Author: Allison Brennan
Category: Suspense
Go to read content：https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/allison-brennan/page,11,536826-the_third_to_die.html
“Which would mean he drove there well after midnight.”
“When the Madisons were likely asleep.”
“You could be right.”
“I’m not a homicide detective.” Though she had certainly worked her fair share of cases and tended to think like a criminal. Maybe because she’d been raised by two criminals. Though to her knowledge, neither her mother nor father had ever killed anyone.
“But how did he get from the vacation house—after he left Victoria’s car—back to wherever he’s living?” Andy asked.
“He had his car there.” But as she said it, she realized that didn’t make sense, either. Unless... “The question is, how did he get to Spokane.”
“Explain.”
“Here are the facts we know. The family in Vegas is missing an ATV, but we don’t know when it was stolen. We know that Manners’ car was found on the same property as the missing ATV. We know that the killer transported Manners in the trunk of her car to the ATV. We believe he used the ATV to bring her body to the lake. A distance of roughly fifteen miles as the crow flies, or twenty miles using known roads—or he stole the ATV earlier and left it in a more convenient location.”
“Which means that he stored his car at or near the vacation house.” Andy shook his head. “We need to go back out there.”
“Didn’t Miles process the scene and not find it?”
“Yes—but we need to broaden the canvass.”
“Probably a good idea,” Kara said.
“I have to follow up on a call from last night—sorry to drag you along, I can leave you somewhere if you like—”
“No, I’m fine. What else am I going to do?”
“Relax?” Andy suggested. He sounded serious, and Kara laughed.
“Andy, I don’t relax. My idea of hell is a spa day. I’m good, if you don’t mind the ride-along.”
“Nope, I enjoy the company. After we’re done with our half of the lake, we can go back to the vacation home and expand the canvass. Also, I have a list of all the residences, including which are full-time vacation houses, which are being rented and which are vacant.”
“Convenient.”
“It helps when there’s a break-in or suspicious people, and the rental companies are on board.”
They headed out to the south half of the lake; the other officers had the north half. It would take all day to canvass properly, but Kara didn’t care—Agent Costa had been a jerk yesterday in the parking lot, and at least looking for the ATV gave her something to do other than jog or trying to ignore her grandmother’s pot smoking. Yeah, pot was now legal in Washington and California and half a dozen other states, but Kara had never quite gotten used to the idea that her grandmother was a pothead.
Aren’t you the hypocrite.
Kara didn’t do drugs for fun. Only when she had to in order to protect her cover or her informant. She’d seen drugs make too many people stupid, violent, or both.
Mostly, she thought, she needed to help with this case because she was a cop first and cops solved crimes. If her boss wouldn’t let her go back to work yet in Los Angeles, she could volunteer her time here.
After all, she was on a paid vacation. And her idea of a perfect vacation was working.
Yeah, she thought wryly. I’m as normal as they come.
15
Spokane
8:45 a.m.
Michael Harris and Jim Esteban were both gone when Matt walked back into the war room, and Ryder wasn’t around. Matt sent Ryder a message to do his own deep backgrounds on all seven victims, prioritizing Anne Banks, and to tap Tony Greer to pull in help from national headquarters. If Catherine Jones thought the killer was tied to Anne Banks’s past, Matt would move heaven and earth to learn everything about her from the minute she was born.
It was nearly nine, and Matt needed food—he didn’t care much about what he ate, as long as he ate. He left Detective Jacoby—the Portland cop who had run the Anne Banks homicide investigation—a message, and told the desk sergeant to mark it urgent. Then he headed to the hotel lobby where they still had the continental breakfast laid out. Not bad—eggs a little dry, bacon and toast, orange juice and coffee. He sat far away from any people so he could send Tony a status report, then review the old Anne Banks case file in semiprivacy.
Ryder Kim came downstairs twenty minutes later while Matt was getting seconds. He sat down and said, “Go ahead and eat. Working breakfast.”
Ryder wrinkled his nose at Matt’s plate. “I ate earlier.”
Matt had seen the mini fridge in the operations room—Ryder had ordered it in for the team, but he was the only one who used it. Granola, soy milk, yogurt, and some fruit Matt didn’t even recognize. Matt himself would eat just about anything—food was fuel. He’d probably even eat yogurt if there was nothing else.
Ryder slid over today’s newspaper.
“Anything I need to know?” Matt said without picking up the paper.
“Uh, yeah.”
“I’m not going to shoot the messenger.” He picked up the paper but didn’t immediately see anything he’d be interested in.
“It’s about the briefing yesterday. You’re not going to like the slant.”
Matt rarely liked the slant the press gave anything. “You could have sent me a link.”
“The hotel provides free copies.” Ryder flipped the paper over.
The headline was front page, below the fold, followed by a worse secondary headline.
Serial Killer Targets the Spokane Valley
FBI Takes Over Investigation of Murdered Nurse;
More Bodies Likely to Follow
“Fuck,” he muttered. He quickly skimmed the article. Someone who’d been at the briefing had talked. His first guess would have been the Spokane chief because he was an ass, but he hadn’t attended the entire briefing. Still—he would have known all this information. “Did anyone call for a quote?”
