Page 38

Story: Guilty as Sin

“No one. Just Hayes, who accompanied me.”
“And neither of you ordered a delivery for him later in the day?”
“No.” Hayes broke his silence then. “It seems like you’ve got more than one mystery to solve here, Officers. But whoever’s responsible for Greenley’s homicide is likely the same one trying to frame Reese for it.”
There was more of the same. Similar questions, rephrased and posed differently. Finally, Hastings flipped her notebookshut and reattached her pen to its coils. “I’m sure Detective Usher will want to talk to you. What’s your cell number?”
Reese gave it to them. Fenton glanced at Hayes. “And yours?”
“I’ll be with Reese.” He regarded them steadily. “Easy to find.” He walked the officers to the door. She remained where she was, uncertain if her legs would hold her. In thirty-six hours, she’d learned that Thorne had escaped and been seen near her apartment. That he was with Pollack the night the man had died.
And now, another person was dead after leaving a note that pointed squarely at her. The hits just kept coming, with barely enough time to regain her equilibrium before being rocked by another.
Hayes resecured the locks and alarm before turning toward her, his expression flinty. She moistened her lips. “You didn’t mention Thorne or what you’re really doing here. Do you need to discuss that with Mendes first?”
“I’ll alert him. But first I’m making a Zoom call. We’re going to wake up Adam.”
If Raiker had been asleep,it didn’t show in his visage. A shadow covered his jaw, but his gaze was intent and shrewd. He listened in silence as Hayes filled him in on the day’s events. His first question after Hayes wound down was “Where’s Thorne now?”
“There have been no more reported sightings. I’ve been keeping Mendes updated, but I haven’t heard from him today.”
“And the tracker was placed when the TK was in prison?”
“Yes.”
Adam mulled that over. Although the familiar eyepatch was in place, his long-sleeve light gray dress shirt had two buttons undone, and he was minus a tie. It was the most casually dressedReese had ever seen him. “So, two parallel events, if we can refer to Reese’s conservatorship quest that way. It’s disturbing to see even a tenuous connection to Thorne cropping up in what should be a fairly straightforward court proceeding. But I agree. While you may well learn that the TK killed Pollack, there’s no reason right now to believe he was involved in Greenley’s death.”
“What about the initials used on the contract for the GPS device?” Reese put in. “Does Thorne have the kind of juice to have that done while he was locked up?” Some inmates had a long reach, even while serving their sentence.
And try as she might, Reese couldn’t make that piece fit. In the time she’d spent with Stephen Thorne, his mind had been a churning cauldron of incoherent thoughts, smeared with rage and guilt. It was hard for her to imagine how he’d managed to stay ahead of law enforcement as long as he had. Tupelo PD Hamilton had obviously thought him harmless when he let him go after questioning. But he’d been wrong. Thornehadcommitted those homicides with forethought. He’d stayed in motels and had arranged the rental in Goodness, Mississippi.
Maybe she’d also been underestimating his abilities.
“We can’t surmise facts not in evidence.” Raiker’s words were an eerie paraphrase of Hayes’s. “Yes, it’s possible for some inmates to control events on the outside while they serve their sentence. But that requires money and a network of people willing to follow those orders. Thorne’s a loner. It sounds like he had some sort of prior friendship with Pollack, and certainly, there may be a few other individuals he’s connected with. At this point, we have to believe it’s equally likely that your aunt was targeted, the same way you were today. Maybe for a reason unrelated to you. Or, there could be something sinister afoot with the trust your family founded.”
A dart of trepidation pierced her. Not that she and Hayes hadn’t figured that out for themselves, but to hear Raikerdraw the same conclusion painted the idea with menace. Julia’s accident had occurred after she’d been to see Rivers. The tracker would have enabled whoever was monitoring it to know where she was going next. Making the mental leap from a hit-and-run to cold-blooded murder also required more facts than they had in hand right now.
But it was a bit easier to believe after discovering someone had murdered Greenley using her name.
“I’ll wait for Mendes’s go-ahead before sharing these incidental links to Thorne with other police.” Hayes scrubbed a hand over his jaw. He could use a shave, too, Reese noted. Funny, she hadn’t observed that when they’d kissed. She elbowed aside the memory. Now wasn’t the time to relive that particular error in judgment.
And it had been a mistake of monumental proportions. It was easier to coexist with Hayes when she didn’t have that awareness of him as a man. When she didn’t wonder about his background and probe into his life like he was an interview subject for a series of articles. She’d slept with men she knew less well, and forgot them easily.
Reese recognized that Hayes wouldn’t be someone to set aside that casually. And he’d already proven more than a match for her carefully constructed defenses. That alone made him someone to avoid. Advice that had gone unheeded when he’d touched her earlier.
“The task force has their hands full tracking Thorne.” Hayes’s words drew Reese’s attention. “And now they also have to look into him as being good for the Pollack murder. I can dig further into the Thompson connection on Julia’s geolocator. And anything else that crops up not directly related to one of the ongoing police investigations.”
“I agree.” Adam nodded. “We can help on this end if you need more assistance. Just don’t let it distract from your main duty there.”
“So now I’m a duty?” Reese asked, only partially in jest.
“You’re the priority,” Adam said flatly. “And Hayes will stop at nothing to keep you safe until Thorne is back behind bars.”
She slid a glance at the man beside her. His presence made it impossible for her to forget that the TK was still out there, fixated on her. The chill that skated over her skin left ice in its wake. Even when the police found him would she ever feel completely safe again after he’d already managed to walk away from a maximum-security psychiatric hospital once?
“I figure you’ve made one of your mind map organizers for this?”
“Sending it to you now.”