Page 26 of By the Time You Read This (Raisa Susanto #3)

Chapter Nineteen

Raisa

Day Three

When Raisa woke after a few hours of sleep following her flight from Maeve St. Ivany’s house, she had three missed texts from the woman making sure she’d gotten home safe.

She sent back a quick reply and then called the hospital.

“He’s stable, but still hasn’t woken up yet,” the nurse on duty informed her, and Raisa gritted out a “thank you.”

She dropped back on the pillow and stared at a crack in the ceiling.

Had it been Delaney behind the wheel?

That was hard to imagine. Kilkenny had been the one to fight for her. He’d worked with her for years—maybe without ever knowing her name. But still, it had led to a loyalty that Raisa personally thought Delaney didn’t deserve.

There had also been something meaningful that had happened between the two of them on that night Raisa had been shot. Kilkenny had glossed over their interaction when he’d found Delaney at the library, trying to destroy a picture of their family before Kilkenny could realize who she was.

But Raisa had always sensed there was more to it. A bond that had formed that couldn’t be broken even by Delaney’s bad behavior.

She wondered now how bad that behavior could get.

Before, Raisa tolerated Delaney because she’d never actually killed anyone.

Now she wondered if Isabel might have forced Delaney’s hand.

I won’t do it, I won’t do it. You can’t make me.

Raisa pressed her eyes shut.

She was leaping to conclusions again. Sometimes, though, that was a necessary part of an investigation. People who were able to see patterns often became agents or detectives. Just like with conspiracy theories, it could lead someone astray. But the skill itself wasn’t a detriment.

So she let herself walk down that path.

Isabel wanted Delaney to do something. Kill someone? Maybe the protégé?

She’d threatened Delaney with a high price—death, perhaps. Of herself or Raisa. Or even Kilkenny.

Something that Delaney couldn’t shrug off and give up like it was nothing.

That would be the ultimate power trip for Isabel, wouldn’t it? Getting Delaney to kill for her?

Raisa’s phone rang. She almost ignored it, but then realized who was calling.

“Agent Susanto here,” she said, picking it up.

“Hi, this is Julia Davis, calling from Washington State Department of Children, Youth, and Families.”

Raisa punched the air in victory. “Julia, thanks for getting back to me. I’m looking into a homicide that might have a connection with Peter Stamkos. Is there anything you could tell me about the case?”

“Oh, well, it was as clear-cut as day,” Julia said. She had a warm, gossipy voice. “Between you and me, I’m glad he didn’t take his daughter with him when he killed himself.”

Julia went on to provide details Raisa could have gotten on a public request, which were helpful but not necessarily enlightening.

“Did anyone suspect it was anything but suicide?” Raisa asked.

“Oh no, honey, not for a minute,” Julia said, and then seemed to catch up to the question. “ Was it?”

“No, no, I’m just checking boxes,” Raisa said.

“Well, the only strange thing to note was the woman,” Julia said.

Raisa’s heart stuttered against her rib cage. “What woman?”

“According to the very nosy neighbor, there was a woman who sat outside watching Peter’s house for a few days before he shot himself,” Julia said. “Should I have gotten more info about her? It seemed like a coincidence.”

“Did they give any details?” Raisa asked, hardly daring to hope.

“Just that she was middle-aged and wore her hair in a braid,” Julia said, sounding like she was reading off notes. “They called her a hippie. I always like to take some initial impressions down, but I didn’t actually include any of that in the report.”

“So helpful, thank you, Julia,” Raisa said, glad she didn’t have to control her expression in person.

“Of course, hon, good luck.”

Raisa hung up and stared at that stupid crack in the ceiling.

“Delaney,” Raisa murmured into the empty room. It was strange, this. Raisa had spent the past two years wanting Delaney to step over the line so she could arrest her. Now that she might have, Raisa wanted more than anything to find out that Delaney really was in Fiji, that she’d dropped her phone into the ocean, that she’d forgotten Raisa’s number and name and the very state of Washington.

A hippie, a middle-aged woman with a braid. Sure, that could describe a lot of people, but it definitely described Delaney.

Still ... her sister sitting outside Peter Stamkos’s house didn’t necessarily mean that Delaney had been the one to kill him in a fashion startlingly familiar to Isabel’s preferred method.

