Page 34

“She said, ‘Tell her to look at the dates on the letters.’”
Raisa’s pulse kicked up. “How long ago did you say this was?”
Gabriela squinted into the middle distance. “Maybe three months?”
Which meant ... which meant Isabel had been planning some elaborate game for at least that long.
She met Kilkenny’s eyes and could see the same question in his.
How could Isabel have known they would even end up here? Were there more letters out there, ready to direct them to Gabriela had they not ended up talking to her themselves? Was someone watching their every move with directions from Isabel at the ready?
Or was it just inevitable that all roads led back to this girl? She was the leader of the FreeBell movement, they’d been pointed in her direction by multiple people. It would be a logical assumption that if Raisa was investigating Isabel’s murder, she would eventually find her way to Gabriela Cruz.
More likely, Isabel had simply planted a bunch of clues along the way, figuring they would stumble onto the right combination eventually. She was the queen of covering all her bases. If it wasn’t Gabriela telling them to look at the letters, it might have been some otherfanimploring them to do something else.
Isabel was good, but what she was mostly good at was making everyonethinkshe was omnipresent simply by working her ass off.
Still, Raisa itched to get her hands on the Biggest Fan letters once more.
“Okay,” Raisa said. “Do you know of anyone in your FreeBell movement who would want to do her harm?”
Gabriela’s eyes flew to Raisa’s. “Like kill her, you mean?”
“Yes.” There was no reason to beat around that particular bush. And Raisa wanted the answer. “Like kill her.”
“No, never. Why would any of us try to kill her?” Gabriela asked.
There were plenty of reasons to suspect an obsession had turned violent, but Gabriela continued before Raisa could say anything.
“I mean, if you should be looking at anyone, it’s Essi.”
Raisa nearly laughed at that. The feuding generals—clouded by hatred and distrust of each other. “We’re just trying to get some information right now.”
“Well, I wouldn’t look at the FreeBell group,” Gabriela said. “I’d go looking for whoever is copying her.”
Raisa hoped she hadn’t heard her right. “What do you mean, copying her?”
But Gabriela lit up.
“I can’t say whoever it is isn’t a lower-level person in our group, but none of my friends wouldever,” Gabriela said, and Raisa tried to makethe words make sense. She glanced at Kilkenny, who shook his head, looking more baffled than she felt.
“What?”
Gabriela stood and crossed to the closet, pulling out a whiteboard a moment later. “There’s someone out there pretending to be Isabel. Or taking notes from her and doing something similar.”
Your Biggest Fan.Raisa’s stomach clenched, making her painfully aware that the only thing she’d had since the night before was that cup of coffee hours ago.
“Can you walk us through this?” Kilkenny prompted, though he probably hadn’t needed to. Gabriela was already setting everything up. A real true crime aficionado.
“So, from what I can tell, there’s been three homicides that I can connect to this ...” Gabriela trailed off, tilting her head back and forth. She had completely come out of her shell. “Protégé. Can I call them that?”
“Sure,” Raisa said, weakly.
“They weren’t all in Gig Harbor, which is probably why Detective St. Ivany missed them.” Gabriela tossed her dry erase marker. Caught it. Tossed it.
“Have you gone to her with all this?”
“She was ... not receptive to my ideas,” Gabriela said by way of an answer. “But anyway, I like to track police reports and the like—it’s not weird, a lot of real true crime junkies do it.”