Page 120 of The System

“Okay,” Kieran agreed. “He got angry.”

“I wonder if we can find anyone who could tell us if he carried a knife on him.”

“She was homeless – well, living in a shelter sometimes – what if she did,” Kieran suggested. “What if she did for self-defense?”

“Shit.” Carina poured the coffee. “Okay. Yeah, I can sell that. So, he stabs her, but why doesn’t he blame Marin if he’s still angry with her?”

“If he killed her, he wouldn’t want the crime to come back on him, right?”

“Yeah, but that logic doesn’t hold up because he did insert himself into the Nick May investigation,” Carina said.

“He was young then,” Kieran countered. “It was his first crime that we know of. Or, at least, it was probably his first murder.”

“So, he would have been scared.”

“Yeah. Now, though, he’s older. He probably thinks he can get away with everything.”

“But Nick and Cory in Miami? Why would he kill them?”

“Why not?” Kieran asked back. “If he is as bad as we’re making him out to be… Marin slighted him. He might still hold that over her. He might also be obsessed with her regardless of the rejection. I mean, he’s at the bus stop, looking for her. Two bus stops.”

“Okay. So, he’s been stalking her this whole time.” Carina placed the coffee cups on the table and sat down. “That’s close to two decades. He didn’t act? Marin didn’t know?”

“If he’s any good, she might not. Even if she saw him, maybe she wouldn’t recognize him. In his DMV photo, he’s blonde, but it looked like a dye job to me. Maybe he had darker hair as a kid or something. We can look that up later, though.”

“Are we really suggesting that Theo Samuel has been stalking your sister for close to twenty years?”

“Yes,” Kieran said.

“And that he murdered three people because of her in one way or another?”

“Yes,” she repeated.

“But why?” Carina asked.

“It doesn’t have to make sense to us. If he wanted her and someone else had her, he did something about it. He killed Nick and went searching for her. Maybe he planned to finally confront her; kidnap her, even. Maybe he planned to tell her that he’d rescued her from Nick’s abuse. I don’t know.”

“And later, with Cory?”

“Probably the same thing.”

“Then, why not keep getting away with it? Why give Kevin a statement?”

“Maybe he needs to be involved somehow now. He probably wants her locked up because that means she can’t be with anyone else. And if he testifies, he’ll get to see her and be part of putting her away. Hell, he might even try to visit her in prison if she gets convicted.”

“Well, he sounds pretty fucked up, but this is just us talking, Kieran. We’d have to be able to prove this. And I’m not sure a grainy image of him with dark spots at a bus stop does that. For the same reason it’s an alibi for Marin, it’s an alibi for him.”

“And in the same way it’s not a complete alibi for Marin, it’s not a complete alibi for him.”

Carina nodded and said, “We still need more. If you want to give this to Frank to use at trial, you need more.”

“I don’t just want to give this to Frank to use at trial, Carina. I want to give this to Kevin because I don’t think there should be a trial.”

“It’s going to be hard to convince him with what you have.”

“Then, I’m going to need this coffee and then some because I’m going full-on detective here.”

“You know we have a friend who’s an actual detective, right? I can call her once it’s normal for people to be awake.”

---