Page 42

When Jessica stopped sputtering, Finn curled an arm around her shoulders. “Are you all right? The cops are here, but I don’t know why or how they knew to come.”
Jessica swiped an arm across her nose and mouth. “I called 911 on my way. Told them someone had a gun in the Art Garden. How’s…”
Finn shook his head. “She didn’t make it.”
Jessica broke down, covering her face with her hands and sobbing, the sound hoarse and broken.
The first deputy on scene, who’d identified himself as Deputy Lorman, took control. “Everyone step back from the body.”
Finn shouted, “We need an ambulance. Jessica almost drowned.”
Lorman replied, “On it. I called for backup.”
Jessica bent forward and Finn caught her before she could pass out on the cement, but she felt the ground with her hands. “My gun. Where’s my gun?”
Aiming his phone’s flashlight at the ground, Finn said, “He must’ve taken it. I didn’t see a gun.”
Jessica, her hand to her throat, said, “Get Detective Morse over here. This woman is another victim of the Kitsap Killer, or whatever you’re calling him, and he probably took off toward the woods. He knows them well.”
Finn turned toward Lorman. “Jessica’s right. He had to have gone toward the woods. I was calling Jessica’s name as I was running toward the fountain. I must’ve scared him off, but he didn’t come at me, so he must’ve headed for the woods…unless he’s in Callahan Hall.”
Lorman’s lips flattened into a grimace. “Do you know for sure it’s the same guy who murdered Morgan and Missy, ma’am?”
“The killer texted me before he did it.” She squeezed out her wet hair over one shoulder. “Or I don’t know. Maybe he’d already killed her before he even texted me.”
“Description? What was he wearing?” Lorman snapped his fingers at the two deputies guarding the scene.
“I don’t know.” Jessica shivered. “Gloves and black pants. That’s all I saw. He came up behind me.”
The deputies responded to Lorman’s frantic finger snapping and stood at attention. The shorter one asked, “What do you need, sir?”
“One of you take the woods and the other, Callahan Hall. Check for wet footsteps, broken branches, open doors in the building. Black pants, black gloves. Go, do your jobs.” He turned back to Jessica and Finn. “Do either of you know the dead woman?”
When Finn had come on the scene, he hadn’t even looked at the girl’s face—just the red marks on her neck. Now he peered over Jessica’s shoulder at the figure crumpled on the ground.
As Lorman highlighted her face with his flashlight, Finn’s eye twitched. He rose from his place beside Jessica and hunched forward. Then he swore.
Jessica clutched at his arm, too traumatized to turn and look, herself. “You know her?”
“That’s one of my students—Gabby Medina.”
As Finn sank back down, his head in his hand, sirens wailed through the air. This was going to be a long night.
* * *
JESSICA SAT ONthe edge of the hospital bed swinging her legs. If Finn asked her one more time how she was feeling, she might just scream at him.
He’d insisted the EMTs take her to the hospital, even though she felt fine. The nurses had checked her vitals several times, listened to her lungs, her heart, and had given her intravenous electrolytes.
She was fine. Gabby Medina was dead.
Why her? Why was this person putting her through this? Could she have saved Gabby’s life if she’d been faster? Smarter? Braver? Stronger?
That’s exactly what Detective Morse wanted to know and had grilled her at the scene, despite Finn’s protests. Morse wasn’t done with her, either. He wanted her at the station tomorrow morning for the second interrogation. She didn’t know what else she could tell him. She’d spilled her guts about the connections to Tiffany’s murder—the card, the doll, the burglary of her sister’s place and the stolen red scarf.
Morse had confiscated her phone, but she already knew the killer had used a different burner phone from the one he’d used the first time he texted her. Maybe Morse should start looking into who was buying up all the burner phones on Kitsap Peninsula.
Finn looked up from his phone. “Are you sure you’re okay?”