What if Isabel had been using Delaney to extend her own reach outside that prison cell? Delaney had grayscale morals, and Isabel knew that already. Why not take advantage of it?

Raisa’s stomach turned. Even if Isabel had been the one directing Delaney, Delaney was an adult. She could have warned Kilkenny or Raisa if Isabel had threatened either of their lives. At the very least, Kilkenny would have believed her.

It was never better to take a life—even if that life wasn’t worth the oxygen it took to survive.

A sudden knock on the door had her eyeing the safe where she kept her gun.

She dismissed the instinct as paranoia and crossed the room.

The bored teenage girl who worked the boutique hotel’s front desk stood there, holding an envelope by two of its diagonal corners so that it spun in an idle circle. “Mail.”

Raisa took it with a “Thanks. Did you see who dropped it off?”

“Nope,” she said. “It was waiting there when I came back from the bathroom.”

The teenager held out a hand and Raisa nearly laughed at the chutzpah. Instead, she went to get a five-dollar bill before sending the girl on her way.

The envelope just had her name written across the front.

Raisa opened it.

Inside was a newspaper clipping.

It was from a few years ago, detailing a sad case of a dog having to be put down because it had bitten a young girl who’d been visiting the area with her family.

One quote in particular had been highlighted in bright yellow.

“ He’s got the taste of blood now. It’s a tragedy, but you gotta do what you gotta do. ”

That insightful take on the situation had been from a school board member who clearly shouldn’t have been asked about it, considering the blood thing was a myth.

There didn’t seem to be any hidden codes here—this was a clear message. Someone had gotten the taste for killing and now needed to be stopped.

Raisa stood and quickly dressed, making sure to lock the article clipping in beside her gun.

Then she headed for the harbor.

The entire way there, she kept glancing over her shoulder, waiting for the rev of an engine. She even had to shove her shaking hands into the pockets of her blazer.

She thought of Kilkenny’s warning. Isabel wants you in Gig Harbor.

She thought of St. Ivany’s serious expression. Why do you think the SUV was aiming for Agent Kilkenny and not you?

And she let herself think about Isabel, what Isabel would want most, if Isabel had known she was marked for murder.

Raisa, Delaney, and Isabel all dead. Because how could Raisa and Delaney be permitted to live if it wasn’t beneath the shadow of their older sister?

It was early, but Essi Halla stood at the rail of her boat, coffee in hand, watching the sun come up. The scene was so perfect it almost looked like it was a setup for a next possible book cover. The title could be How to Use Your Father’s Death as a Way to Grift the Real Victims of an Infamous Serial Killer.

Perhaps a little wordy, but at least it would be accurate.

Essi turned when Raisa called out a greeting, breaking into a smile before she caught sight of Raisa’s face.

“What’s wrong?” Essi asked, and Raisa saw in that moment what so many of Essi’s victims must have. Genuine concern—empathy, even. It was such a skill to be able to portray that.

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you look like you’ve aged thirty years since I last saw you,” Essi said. “And also like you’re a Victorian child suffering from tuberculosis.”

Raisa huffed out a breath. She couldn’t even be insulted—she was sure that was exactly what she looked like. “My partner. He was involved in a hit-and-run. He’s currently in the hospital.”

“Oh.” Essi had the controlled reactions of a practiced lawyer. Her mouth pursed into a distressed moue, her brows pinched together, her voice settled into something soft and gentle. “I’m so sorry. Will he ...?”

She shook her head, cutting herself off. “Well, what can I help you with? I’m sure you’re not here right now to shoot the shit.”

Raisa was thankful she didn’t have to handle Essi’s sympathy. That was one of the hardest things about grief and trauma. Everyone wanted you to make them feel better when all you wanted to do was curl up into a tight ball to protect yourself from feeling anything.

“Have you ever encountered a young woman named Emily Logan?” Raisa asked.

Essi considered it for a moment. “No, not that I can recall.”

“She might have gone by another handle online,” Raisa said. “She was a college student who was writing about the benefits of armchair detectives in relation to the rise of true crime podcasts and documentaries.”

“Honestly, I get emails from people like that all the time,” Essi said. She tapped a long neon-pink nail against her coffee mug. “Oh, here—let me search the folder I keep those in.”

She disappeared into the cabin, only to emerge a minute later with a tablet. “Oh, shit. You were right.”

Raisa’s heartbeat ticked up as she took the device Essi held out.

