Page 42 of Dirty Valentine (A J.J. Graves Mystery #17)

“Maybe she was hoping to kidnap him,” Jack said.

“But Thomas dies and the drugs wear off of Victoria too soon.” Jack tapped his finger against his thigh.

“Based on Whitman’s estimated time of death around 3 a.m. we can assume he was alive in the trunk when the Mercedes pulled into the gas station at two forty-five.

We have to assume she had another plan to kill him—she’s got her service weapon—but luck gave her a hand and his heart gave out first.”

“We can assume Potts used the gas station as a lookout to make sure the cemetery was clear,” I said. “Al Contreras didn’t lock up like he was supposed to. Which she knew because she was at the gas station waiting for him to come by for his rounds.”

“So she pulls into the cemetery and gets as close as she can to the grave. Dead bodies are heavy, but she gets him out of the trunk, strips him naked, and positioned the boards and stones. The lack of violence explains why his clothes were so clean.”

“And somewhere else Victoria is still alive and waiting for her turn,” I said. “Where would she keep her victims hidden?”

“She rents a house on James Madison,” Doug said. “Looks like a two-bed, one bath.”

“We’ll get a couple of units to check it out,” Martinez said, already on his phone.

“You won’t find anything there,” Jack said.

“Someone like Potts thinks she’s smarter than everyone else.

She lives a quiet life, goes to work, does her job, all the while she’s telling herself she’s better than the rest of us, too smart to get caught, laughing every time she’s working a crime scene.

She’ll have another location for her dirty work.

She’d want to keep it compartmentalized from her life as a cop. ”

“We have a lot of unanswered questions,” I said.

“The logistics of this are staggering,” Jack said, studying the board.

“One person couldn’t possibly manage all this—threatening Victoria at her office, attacking her at home, keeping her captive, ensuring Thomas and Judith got poisoned at dinner, waiting for Thomas to die, then moving and staging his body with those heavy stones.

“Then Wednesday night,” Cole continued. “Same pattern. Judith’s attacked at her house—drugged with hallucinogens, terrorized. But she escapes into the woods.”

Jack nodded and said, “All the while, Margaret Randolph is being lured to the mill. She’s drugged, has her tongue cut out, drowns in her own blood. Her body is elaborately staged with all her books.”

The room fell silent as everyone stared at the timeline.

“The Hughes plantation and Hawthorne Mill are on opposite sides of the county. Even if Judith’s attack started early in the evening and Margaret was killed later, the timing is too tight.”

“She had help,” Jack said quietly. “Someone else who knows the history, has access to the drugs, can move freely without raising suspicion.”

Doug’s fingers were already flying across his keyboard. “Margot, run a cross-reference. Anyone connected to this case who has the means, motive, and opportunity to assist.”

“Processing.” Margot’s voice filled the room. “I can help cross-reference databases,” she offered. “Though genealogical research of this depth will take time.”

Doug’s fingers flew across the keyboard. “I’ve been digging into this for the last hour. Let me pull up what I found.” He opened multiple windows. “The Potter/Potts line is documented in Massachusetts records, but there’s another branch I almost missed.”

On the screen, a family tree began to populate. Bridget and Jedediah Ashworth, their daughter Mary who became Mary Potter, then Mary Potts. But there was another line—a son, born to Jedediah’s second wife.

“Okay, this is weird,” Doug said, hunched over his keyboard.

“There’s another kid. Samuel Ashworth Potter, born 1747—right before Jedediah got hanged for smuggling.

” His voice cracked slightly on “hanged,” reminding me he was still just sixteen despite his genius-level intellect.

“Jedediah remarried some woman named Catherine Bowman after he fled Virginia.”

“What happened to him?” Jack’s question came out sharp, focused.

Doug’s fingers flew across the keyboard with the manic energy of a teenager who’d consumed too much caffeine.

“Hold on, hold on…okay, it looks like Catherine Bowman remarried about a year after Jedediah was hanged.

This is where things get a little hazy. Catherine Potter married a guy, name George Apthorp, who was a very well-to-do merchant in Boston at the time.

