Page 190 of State of Alert

“Yeah, for sure. They would’ve.”

“I think she played up Elaine’s rigid rules with Zeke, made him think she was in danger and asked him to help her out. She was probably the first sex he ever had, so she used that as a weapon to get him to do her bidding.”

“Who killed the mother?” Malone asked.

“Zoe did, but Zeke drove her there and maybe waited outside, possibly not knowing what was happening.”

“That’s a stretch, Sam. How do you know he wasn’t the mastermind, trying to get Zoe out of a difficult situation?”

“I don’t know that for sure, but I believed his parents when they said he’d never be part of something like this. On the other hand, I can see her doing it without having to stretch my imagination.”

Sam felt a presence behind her and turned to find Sergeant Walters lurking. “May I help you with something, Sarge?”

“I was looking for you, ma’am, and your team said you were in the captain’s office. I found something interesting on your victim’s laptop.”

“What did you find?”

“A very significant investigative effort into her sister’s murder that’d recently yielded new results.”

Sam perked up. “What kind of results?”

“A suspect.”

“Come to the conference room so you can brief all of us at the same time.” She glanced at Malone, who was already on hisfeet to follow them. Back in the pit, she said, “Everyone in the conference room for an update.”

When her team was seated around the table, Sam gestured to Walters to give him the floor.

“Upon a thorough examination of Elaine Myerson’s laptop, I found a file that’d been buried on an iCloud drive and given a name related to recipes, which is why it didn’t stand out on our initial review. The file contained hundreds of items pertaining to the murder of the victim’s sister, Sarah.”

“She was conducting her own investigation?” Cameron asked.

“That’s my conclusion after reviewing each of the documents. She’d closed in on a suspect, a man named Darryl Robinson.” He gestured to the computer located in the front of the room. “May I?”

“Of course,” Sam said.

He plugged a thumb drive into the computer and brought up an image of a white man, who Sam guessed was around sixty. He had gray hair and a goatee.

“The photo is from the Facebook profile of Darryl Robinson, age sixty-one, a resident of Springfield, Virginia. According to Elaine’s notes, he was known locally as weird, but wasn’t ever charged with anything and was never the focus of the original case. Elaine had done significant research on his whereabouts during the time of Sarah’s disappearance and learned that he worked at a fast-food restaurant half a mile from where Sarah was taken.”

Every cell in Sam’s body began to buzz as Walters detailed his findings. If this panned out, would she ever be able to trust her buzz again?

“After trying to reach him by phone and email for months, Elaine paid him a visit three weeks ago.”

“What?” Freddie said softly.

“Needless to say, it didn’t go well, and Elaine noted that he ordered her off his property. He requested and was granted arestraining order that prohibited her from contacting him or being within five hundred feet of him.” Walters clicked on the remote to bring up a copy of the order. “She had that in the file. Her notes are meticulous and detailed, indicating that she believed he’s the man who kidnapped, tortured and murdered her sister.”

“Is any of this in the file we received from Detective Truehart?” she asked Cameron, who’d been reviewing the files as time permitted.

“Not that I’ve seen.”

“Let’s get Truehart on the phone.” She thumbed through her notebook and found his number for Freddie, who dialed the landline on the table and put it on speaker.

“Truehart.”

“This is Sam Holland with the MPD.”

“Oh, hello. How’s your investigation unfolding?”

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