An email from Emily Logan.

Interview Request , the subject line read.

The message was simple and professional, just laying out that Emily was looking to talk to people on the other side of the argument for a paper she was writing. She also acknowledged that she didn’t expect to hear back from Essi but was trying to be thorough.

“Honestly, if I’d seen that one, I probably would have replied,” Essi said with a shrug. “But my assistant manages my inbox for me. I went through a deluge in the beginning from those people. They all thought I could be convinced to their side. Some of them included death threats, so my assistant just filters them all into a folder we keep in case we have to show the police.”

“Smart,” Raisa murmured.

Essi shrugged and took a sip out of her giant mug, once again looking like a marketer’s dream. It prompted Raisa to ask about something she’d been thinking about. “Hey, you have a book coming out soon?”

Essi grinned, proud. “I do.”

“You don’t have an early copy, do you?”

“No, I’m sorry, all out,” Essi said, with a disappointed pout.

Raisa shook her head. “I’ll just have to buy it like the rest of the commoners, I suppose.”

Essi laughed again and Raisa studied her.

“Forgive me for saying it, but you don’t seem the type to be bothered by harsh emails.”

“Death by a thousand cuts,” Essi said. “I have tough enough skin that it would take a while, but why put myself through that? As long as they’re emailing me—which means I’m relevant to them—that’s all that matters.”

There were flashes of the mercenary side of Essi that Raisa had noticed last time, too, but that was more blatant than she’d been expecting. Raisa decided to nudge the impulse, just a little.

“What’s easier, then? Getting the attention of the people who adore you or hate you?”

Essi’s eyes narrowed, revealing a little glimpse beyond her bubbly facade. That warmth distracted from the fact that, beneath it, there was a thick slab of ice.

“You want honesty? I don’t care. I want them looking at me,” Essi said, holding her hands out to indicate herself. “I’ve never pretended to be a saint.”

“You have, though,” Raisa said, not sure where the brutal honesty was coming from. Still, she thought of Mildred in the parking lot, crying over her dog and the fact that Essi Halla had helped her move on from despair.

“To you,” Essi corrected. “I’ve never pretended to be a saint to you.”

For some reason, it seemed like, to Essi, that mattered.

Gabriela Cruz opened the door just as quickly as she had the last time Raisa had been on her stoop.

“I heard about Agent Kilkenny,” Gabriela said, her eyes wide and curious. Without waiting to be asked, she stepped back, letting Raisa in. Gabriela curled up in her chair next to a whiteboard, which now had Kilkenny’s name added to it. There was something so vulnerable about seeing Callum beside the rest of the victims that Raisa had to look away.

“I don’t want to talk about him,” Raisa said, firmly. Gabriela would try to get details out of Raisa—that was her personality. She needed to keep the girl focused. “Did you know Emily Logan?”

Gabriela licked her lips. Nervous, maybe.

“I mean, I knew her in passing. She waitressed at the Kraken’s Favorite Fisherman.” Gabriela looked up. “It’s a popular tourist restaurant here.”

“You ate at a tourist restaurant enough times to know one of their waitresses in passing?” Raisa asked. She began to wander the space, stopping by the bookshelf.

As Raisa would have guessed, it was stocked with psychological thrillers and cozy mysteries side by side with all the big nonfiction serial killer books of the last twenty years.

“My friend likes their fried calamari, and they have dollar-drink Wednesdays,” Gabriela said. “Are you going to arrest me for taking advantage of a good deal?”

It was interesting that Gabriela had arrived at arrest me so quickly. “Did you know Emily through school, at all?”

“I saw her around,” Gabriela said. “She wasn’t super friendly when she wasn’t waitressing. She mostly just kept to herself.”

That was what the professor had said as well.

“Did you know Emily through the true crime community?” Raisa asked, hoping to catch her slightly off guard.

Gabriela scoffed and then turned it into a cough.

Raisa lifted her brows. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“You knew her, didn’t you?” Raisa pressed.

Gabriela shrugged. “She cared about true crime, not Isabel Parker in particular. So, yeah, we crossed paths in some online forums, but we didn’t run in the same circles.”

“It sounds like there’s more to it.”

“She was getting a reputation,” Gabriela said slowly. “For being a nuisance, really breaking the fourth wall a lot. A lot, a lot.”

