Page 9 of Jon's Helter Skelter Cold Case

It would preserve the chain of evidence better that way, so using his phone was fine. “Sure. Donovan?”

“Taking notes, you’re good,” he assured me.

Seriously, best anchor ever. “Then let’s sit and start.”

The room only had one table and four chairs, so Warden Lopez stayed standing. Abby parked herself right next to Dwayne, like she was moral support. I could tell she liked him, but then, he was a good man. For Readers like us, being around the Dwayne Evanses of the world was soothing. Criminals and the like made me distinctly uneasy, and I couldn’t relax around them.

He didn’t seem to know what to do with this teenage girl acting so friendly with him, but he wasn’t unhappy about it, either. He sat, and I think it was only then he took a full breath, like he could finally breathe now that someone believed him. I rattled off my name and license number, and the names of the others for the camera, then looked at Dwayne.

“I don’t know where to start,” he admitted.

Abby was quick to ask, “What kind of psychic are you?”

Good job, Abby. I was curious myself.

“I’m a Coder,” he answered easily. “Technically, a xenoglossist for coding.”

I pursed my lips in a soundless whistle. As unique as Readers were, Coders were about the same. They had the ability to read and write any programming code without needing to learn it first. They were highly sought after in the programming field and earned an insane amount of money.

All right, this gave us a starting point. “So you were working where?”

“Government worker, actually.”

So his clearance had to be higher than God’s. Got it. “Start us off on the day everything went down.”

Dwayne took a breath, looking tired, and I knew he’d rehashed this a thousand times already, but he gamely did it again. “I honestly don’t know what happened. I was at work, and about ten a.m. the police showed up and arrested me. My sisterwas missing, presumed dead, and they were certain I had done it.”

It was one ofthosecases. I hated those cases.

A very foreboding feeling washed over me. “By any chance, was the detective in charge of your case named Solomon?”

Dwayne’s head jerked back. “Yeah, that’s the guy. You know him?”

“Know him, hate him, would love to bury an axe in his face.” It fucking figured Solomon was involved in this somehow. “Okay, so I have a very good idea of how this went sideways if he was managing things. Why your sister?”

“I don’t know.” Dwayne crumpled, upset and livid all over again. “That’s the hell of it. Even during the trial, when they were unveiling all the evidence against me, no one ever suggested a motive. There is no motive, I love my sister to pieces! She is—was—my anchor.”

Oh shit. Now that complicated things. I had seen a broken bond within him, something over a year old, but had thought it was because of him being in prison and his anchor cutting ties. But if his sister was his bonded, and the bond had broken, then odds were very good she was dead. Shiiiiit.

He huffed out something, a dark laugh. “I can tell from that horrified expression on your face. Your eyes are incredible. You picked all that up by looking at me, didn’t you? How my bond with my sister is dead, and so is she.”

“I amsosorry.” The words felt wholly inadequate. “I know how painful that is. I watched my mother go through it. I promise, a therapist will work with you after today. I’ll throw a fit until it happens.”

He gave me a slight nod and smile. “Thank you. I could use a therapist for sure. But let me get back to that day. I really don’t know what happened to Tylesia. She took a half day—she had errands to run—and nothing was out of the ordinary. We livedtogether, I would have known if something was off. She normally worked with me. Tye was a good coder in her own right, so we liked to bounce ideas off each other, and we worked really well together. I expected her back at work after lunch. Actually, I expected her to bring me lunch, which was the plan. Next thing I know, I’m being accused as her murderer and thrown into a jail cell to await a hearing.”

“Fuckers,” Abby muttered under her breath.

“You’ve got that right.” I sighed, rubbing my eyes. “Abby, if you ever run into Solomon, steer clear. He’s got a nasty habit of doing shit like this.”

“Got it.”

I could see why Dwayne hadn’t been able to muster up a good defense at trial. He didn’t know enough of what had happened to even formulate a defense. He’d gone from thinking it was a normal day to shit hitting the fan.

Well. This should make the cold case more interesting, to say the least.

Dwayne’s grief came back full force. “The hell of it was, I argued for a good six hours she was alive still. I felt her bond, knew she wasn’t dead. Then, while sitting in that damn prison cell, I felt our bond go dormant and…”

Abby gave him a hug. I could tell she was hurting and mad on his behalf. I was too. The police massively screwed up on this. His sister might still be alive if they’d listened to him and chased after her.

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