woman from?” Roy asked.
“I… we dated. Corrine was the second woman I connected with on WhisprMatch. Fiona was the first. We dated for a couple of months.”
“When was the last time you saw her?”
“Lock?” I said.
“It was a few months before I connected with Corrine. Fiona ghosted me for a while. Then I got a text from her saying she was leaving town. It felt abrupt, but we weren’t serious.”
“Did you always communicate on WhisprMatch?” I asked. Roy gave me a look.
Lock shook his head. “No. We exchanged our real cell phone numbers. We were getting serious until she just stopped answering my texts.”
“I know her,” I said as something clicked in my mind.
“I mean, I don’t know her. I know where I saw her.
There’s a picture of you with her in one of those albums in your study.
” I remembered it now. The photo I took out of Piper, Eli, Lock, and his date.
The girl with the blonde pixie cut. It was Fiona McBride!
Lock nodded. “I took her to a fundraising event. Piper liked how she looked in her dress that night so she asked if we could all pose for a photo.”
Roy pulled up a fourth photograph of Daniel Palicki’s mugshot. “Do you recognize him?”
Lock had seen him before, I was certain. Palicki’s face had been splashed all over the internet. Lock took Roy’s phone from him but didn’t answer.
“Daniel Palicki,” Roy said. “Do you have any explanation as to why a suspected serial killer would have your number in his phone?”
“What? No? Are you kidding?”
“He killed Fiona McBride,” I said. “An arrest was made a few days ago.”
“He’s changed his look a few times,” Roy said. “But we found this photo in his phone as well.” He swiped his phone screen.
Lock tilted his head as he studied the next photo. “I don’t understand.” Then, slowly, his face changed. His jaw slackened. His skin turned green. He didn’t have to say anything for me to know what he was thinking.
“You do know him,” I said. “Lock?”
“What did you say his name was?”
“Palicki,” I answered.
Lock was shaking. I grabbed Roy’s phone.
The picture was one I’d seen before, framed in Lock’s office.
Eli had pointed it out. In the photo, Lock stood with his arms around three teenage boys.
Among the first he’d tried to help with Bennett’s Place before the shelter was built.
Eli told me Lock had brought them all into his own home.
Our home. His lost boys. The ones who didn’t make it.
The one who stood closest to Lock was virtually unrecognizable from the man he later became. This boy was painfully thin, with a head of bushy dark hair. I never would have recognized him from his mugshot except for those cold eyes. Those had never changed.
“His name wasn’t Palicki. That’s not what I knew him as. He was Danny Preston. He was getting services from Bennett’s Place.”
Preston. Danny Preston. Daniel Palicki.
“You never verified his name?” Roy asked.
Lock shook his head, his eyes going red from shock.
“Why would I? He was a fourteen-year-old kid. He didn’t have a driver’s license or a work permit.
He was living on the street when I found him.
I tried to save him. I… I couldn’t. He was so angry with me.
He blamed me for not being able to stay clean. ”
“Eli said he vandalized the house,” I said.
“That’s why he was kicked out of the program.
Roy, this was before the Bennett’s Place complex was built.
Preston… Palicki was living in Lock’s house for months.
That’s why Lock’s number is still in Palicki’s phone.
Call Washtenaw County. Have someone tell Palicki that Lock and I would like to speak to him. ”
I looked back at Lock. The horror in his expression melted into understanding. For his part, Roy looked even more confused.
I felt sick to my stomach as I realized the truth. “Roy,” I said. “I’m pretty sure Daniel Palicki had one last victim.”
“What? Who?” Roy said.
I gripped Lock’s hand. “Corrine Egan.”