Page 30

W ith nothing left to say to Ander, I go back to Bellamy and Eric’s house. I take out all my notes and spread them out on the coffee table in the living room so I can look over them.

“Wow,” Bellamy says, coming into the room with a cup of tea. “I wish I had a piece of butcher paper and a wall to offer you.”

“That would be great,” I tell her. “I’ve got to figure out a way to make those transportable.”

This process really would be easier if I was at home and could plaster the wall with a giant piece of paper like I usually do during investigations. There’s a lot to be said for being able to step back and look at all the notes and webs at the same time. Sometimes something doesn’t occur to me until I see it right up there in front of me. But since I can’t do that here, I’m resigned to having everything as spread out on the table as I can and rereading everything until it feels like I could recite them verbatim.

I’m driving myself crazy going over everything about Sabrina Ward’s death, trying to find anything to answer the suspicion crawling up the back of my neck. I know Ander has a strong alibi. He wasn’t exaggerating when he said there were at least a dozen people who could vouch for his whereabouts at the time his wife was murdered. And because of the fitness tracker I pointed out to Detective Fuller at the crime scene, we know the exact moment when her heart stopped beating—a moment when Ander couldn’t possibly have been in the house with her.

I can’t stop thinking about the adultery website and the double life Ander was living. Just because he was cheating on his wife obviously doesn’t make him a killer, but the extent of the lies and depth of the betrayal to not just Sabrina but everyone who looked at him as a pinnacle of what the ministry stands for has my fingertips tingling.

“It wasn’t just her,” I mutter.

“What?” Bellamy asks. She settles into a recliner, coiling her legs under her and bobbing the tea bag in her mug as she eyes me with a curious expression.

“Oh, I was just thinking about Sabrina Ward’s murder. Her husband has an airtight alibi. He was literally standing there with law enforcement a whole town over at the moment his wife was killed. But he was living this whole double life that was so far removed from everything he pretended to believe before and even after she was killed. Something about that whole situation is really bothering me. But then I have to remind myself that she’s not the only victim. She’s not even the first victim. Gideon Bell was murdered and Jesse Kristoff was attacked days before she was killed, and the threats had been going out long before that. And then there was Marshall.”

I stop myself as I’m looking at the notes I took about my conversation with Marshall and then later after his attack.

“And his wife, Carla.” I look at Bellamy. “They were both supposed to be home at a given time and weren’t unexpectedly, and in that time, their spouses were attacked. Sabrina was killed, and Marshall barely survived.”

“You think something might have been going on between the two of them?” she asks.

“Ander was active on a website for married people looking to cheat on their spouses. It’s not that far of a leap to think that he possibly brought that inclination into the real world and was having an affair with Carla,” I say.

Even as I say it, the unfolding thought isn’t fully sitting right with me.

“But I don’t know how that could have worked out. I saw Sabrina’s body and the damage done to her. I highly doubt a woman Carla’s size could have done that to her. And when Carla’s apartment was broken into, she seemed genuinely terrified.”

I brush my hand back over my hair and push a breath through my lips.

“I’m going up to the hospital in the morning to see if I can talk to Marshall. I’ll have to talk to him about this.”

Bellamy stands up and hands me the mug. “Here, you take this. I’m going to make another cup. We’re going to ignore everything on the table for an hour and watch some TV that requires absolutely no thought. How does that sound?”

“Wonderful,” I tell her.

She walks out of the room, and my eyes drop back to the notes on the table. There’s something here. Something that links Gideon’s murder, Jesse’s attack, and the attempted attack on Mila to Sabrina and Marshall. I keep going over everything until Bellamy is back and she turns my attention to the TV.

Even as we’re laughing our way through the show, my mind is still racing. I have to figure this out. The threat to Mila written on her wall wasn’t hollow. There could be more bloodshed if I don’t bring this to a close.

The next morning I call Carla as I’m drinking my coffee.

“How is everything going with Marshall?” I ask, not giving away any of my thoughts from last night.

“He woke up and is doing really well,” she tells me, sounding relieved. “I told him that you want to talk to him, and he said that he’s ready to talk whenever you want to come to the hospital.”

“That’s great to hear,” I say. “I’m going to get ready and make my way over there. It shouldn’t be more than an hour. Will you still be there?”

“Yes,” she says.

“Good. I need to talk to you,” I say.

There’s a beat of silence on the other end of the line.

“Did you find out something?” she asks.

“I’d rather talk to you about this in person. I’ll be there soon,” I say.

I get off the phone and finish my coffee before having a quick breakfast and getting dressed. The drive has become familiar, and I find myself in the hospital lot without even thinking about it. With the threatening note I found on my windshield in my mind, I park closer to the entrance to the hospital and go inside. The elevator brings me up to the floor where Marshall’s room is, and when the doors open, I see Carla standing in a small room set aside for families to wait. She’s on the phone, her head tucked down as she talks in hushed tones. She looks up when the doors ding open.

“I have to go,” she says. “I’ll call you back. Bye.”

She ends the call and holds the phone up as she walks out of the room.

“Updating Marshall’s family on how he’s doing. They wanted to come out here, but they couldn’t make it work out. They’re going to come next week though, so they can be with him when he’s at home.”

“That’s good,” I say. “Even if he’s recovering well, the support will mean a lot to him.”

She gestures toward the hallway. “I can show you to his room.”

“Actually, I want to talk to you first,” I say.

“All right,” she says hesitantly.

“It would be best if we were somewhere private,” I say. “Let’s go back in here.”

I walk into the small room, and she comes in after me. There’s no door to close, but at least we’re alone in here.

“I need you to be honest with me about something very important,” I say.

She nods. “Of course. What is it?”

“What is the nature of the relationship between you and Ander Ward?” I ask.