“What does that mean?” Raisa asked, thinking she knew but wanting to hear it.

Gabriela looked at her like she was an idiot. “It’s the boundary between any piece of work or performer and their audience.”

Raisa shook her head. “I know what the fourth wall is as a term. What does it mean for your community?”

“Oh,” Gabriela said, some of the teenager falling out of her posture. “Contacting police. Harassing family members of both victims and killers.”

“She didn’t contact me,” Raisa said, though that wasn’t where her mind had landed.

Gabriela shot her a look. “You’re ... off limits.”

“What?”

“Don’t you ever wonder why you haven’t been bothered by ...” Gabriela waved her hand in the air. “All this? There’s, like, an unspoken agreement between everybody not to contact you. Even Emily followed it, apparently.”

Raisa blinked at her. “Why?”

“You’re FBI,” Gabriela said, with a shrug. “You’re bad for business, if you know what I mean.”

“Is Delaney exempt from that mentality?” Raisa asked. When Gabriela stared at her blankly, she added, “My sister. Delaney Moore.”

“Oh, right, duh.” Gabriela shook her head. “No, but she’s impossible to find.”

“Really?” It didn’t seem like anyone could hide in this day and age.

“Yeah, she’s, like, a computer whiz,” Gabriela said, the words coming out in a rush.

Delaney had spent plenty of time and energy making sure there were no pictures of her on the internet, too. She was a ghost.

Hopefully not an actual one.

Raisa pressed Gabriela for a few more minutes, but seemed to have tapped that particular well.

When she walked outside, it was to find Detective St. Ivany leaning against the SUV.

Raisa hesitated, but continued forward without too much of a hitch in her step.

“You good?” St. Ivany asked. “I was heading into work and I saw your SUV.”

“Yeah,” Raisa said, not sure if she believed this was a coincidence. In the light of day, her actions from the night before seemed weird. St. Ivany was checking up on her.

St. Ivany’s eyes slid over Raisa’s shoulder. “You were talking to Gabriela Cruz?”

“Yeah, I’m trying to get more information about Emily Logan, and how she fit into the FreeBell movement,” Raisa said. “Turns out, she wasn’t involved.”

“Really?” St. Ivany asked, sounding surprised.

“Nope, just true crime in general,” Raisa said, and then she realized she’d never asked St. Ivany a fairly important question. “Hey, who do you think killed Emily?”

“The boyfriend,” St. Ivany said, without hesitation.

“He was out of town.”

“Sort of. Just over in Seattle, and his alibi was that he was sleeping in a hotel room by himself,” St. Ivany said. “And there was no reason for him to go—he just wanted to catch a Mariners game.”

“Ah,” Raisa said, because they’d all seen enough cases like that.

“He also works for the hospital, so he’s used to cleaning up blood,” St. Ivany said. “Which might explain why the crime scene was so clean.”

“But you haven’t brought him in?” Raisa asked.

St. Ivany made a frustrated sound before looking away. “I can’t get him on anything. And the judge doesn’t agree with my assessment of the kid’s alibi.”

“Did they have a fight? What’s the motive?”

“Emily was apparently wildly jealous,” St. Ivany said. “She posted his ex-girlfriend’s nude photos on porn sites. He said he didn’t know about it—which lines up with what several of her friends told us independently of each other.”

“But he might have found out and flipped.” It would explain the overkill. “Well, there’s our obvious explanation if we believe in Occam’s razor.”

“Yeah,” St. Ivany said dryly. “A little more believable than she somehow got caught up in a scheme involving a serial killer’s protégé.”

Raisa shrugged, even though she had just been the one to suggest they shouldn’t be looking for zebras. Her life was full of unbelievable cases. It had started out with her parents being killed and her brother being framed for the murders, and had only gotten wilder from there. She did not struggle with suspending her disbelief.

“Didn’t you bring someone else in?”

“Yeah, it was some guy she was spotted having coffee with a few days before she died,” she said. “He said he was just an old friend passing through town, and we traced his whereabouts that night through a couple different security cameras. There was no way he could have been near Emily’s place when she died.”

St. Ivany paused and then laughed, though it wasn’t with any kind of humor. “That’s the first time you really asked about Emily Logan in a way an impartial detective would.”

Raisa winced. “I’m sorry. You’re right, we did come in with an agenda.”

