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“The first victim that we think is from our second killer was found ... thirteen years ago?” Kilkenny asked, obviously doing quick math.
“Yeah.”
“That puts Kate at ten or so,” Kilkenny said. “Probably rules her out.”
“You have to be all logical,” Raisa teased. She waited until he pulled out onto the road so that she wouldn’t have to worry about him scrutinizing her expression. “I’m getting shades of Isabel with all of this.”
“You do have PTSD,” Kilkenny pointed out, and they both knew he was being serious. “And a true-crime documentarian is a close cousin to a podcaster.”
Which Isabel had tried her hand at with the intention of getting close to the investigation back in Everly. Raisa silently admitted he had a point.
“I do think it means something that we keep seeing similarities in all these people,” Raisa said, shifting them away from her trauma.
“And that Conrad himself fits the pattern,” Kilkenny agreed.
She almost hesitated to say it, but right now, no theory was too wild. “So when I met with that reporter yesterday? He suggested a vigilante. Someone who killed people who matched the profile for the Alphabet Man.”
Kilkenny grimaced, as she’d known he would. “We always take that risk when we make the information public.”
Putting a target on a particular type of person was more of a safety issue when the profile included details that would attract bigots, but there were always loose cannons you had to worry about whenever including a wider audience.
“A vigilante would have to square up with the fact that he was killing innocent men, though,” Kilkenny said.
“That’s what I mentioned as well, and Mr. Sasha Malkin chided me for trying to make sense of a madman’s mind,” she said, and Kilkenny laughed before tipping his head in acknowledgment.
“Well, that’s fair.”
Raisa chewed on her lip. This would be the moment to bring up something she’d been thinking about. But she wasn’t sure she wanted to lob the bomb.
Of course Kilkenny could tell. “What?”
She inhaled. And then ripped off the Band-Aid. “Do you want to hear the reporter’s other pet theory?”
“Pierce.”
“How did you know?” she asked.
“We all worked together closely for five years,” Kilkenny said with a shrug. “You end up picking up some things. Toward the end, it became kind of an inside joke between Pierce and Malkin.”
“You never suspected Pierce, then?” Raisa asked.
Kilkenny glanced over, taking his eyes off the road to do so. He was usually such a careful driver, that alone telegraphed his complete surprise. It was as if he hadn’t realized this conversation had been serious until just then.
“I suppose I considered everyone at some point,” Kilkenny said. “There was a strange moment between him and Shay at the Christmas party we went to one time.”
“A strange moment?”
“I went to grab a folder from my office, and when I came back, things were tense between them,” Kilkenny said. “I assumed he made some drunken pass. She wouldn’t say anything. That’s the only time I’ve ever questioned him being a good guy, though.”
“I mean, not to excuse his behavior, but drunken flirting and serial killing are two pretty different levels,” Raisa said.
He nearly smiled. “Exactly. I could never seem to land on him as suspicious.”
“Why?”
“Timing mostly, I guess. I knew where he was when the Alphabet Man would have had to be somewhere else,” Kilkenny said.
“Okay, but now we know Pierce wasn’t the Alphabet Man, he could fit the vigilante theory, right?” Raisa offered. “He got tired of chasing Conrad through official channels, and took matters into his own hands.”