Her mouth falls open slightly. “Me and Ander? I know him from work. We’ve done a few double dates and hung out during work events and things.”

“And that’s it? There’s nothing else going on between the two of you?” I ask. “And there never has been in the past?”

“I can’t believe you’re even asking me that,” she says. “Is this because we’ve been talking on the phone recently? We’ve both just been through something horrific. You ever heard of trauma bonding? That’s exactly what it is. He called me after Marshall was attacked to see how I was doing. It was comforting talking to someone I knew about it because I’m having to be the strong one here for Marshall by myself. Our families aren’t here. Our friends have stopped by, but everybody is so afraid because of the whole situation that they don’t want to hang around me. It’s like I’m cursed. But Ander has been someone to talk to about what I’m going through, and I’ve been letting him vent.”

“What were you doing the morning that Sabrina Ward was killed?” I ask.

“Are you serious right now?” she asks.

“I am,” I tell her. “I’m digging into everyone who was anywhere near these murders, so you aren’t unique. But I need to know all the connections, and that means I need to know where you were.”

“That morning I baked a couple of loaves of bread for a bake sale at our church. Then I went to a morning yoga class with, oh, I don’t know, about twenty-five other women. If you don’t want to believe them, the classes are live streamed, and you can access replays of them on the school’s social media. I was at the front of the class with a bright-pink mat. I’m sure you’d be able to see me,” she says. “Hopefully, that’s good enough for you. Now, are you here to talk to my husband or to accuse me of being an accomplice to murder?”

She whisks out of the room visibly offended and upset as I follow her to Marshall’s room. Her reaction doesn’t bother me. I don’t have the luxury of time or delicacy when it comes to investigating these murders. What matters is finding who is responsible and stopping any other killings or attacks.

Carla forces on a smile before stepping into the room.

“Hey, honey,” she says as I walk in after her. “I just talked to your sister. She says your parents are going to be here on Wednesday. She’ll be here Friday.”

“They don’t need to do that,” he says. “I don’t want them going out of their way just to come here and see me like this.”

Carla leans over and kisses her husband on the forehead. “They love you and are worried about you. They want to make sure that you’re all right and be here for you while you’re recovering. Besides, maybe we can rope them into helping with some packing while they’re here.”

He chuckles, but it looks painful. His head is still bandaged, and one eye is swollen shut. I can see bruising along one arm, and I imagine there are many other injuries I can’t see.

“Hey, Marshall,” I say, stepping further into the room.

“Hi, Agent Griffin,” he says. “How’s it going?”

“I’m the one who should be asking you that,” I point out. “How are you feeling?”

“Not the best I ever have, but I’m alive. I’m glad for that,” he says.

“I am too,” I tell him. “I’m not going to stay here for too long. I know you need your rest.”

“Stay for as long as you need to,” he says. “I want to find out who did this. I managed to survive, but Gideon and Sabrina didn’t. I want to see the guy pay.”

“So do I. I need you to tell me everything that happened that night. Everything you can remember.”

“All right. Well, Carla and I were at home. We were planning on having just a night in, but then she got a call that she needed to help with an event she’s organizing for her charity work. I was disappointed because it was already getting kind of late in the evening, and I was really looking forward to just spending some time with her. But I knew how important the event was to her, and I could hear how frantic Sarah was on the phone, so I knew she needed to go.

“She told me not to watch the show ahead, so I switched over to something else. I haven’t been sleeping very well with everything that’s been going on, so I was tired and ended up nodding off on the couch. I woke up to someone hitting me with something. I don’t know what it was, but it was hard. The rest is kind of a blur. I know I managed to get off the couch, and I tried to fight back, but I had taken my contacts out, and my glasses were knocked off when he first hit me. I could barely see, and I was disoriented from the first blow. He got some good hits in, but I know I came in contact with him a couple of times too. I managed to grab a knife from the kitchen and got him in the leg. He hit me again and knocked the knife out of my hand.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this because it sounds so ridiculous, but I hit him with a skillet and managed to get away from him. I had my phone in my pocket and called 911 while I was trying to get up the stairs. He caught up with me and hit me a couple more times. I don’t remember anything after being about halfway up the steps. The next thing I knew, I was waking up here. They told me I managed to somehow make it to the bedroom and lock myself in there. Then I passed out.”

“I don’t understand why you didn’t just run out of the house,” Carla says.

“You know how when you’re watching a horror movie and you’re yelling at the characters because they’re doing stupid things, thinking you would never do something like that?” he asks. “You do them. That’s the only thing I can say. I don’t know what I was thinking at that moment. Something just told me to go upstairs.”

“You never know how you are going to react to a situation until you are actually in it,” I say. “You might think you know exactly what you would do, but people always surprise themselves. All that matters is you survived. What can you tell me about your assailant?”

“Not much. It was definitely a man. He was wearing a black ski mask and gloves. Long sleeves. He was totally covered. The lights were off in the house, so the only light was coming from the TV, and I remember thinking he looked like a shadow,” Marshall says.

“Did he say anything to you?” I ask.

“Not to me. When I was on the phone, I heard him yell for Carla. I was so glad she wasn’t home,” he says.

“Did you recognize the voice? Was there anything about it that stood out to you?” I ask.

“I didn’t recognize it. It sounded deep and gravelly, almost like the guy was trying to force it to sound intimidating.”

“Like it wasn’t his real voice?” I ask.

“Or just that he was trying to make it sound bigger and more aggressive than it actually is,” he says.

“I’m so sorry I wasn’t there,” Carla says, taking his hand. “I wish I had been there.”

“I’m so glad you weren’t,” he repeats. “If he was coming after you, I’d much rather it have been me. I’m just sorry there isn’t more I can remember.”

“You did great,” I say. “Thank you for talking to me.”