In the 1755 census, George and Catherine Apthorp are listed, along with their three children—Samuel, George, and Charles Apthorp.

“It looks like Samuel joined the revolution and ditched the Apthorp name at some point, becoming Samuel Ashworth. George Apthorp was a loyalist, so it sounds like there were some daddy issues. I’m sure that made holidays exciting.”

“Mary would have been an adult when Samuel was born,” I said, working through the timeline. “Twenty-two when her father was executed. She might not have known she had a half brother.”

“Track Samuel Ashworth’s line,” Jack ordered.

The genealogical software populated the screen with births, deaths, marriages—centuries of family history cascading like digital rain. Doug made little sounds of discovery, the kind of excited noises he usually reserved for breaking encryption codes.

“Whoa,” Doug said, then immediately glanced at Jack.

“Look at this. The Ashworth line stayed in Massachusetts forever, then split in the 1920s, meandering south for the next couple of generations.” He pulled up another screen with the dramatic flair only a teenager could manage.

“Until someone eventually came here. To King George County. In 1983.”

“Who?” Jack’s single word carried the weight of command.

Doug’s fingers danced across the keyboard. “Someone named Evelyn Ashworth bought property on Marsh Creek Road.” More typing, more screens. “But get this—two years later she marries this guy Joseph Toscano. He was navy, stationed at Dahlgren Naval Base.

“Marriage lasted less than a year,” Doug continued. “But after the divorce, she starts going by Evangeline Toscano.”

The silence that followed was absolute. I could hear my own heartbeat, the hum of Doug’s computers, the storm still raging outside.

“Forty years,” I said, the words barely a whisper. “She told us she’d lived here forty years. She’s been here all along.”

“Right under our noses,” Cole said. “She knows how to use the plants—concoct her own hallucinogenic brew.”

“Tag team,” Martinez said. “One provides the methods, the other has the access.”

Daniels’s low growl made us all turn to her.

“The greenhouse break-in. Three weeks ago. Potts processed that scene by herself. She’s been at every scene.

Her hands have been all over the evidence.

We’ll be lucky if we’ve got enough evidence to get a conviction on anyone by the time this is finished. ”

“Then we’ll need to catch them red-handed,” Jack said.

Jack hadn’t moved, but I could feel the fury radiating off him in waves. When he finally spoke, his voice was soft, controlled, lethal. “Sheldon. She used him as a test subject.”

“The séance that wasn’t a séance,” I said, remembering Sheldon’s confused account. “The floating feeling, the memory gaps. She was dosing him, seeing how much it took to incapacitate someone without killing them.”

“Are we sure he’s still upstairs?” Jack asked Doug.

“Unless someone climbed the balcony and pulled him from the second story,” Doug said, offhand.

I looked at Jack and then ran upstairs, Jack close behind me.

When I got to the guest room Sheldon was staying in I knocked on the door, a little more frantic than I should have.

And when Sheldon opened the door, eyes wide behind his lenses, and wearing a white undershirt and boxers, I almost hugged him in relief.

“Is it time for dinner?” he asked. “Doug said he was going to order groceries, but that was hours ago. What time is it? I’ve been playing Elden Ring . What day is it?”

“It’s Thursday,” I said. “We were just checking to make sure you’re okay.”

“I’m good,” he said. “I broke up with Leena. She’s taking it okay I think. She didn’t text me back.”

“That’s wise,” Jack said. “You’ll meet the right girl one day. We’re glad to have you stay with us for a while, Sheldon. Do me a favor and let one of us know if you need to go somewhere. Just in case.”

“In case what?” he asked.

“In case Leena didn’t take the breakup as well as you think,” he said. “Women get crazy sometimes. You know how it is.”

“True,” he said, shaking his head. “When my Aunt Pam’s husband left her she threw a hatchet at his head. Took off part of his ear.”

“There you go,” Jack said. “Enjoy your game.”

We left Sheldon to his game and went back downstairs to the team who’d made themselves at home in the office.

“All good?” Cole asked.

“He’s locked in,” Jack said. “Pull up everything you can find on Evangeline Toscano’s property.”

“Margot has already started gathering the data,” Doug said.

