Page 148 of Blue Moon

“Two when I met him, and then he got Ajax and Karma. Snakes used to freak me out, but it turns out they’re not that bad. I even used to hold them sometimes. They’re not slimy.”

“Do you know what species of snake they were?”

“Cosmo was a boomslang, Hedera was a green tree python, and Ajax was a California kingsnake. And Karma… She was a baby cobra.” Brianna looked at the ground. “He wasn’t meant to have her, or Cosmo. And I did consider reporting him after we split, but when I looked up how to do that, they said snakes would probably be euthanised if they were being kept illegally, and Cosmo and Karma didn’t deserve to die. Anton was an asshole, but he did look after them.”

Karma? Well, that was fitting. Perhaps I wouldn’t mention that she’d been used as a murder weapon.

“Do you remember Julia’s surname?”

“I don’t think he ever told me that. But maybe she lives in NYC now? Anton went to visit her there one time. Or at least, he said he did, but who knows whether that was true or not.”

New York City. Hey, that narrowed the search down to only five million women, give or take, and thanks to Romeo Serafini, we had an approximate date of death. How many women named Julia had died there in recent years?

“Did you ever meet her?”

Brianna shook her head. “No, but maybe Carole-Ann did? You want me to email her and ask?”

“You stayed in touch?”

“Not like regular. Happy Christmas, that sort of thing. We talked more right after the Vegas incident. The ex-girlfriend support club, you know?”

“Did Anton start paying child support?”

“Mostly. He moved jobs and started working extra shifts, she said. And then a year ago, she wanted to move away from South Carolina, and he offered to rent a house for her in California. Said a friend owned it who would give them a good deal. Carole-Ann said it’s a real nice place.”

“So she took him up on the offer?”

“Do you realise how high rent is out there? Of course she took him up on it.”

“Have you got the address?”

“I only know it’s in Berkeley.”

“Do you have a surname for Carole-Ann?”

“That never came up. I mean, we’re not close. She and Marcus spent a night on my couch, and we used to bitch to each other about Anton, that’s all.”

“Okay, get in touch with her and ask her to call me. Keep it vague. You don’t put details of a kidnapping in an email.”

Brianna swallowed hard. “I’ll tell her Anton shit on another woman, so now there are three members of the club.”

“Good plan. And forward me the last email you received from her. Make sure the header information is included.”

“The what?”

“Just find me the email.”

I sent what we needed to both Echo and Mack. Might as well cover all bases. Then I messaged Brett, Blackwood’s pilot, and told him to get the jet ready. Again.

“What’s Anton actually like?” I asked, curious. “Cruel or kind? He doesn’t seem to be close to many people.”

Brianna was silent for a long moment. “Neither. Sort of…awkward? He doesn’t understand people. If you talked to him for a few minutes, you’d think he was charming, but sooner or later, he’ll say something dumb or borderline rude, and he won’t even realise. And he doesn’t listen to people, not really.”

“What do you mean?”

“Okay, so one time, I got this craving for egg rolls from Jade Palace. It’s a little Chinese place near my old apartment in Vegas, and they serve the best egg rolls. So I asked him to pick up egg rolls. An hour later, he comes back with the set menu for two from Ming, and he assumes that because it cost three times as much, I should be three times as grateful, and he couldn’t understand why I wasn’t.”

“You don’t like the egg rolls from Ming?”

---