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“Is this a waste of time?” she asked, even as she opened the preview for it on her phone. The file was from Washington State—so far away from Houston that she didn’t know what she possibly thought she would find in there.
Kilkenny pursed his lips, which was a yes in Kilkenny-speak. But all he said was, “Not if you have a hunch.”
This was probably confirmation bias speaking. She was so focused on Isabel, all she could see was causation where there was probably only chaos.
“No,” Raisa said on a sigh, and then partly lied. “I don’t have a hunch. And even if falling down Isabel’s rabbit hole could eventually lead to our killer, I think we should focus on Kate. She’ll get us there faster.”
He nodded, even though he’d been the one to bring up Isabel. “You’re right. I just don’t see how we’re going to figure it out.”
She wasn’t used to Kilkenny not knowing what to do next. She tried to clear her mind. The task was daunting, but they had been collecting a lot of threads over the past two days. One of them would lead them to their second killer. She had to believe that.
“We need to see the incident report,” Raisa said. This was the knot, where Isabel’s, Kate’s, and Conrad’s threads intertwined. “The carjacking for the Tashibi family.”
“It would be a local request,” Kilkenny said.
“Good thing we know the man in charge of the entire Houston field office,” Raisa said, and Kilkenny smirked before pulling out his phone.
“Max isn’t here,” Pierce said when he picked up.
“We need an old report on a carjacking in Austin,” Kilkenny said. “What’s that department like? Do they share?”
“Yeah, text me the details. I have a guy over there who likes me,” Pierce said, and hung up.
Kilkenny stared at his phone. “Is it strange that he went out to interview Max without having a local uniform swing by to see if she was there?”
“Yes,” Raisa said, though she couldn’t come up with anything beyond that. Kilkenny was typing out the information for the Tashibi case anyway, not seeming to need it confirmed.
Pierce didn’t seem to be hiding anything in terms of the case, but he was hidingsomething. She was almost sure of it.
“You still trust him?” she asked Kilkenny, who grimaced.
“Yes,” he said, echoing her simplicity for effect.
“Okay,” she said.
“Just like that?” He’d asked her that less than forty-eight hours ago, but he still didn’t seem to understand that whether she trusted Pierce didn’t matter. She trusted Kilkenny.
“Just like that,” she said.
They didn’t have long to wait before Pierce came through on his promise to deliver the Tashibi carjacking report.
“What are we looking for?” Kilkenny asked, as he pulled it up on the computer that was already connected to the VPN.
“There was a sister,” Raisa said. It always came back to sisters, didn’t it?
“Hana Tashibi,” Kilkenny read.
For you, H.
That had been the caption on the one personal photo Kate had posted to her social media page.
For you, Hana.At the time, it had read as a dedication or a tribute.
Now Raisa wondered if it was a promise.
Why would Kate Tashibi care about the person who sent the Alphabet Man to jail?
Raisa still didn’t know thewhyof it all, but if they were looking for a reason for Kate to become a killer, why not listen to her own words?