“The Marsh Creek property’s huge. About a thousand acres in all.

A majority of it is wetlands. That’s probably how she was able to buy it as a private sale.

A developer couldn’t do much with it.” He pulled up the survey and a topographical map.

“That’s her home, and then there are a few outbuildings—greenhouse, shed, dock, and a boathouse. Those are the most identifiable.”

“We had to park a good ways from the house,” I said. “And then we had to walk across the bridge. Her house is built on stilts in the marshland. As far as I could see that bridge was the only way on her property. She saw us coming.”

Doug showed a larger expanse of the map. “This is the east side of the property.”

More satellite imagery filled the screens. The marshy property stretched for acres along the river, mostly wetlands and forest. But there were hints of other structures.

“What’s that?” Daniels pointed to a clearing about a quarter mile from the main cabin.

Doug zoomed in. “Looks like an old structure. Maybe one that was torn down.”

“Can Margot overlay a historical survey of that area?” Jack asked.

“I can do anything for you, sugar,” Margot purred, making the team chuckle.

Margot hmmed absently, and not for the first time I shuddered at the thought of what the future looked like. Not nearly enough people had seen The Terminator .

She overlaid the historical survey on the map that was already on the screen. “This looks to be the original homestead on the property, but as you can see the waterline has changed dramatically over the centuries. There’s also what seems to be a stone circle of some sort here.”

“Stone circle?” Cole asked. “Like Stonehenge?”

“On a smaller scale, yes,” Margot said. “During the witch trials, those who were knowledgeable about herbs and healing often sought stone circles at certain times of the year, believing that the natural gifts the earth had to offer—like the moon rising or the summer solstice—enhanced their healing gifts.”

“Maybe Bridget really was a witch,” I said.

Jack’s phone rang, and I saw it was dispatch. He put it on speaker.

“Lawson,” he said.

“The Escalade you requested the BOLO for has been found,” dispatch said. “There’s an archaeological site off Cedar Creek Road where it was abandoned. Walters and Durrant are responding officers.”

“Patch me through,” Jack said, and waited for dispatch to connect him.

“Sheriff,” Walters said. “Durrant and I are here on scene.”

“What do you have?” Jack asked.

“No one inside the vehicle. There’s blood on the passenger seat, just a small amount. And there’s a note. It says, Where truth was buried, justice will rise .”

Jack’s hand flexed into a fist, and he punched the top of the desk. Jack wasn’t a man to ever let his emotions get the best of him, and I knew he was hanging on by a thread.

“I want every available unit out there,” Jack said. “Search every dig site. Look for recently disturbed areas. Coordinate with maintenance and get spotlights set up.”

“Yes, sir,” Walters said and disconnected.

He paced back and forth, like a tiger trapped in a cage, his mind lost in thought.

“Jack,” I said, and I waited until he looked at me. “Remember what you said. She thinks she’s smarter than everyone else. Do you really think she’d make it so easy?”

“No,” he said. “But I can’t take the chance. Just in case we’re wrong. I want the team here to suit up. We’re going to pay Evangeline a visit.”

“You should go in by water,” Margot said. “It will take you closest to the stone circle.”

“Good thinking, Margot.”

Jack’s phone rang again, though it was a number he didn’t recognize.

“Lawson,” he said, and I could hear the weariness in his voice this time.

“Sheriff Lawson?” a deep voice asked. “This is Dr. Patel at King George Hospital. We have a situation with your witness, Judith Hughes.”

Jack’s expression darkened. “What kind of situation?”

“She’s missing. The deputy posted outside her room was found unconscious about ten minutes ago. We believe he was drugged. Ms. Hughes is gone.”

The room went silent.

“Security footage?” Jack asked, though his voice suggested he already knew the answer.

“Camera malfunction started thirty minutes before she disappeared. We’re checking other angles, but whoever did this knew our blind spots.”

“Lock down the hospital,” Jack said. “Just in case our killer hasn’t been able to get her out yet. Have hospital security stand guard at the exits. I’m sending a couple of units your way.”

Jack ended the call and looked around the room at his assembled team. “They’re splitting our resources.”