“Yeah, and I’m trying not to get swept up in it,” St. Ivany said, running her fingers through her hair. “To me the boyfriend is still the most likely guy. And, honestly, it would be a dereliction of duty to proceed otherwise.”

Raisa got it, she did. St. Ivany was likely dealing with one of her first homicide cases. But there was a huge elephant in the room she wasn’t about to ignore.

“Then who do you think put Agent Kilkenny in the ICU?” Raisa asked. “And what exactly is your team doing to find that person?”

St. Ivany’s cheeks went pink, though it could’ve been from any number of emotions. Anger. Embarrassment. Shame. Raisa wasn’t about to presume she’d actually landed a blow.

“We’re pulling red light cameras,” St. Ivany said. “And I’ve got several guys out there looking for the SUV that hit him.”

“That’s going to be a fruitful search. One of the most popular versions of a black SUV,” Raisa drawled. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on here any more than you do, but acting like there isn’t a potential killer gallivanting about town with the balls to run down an FBI agent is dangerous.”

“Thank you, Agent Susanto,” St. Ivany said. “I don’t know what our tiny backwater town would do without all your excellent advice.”

“Right.” Raisa reached for the door handle of her SUV so she wouldn’t say what she wanted to, the movement forcing St. Ivany out of the way. “As fun as this has been ...”

St. Ivany made a frustrated sound. “I’m trying my best, believe it or not, Agent Susanto.”

“Oh, I believe it,” Raisa said, before immediately regretting the barb. St. Ivany’s face completely shut down. She turned and headed back to her cruiser.

Raisa felt Kilkenny’s silent judgment all the way from the hospital, and she wondered when he’d become her Jiminy Cricket. “Hey.”

St. Ivany stopped but only half turned.

“I’m fucking up left and right,” Raisa admitted. “I can’t tell my ass from my head in this case. I’m scared as hell that my best friend is going to die and our last conversation was a fight. And on top of all that, I’m worried that the sister I think should be locked up anyway is actually involved in all of this, because it means not only am I right that everyone in my family is a monster, but also ... I wanted her to be better than that. I wanted her to be good.”

At some point during that word vomit, St. Ivany had fully turned toward her. She’d even stepped closer.

Raisa exhaled and laughed at herself. “So. Yeah. I apologize for the sarcasm.”

“Why do you think your sister is involved?” St. Ivany asked.

“That’s what you got out of all that?” Raisa shot back.

“I mean, we can sing ‘Kumbaya’ and talk about your feelings if you prefer,” St. Ivany said, with a tiny grin that seemed to mean Raisa’s bloodletting had actually worked in repairing whatever had been fracturing here. “But I’m trying to solve a couple homicides and an attempted one along with it.”

Raisa’s lips twitched, before she sobered once more. “Delaney Moore, I mentioned her before.”

“Right, you thought she might need protection,” St. Ivany said. She tilted her head. “You’re a bit of a worrier, aren’t you?”

For my people, Raisa thought but then shook her head. Delaney wasn’t her people.

“Maybe,” she conceded. “But maybe ask Kilkenny if I worried enough.”

“That wasn’t your fault.”

A blur of movement, pavement, blood. A cracked skull that was incompatible with life.

“Wasn’t it?” Raisa asked, but then shook her head. She couldn’t think about Kilkenny right now and she certainly couldn’t think about the fact that he had been in the path of that SUV—that he’d been in Gig Harbor at all—because of her. “Anyway. It’s just a feeling, about Delaney. I’m going to head to the correctional facility to check the visitors’ logs. Kilkenny and I got derailed from doing that by the hit-and-run.”

St. Ivany studied her for a moment. “Do you have an address for Delaney?”

Part of her wished she’d kept her mouth shut about it—but she knew that made her a hypocrite. “No. Just somewhere in Seattle. She’s hard to find.”

“Well, she’s never had to hide from me ,” St. Ivany said, cocky.

“She’s shaking in her boots, I’m sure,” Raisa said, but it felt like banter rather than the insult from earlier. She climbed into the driver’s seat. “I’ll keep you updated.”

“Sure you will,” St. Ivany said. “I’ll do the same.”

Raisa rolled her eyes right before shutting the door. “Sure you will.”

Still, she drove away from the curb thinking that she might have created an ally by letting her guard down. It was quite the concept.

Kilkenny would be proud.