Page 195 of The 6:20 Man

“Yes, while you were probably screwing Speers. I know you two were lusting after each other.”

“Do you have any idea where she is? Did you kill her, too?”

“I had no reason to kill her.”

“But you hired Jerry Myers to kill Sara. How did you and Myers hook up?”

“He was Hummingbird subscriber seven thousand nine hundred and four. Lonely man with several bad relationships and one lousy marriage behind him looking for warmth, humor, and female companionship. New York Giants and New York Mets fans and beer drinkers particularly welcome,” she said, apparently reciting his profile from memory.

“But how did you get him to do it?”

“He had been to prison. I found that out. It wasn’t in his profile. He did it because I paid him and paid him well. He was just that sort of guy.”

“But then he bought the truck?”

“It wasn’t just that. He came back to me for more money. I paid him. He came back again for more. He left me no other choice. I don’t like people who break their word.”

“How did he get Sara alone?”

“I sent an email to Sara that she thought was from Brad Cowl basically ordering her to pull an all-nighter to meet a deadline. I later deleted it completely. And I mean completely. I know how. The NSA desperately wanted me to work for them, and I did for a year, which I never told anyone about. The NSA usually signs you to five-year deals. They don’t like turnover for obvious reasons. But what were they going to do to me? They could keep me from getting another government job, but I didn’t want that. So they had no leverage. But the bottom line is that I know how to wipe things clean. Jerry had never left the building. He hid in the storage closet where Sara was found. He waited until very late to make sure no one was around, went to her office, strangled her, and then strung her up.”

“Hanged her for, what, being a traitor? To you?”

“To me and our baby. I had earlier hacked into the firm’s calendar and found out about the M and A seminar the next day. That made it perfect for Jerry to kill her the night before. I told him no one would suspect him if he was the one to find the body. And you don’t need your card to enter or leave the building during normal business hours. And Jerry had ridden up on the elevator to the fifty-second floor with some other people he knew worked on that floor, so he didn’t have to use his card. After he killed Sara he slept in a spare office and showed up for work in his uniform.”

“But he would need his security card to take the elevator down from the fifty-second.”

“No, he just used the stairs. There are so many people coming in during the morning that there was no way to say for sure he wasn’t in one of those groups. And while he was doing some work in the lobby the day before, Jerry shifted the camera positions just a bit to make it pretty much impossible to verify who came and went through each day. And the guard isn’t there every minute. Then Jerry took the elevator up using his card the next morning and started his duties. On the fifty-second floor.”

“To ‘find’ Sara?”

“That’s right.”

“Even more reason to have cameras on all the floors and the stairwells, not just the front and rear entrances.”

She smiled. “From what I heard about Brad Cowl from Jerry, I don’t think he would have liked cameras everywhere.”

“And my security card being on the log the night Sara died? And my video?”

“I cloned your card while you were at the high school working out. It was easy.”

“It’s a one twenty-five piece of shit,” said Devine dully.

“Yes, it is.”

“And the video?”

“I took a film editing class in college. I had started thinking about doing something online, and I thought that skill would come in handy. And it did because I use it on Hummingbird. I took photos and video of you coming and going from the town house, Travis. And Jerry was your height and build. I took video of him going in and out of your building. Then I just digitally sliced and diced and put the appropriate clothes on you. Your head on his body. From a distance, it was close enough for the cops to nail you on it.”

“And Stamos?”

“After I found out who she was, I got her address, broke into her place, drugged her, and did what I went there to do.”

“Like carve bitch into her skin?”

“That was exactly what she was.”

“No, she was the woman that Sara loved. And you couldn’t live with that. And I was the one who told you about Fred and Ellen Ewes and her attitude toward Sara. So, in a way, I’m the reason they were killed. Stabbed through the heart because they, at least in your mind, had no hearts, or at least you implied that in your email to me. And then you manipulated the entry logs to show my card going in at the requisite time to kill Sara, and then you added a video image of me, too, like you just said. Only that didn’t jibe with what the night security guard saw. I guess you didn’t know when the guard made his rounds. And Jerry isn’t there at night, so he wouldn’t know, either. That one little oversight blew up your plan.”