“Yes, and I sent them to Assistant Director Greer—that’s what you indicated two days ago until we get a spokesperson for the team.”
Matt couldn’t blame Ryder—that’s exactly what he’d said—but he hadn’t been thinking straight. He’d thought the press would want details on his unit or someone in authority to say no comment. But the amount of information in this article was staggering. Information about forensics, speculation about the connection between Manners and the Portland and Missoula murders, the fact that the FBI was on the scene in twenty-four hours and working with both the Liberty Lake and Spokane police departments.
But the biggest problem with the article was panicking residents. The reporter highlighted the fact that a local nurse was killed, and that the killer picked his victims at random. Terrific. SPD was probably fielding hundreds of calls from worried residents this morning.
“Any more press inquiries, send them to me—at least I can feel them out before I tell them to take a hike.”
Who talked? Or, rather, who didn’t talk, because the reporter had information both from the briefing and from the crime scene investigation that Matt hadn’t shared at the briefing. He’d included photos of the lake and—shit, a photo of Matt in the parking lot of the SPD talking to Kara. Kara was visible only from behind, but Matt was clearly identified.
“¡Juro que voy a estrangular a quien haya hablado con la puta prensa! ¿Por qué la gente ya no piensa? ¿Creen que esto es una broma?” I swear I’ll strangle anyone who spoke to the fucking press! Why don’t people think? Do they think this is a joke?
Ryder frowned. “Do you, um, want me to create a digital news alert?”
“Excuse me?”
“So we see these things immediately when they’re posted online. I should have thought of it before.”
“Ryder, you’ve been doing the work of three people since we landed this case. Sure. Yes—do it, don’t worry that it wasn’t done. We�
��ll be more organized next time.”
“I’ll get on it now.” He left the lobby.
Matt called Andy. “Did you read the article by Greene?”
“Yep.”
“Who talked?”
“Probably everyone. Packard likes to keep an open door with the press.”
“I don’t. How do I keep a lid on this shit?”
“That ship has sailed, Matt.”
Andy was right. Matt should have also thought of this before—but he wasn’t a press guy. He was a field agent. He did his job and let others deal with the media. How could he solve this case if he had to play politics? “Odio la política,” he mumbled.
“Excuse me?” Andy said.
Matt didn’t translate. “Can you be at the station later for a possible press conference?”
“Just tell me when. Kara and I are working the ATV angle out here—she has a theory that’s interesting.”
Matt shifted gears. “What?” He was short-tempered, but bad press could do that to cops.
“She’ll tell you. I’ll put you on speaker.”
“What do you know, Quinn? I don’t have much time.”
“The killer took a taxi or bus or Uber to the hospital sometime on March 2.”
He was getting a headache. He refilled his coffee again and walked back to the war room, taking the stairs to release some of this frustration.
“What? How do you know?”
“You said you didn’t have time, so I’m giving you my conclusion.”
“I need more, Quinn. It’s not even nine in the morning and the media already fucked my day. You didn’t talk to the press, did you?”
“No,” she snapped. Sore spot? “And if that reporter had posted my full picture in the paper, you’d be investigating another homicide because there’s a reason I’m good at being an undercover agent—I don’t let myself get tagged. He could have blown any future cover, me standing there with a fucking federal agent. Thank God it was just the back of my head.”
“I apologize,” he mumbled. She had a point—undercover cops were very peculiar.
“Here’s my reasoning about the killer,” Quinn said. “He knows Manners’ schedule, grabs her in the hospital parking lot, immobilizes her quickly and shoves her in the trunk of her car. Drives to lake. Has an ATV stashed somewhere nearby. Why the lake? Don’t know—he probably has his own whacked reason. It’s quiet at night, no people, there’s a lot of places around here just like that. But it’s fifteen miles as the crow flies from Newman Lake, where the car was found, to Liberty and even at midnight, I’m thinking a guy on an ATV with a body somehow strapped on would attract attention. No trunk, no real way to conceal it. Plus, while she may have been unconscious, she wasn’t dead. He would have had to cross the highway. He’s too smart to expose himself that long.”
All logical. “I’m with you.”
“He stalked her earlier and knew she lived in a duplex where the walls are probably thin with lots of people nearby—not an ideal place to kill anyone, greater chance of being seen coming or going. So he comes up with this plan. Parks his own car earlier at the vacant house in Newman and takes the ATV to the lake. Leaves it...someplace, but I’m thinking within a mile or two of where he intends to kill his victim. A house, not a parking lot where it would have been found by the earlier canvass. Either he has a second car or he grabs a bus—there’s three stops near the lake or he calls a taxi—we’re near a major university here, so private taxis are thriving, too—and goes to the hospital. Maybe he transfers a couple times to cover himself, maybe he doesn’t. He grabs Manners, drugs her, drives her car to where the ATV is at the lake, loads her onto the seat of the ATV and positions himself behind her, hightails it to the shore where he kills her, jumps in the lake to clean up, drives the ATV back to her car, drives her car to the vacant house in Newman, and takes his own car back to wherever he’s staying.”
