Page 46 of The Truth You Told

“Maybe he was just a drunk who drove into a tree,” she offered.

“Maybe.” He ran a hand over his face. “Don’t listen to me. I’m making trouble.”

It had been a miracle Billy had survived at all. That’s what the sheriff had told them and then the doctors, too. He hadn’t been wearing his seat belt, and he’d flown through the front windshield. By some lucky stroke, the glass had missed his arteries; otherwise he would have bled out in seconds.

They would have gotten away with the perfect murder.

Just like with Max’s father.

“Two is still a coincidence,” Shay said, and she could hear the desperation in her voice. Like she was convincing herself.

“Yes, but should we really wait until it becomes a pattern?”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Raisa

Now

“Nathaniel Conrad knew Shay,” Raisa said, perhaps unnecessarily. But she wanted them all to be on the same page.

Kilkenny was pacing in front of their rental car, and Pierce watched him with a concerned expression.

Raisa was just glad to be back out in the sunshine, the heat of it burning away the unpleasant residue of the prison. Fluorescent lights were really starting to wear on her.

“You’re throwing spaghetti to see what sticks,” Pierce said. She understood why he was being defensive, but she was tired of it. She wasn’t his enemy, and unless he’d had something to do with Shay’s death, he wasn’t hers.

“Did you not see him all but confirm it?” Raisa asked, letting a little bit of snap come into her voice.

“I saw you throwing out a theory and him smiling because we’re playing directly into his hand,” Pierce said, as if she’d never dealt with a serial killer before.

“And what hand is that?” Raisa asked.

“He wants to muddy the waters,” Pierce said. “That’s all he’s doing here.”

“We looked,” Kilkenny interjected. “We looked for a connection, of course we did.”

“I thought you didn’t investigate at the time,” Raisa said.

“It was after,” Pierce said. “The prosecutor’s team was huge. They investigated each victim, found when he first contacted them, then documented any evidence, any signs that he’d been stalking them in the weeks before the kidnappings. They never found anything connecting him to Shay. Beyond Kilkenny, of course.”

Raisa wished she could see those files. They sounded far more thorough than the ones from the active investigation. But that was because the FBI reports had been written when they’d had no idea who Nathaniel Conrad was. His name had never made it onto a single suspect list.

It was far easier to draw a map of connections when you had the name of your killer and all his personal details than when he was a faceless monster in a population of millions.

“I know you’re probably thinking we did a shit job,” Pierce said, the edge completely ground out of his voice now.

“I’m actually not.” It was the truth. There had obviously been some missteps, but Raisa was never one to judge anyone for how they acted while the stakes were so high. Her own decisions had almost led to her getting killed no less than three months ago. And she might have had Delaney’s blood on her hands as well, if things had gone just a little differently.

Pierce, who had seemed ready to defend himself further, was now at a loss. “Okay. Well.”

“Raisa’s just trying to help,” Kilkenny said. He looked over to her. “I saw what you saw. Conrad wanted us to believe he knew her apart from me, but I can’t say if that’s the truth or not. If they were friends, it was in passing. He wasn’t a big part of her life.”

“She worked at a bar.” It was one of the best places to meet someone, wasn’t it? Especially if you wanted to do so with some anonymity preserved. “Maybe he was a regular. She wouldn’t have thought to tell you about him by name unless he’d done something crazy.”

“I was there all the time. I never saw him,” Kilkenny said.

“But you can’t say that for certain,” Raisa pointed out gently. “You travel all over the country and have been to hundreds of bars and diners and clubs. Your brain has learned to filter out the noise. He could have been sitting on the barstool next to you every night and I doubt you would have remembered his face.”