Matt let Quinn’s theory sink in. It seemed complicated—too detailed, too many factors could go wrong—but it also provided the killer with multiple outs. Yet the killer never used his own vehicle in the cases that they knew about. He always used the victim’s car and he disappeared without a witness, suggesting he had a personal car or other transportation planted. Waiting for him. They already knew he was a meticulous bastard who stalked his victims. Having his car easily accessible to the crime scene—a predetermined location—was more than plausible. He needed to run this scenario past Catherine, get her take. She’d long ago ruled out a partner, but maybe they should rethink that possibility.
“Do you think I’m full of shit?” Quinn asked when Matt didn’t immediately respond. “It’s something like this—or he has a partner. And though I’m not a profiler, I listened to your briefing and this isn’t a guy who shares his kills. He’s a loner.”
How’d she do that? Fucking mind reader? “I’m processing.” Quinn was right—he was a loner. He’d just been thinking that Catherine determined he killed alone, and there was no evidence to suggest he had a partner. “It seems to be a convoluted way to get to the lake,” Matt said, “but based on the limited information we know, it’s plausible. But most likely not a taxi or Uber. Taxis maintain decent records, and an Uber you need a phone app and credit card.”
“And I can tell you a half dozen ways you can clone a phone, steal an ID, and skim a credit card where it wouldn’t be traced to him.”
“Point taken,” Matt said. The Triple Killer was smart, and if he had computer skills that would lend credence to Quinn’s theory.
“Andy says they have an arrangement with the property management companies and know every rental property that’s vacant or occupied within the town limits.”
“Can we get it?”
“Yes,” Andy said. “But if someone owns the place as a vacation house and doesn’t rent it out, we don’t always know when they’re in town.”
“But a rental agreement might help us in case some fucking defense lawyer wants to call this the poisonous tree,” Matt said.
“Excuse me?” Andy said.
Quinn laughed. “I’ll explain later.”
“Don’t tell anyone about your theory,” Matt said. “Just us and my immediate team only. Okay?”
“Yes, boss,” she said.
Matt ignored the veiled sarcasm—after all, he was the boss and he had a sense this was the way Quinn communicated. And she’d already made it clear she wasn’t a fan of any authority.
“Andy, my team will work the taxis and ride shares. Can you talk to the bus company and see if they have security disks from March 2? Actually—the entire week before. He might have come into Spokane early, checked into a hotel or something. Our profiler believes that he stalks his victims for a time, knows their patterns. We need to cover all bases. The rest of my team came in late last night. I don’t know if you had a chance to meet them this morning, but Jim Esteban, my forensics expert, said there’s only one other family on that road where you found Manners’ car—and they didn’t see or hear anything?”
“Correct—Miles Jordan with the Spokane crime lab processed the scene, but Kara and I are going to take another look around after we’re done with the lake.”
“Good—but I really need you both at the briefing. I need to nip this article in the bud, and the only way to do that is to control the message. This isn’t my fucking job, but I have to do it,” Matt said.
“Talk to Brian Maddox—he’s good at this.”
“Thanks.” Matt hung up and made the call to Maddox to set up a meeting then another press briefing. Brian concurred that the article had far too much information.
“I thought Packard and I had an understanding yesterday,” Brian said. “For him to do this—well, it’s petty. I’ll make sure he understands the situation.”
Was he suggesting that the chief himself talked to the press? That was bullshit, but Matt bit ba
ck his tirade. He didn’t want to lose Brian’s support.
“I’m counting on you, Brian,” Matt said, swallowing his anger. “I need your department. I don’t have the staff to manage a case of this magnitude. But listen to me—I am absolutely serious that I will pull everything if there’s another breach. We have to control the message. Make sure Packard understands that, or SPD is out—and I don’t want to do that.”
“Understood, Agent Costa.”
Maddox hung up. Matt didn’t like playing hardball—well, truly, he did. It got the job done, but didn’t make him a lot of friends.
“Ryder...” Matt turned to his analyst, who had returned to the briefing room while Matt was talking to Maddox. “We need to reach out to private and public taxis about any fares they picked up on March 2 and the week before, in Liberty Lake. A single rider, male. He wouldn’t use his own name or phone or credit card, so focus on the description Catherine gave us. If we need to get a warrant, call Tony—he’ll expedite it.”
The killer may have made his first mistake. If they caught him because of this, Matt owed Kara Quinn a drink.
“Got it,” Ryder said.
“And can you send me the contact information for Kara Quinn’s boss? I need to mend a small fence there.”
Ryder tapped a few keys on his computer. “You got it. Also, an ASAC at LA-FBI wants to talk to you about Detective Quinn.”
Shit. He’d forgotten to tell Ryder to back off from the background into the detective.
“Dammit, I meant to tell you to drop that avenue. I talked to Quinn. I’m good with her assist. Send me his information, I’ll follow up when I have time, but it’s not a priority.” He hesitated. Why would an ASAC reach out to him? LA had at least a dozen ASACs because it was one of the largest field offices in the country—they should all be overworked and not interested in a low-level inquiry. “What else did you learn about her?”