Page 15 of The Killer She Knew

He shook his head. Almost too slow. Too… controlled. “No. I can’t say that I did, but you know with more than two hundred students in my classes and even more online, it’s nearly impossible for me to get to know them as more than a student number.”

Leigh held herself back from turning this into an interrogation. For now. The problem with Pierce Morrow wasn’t that he’d let his talents go to waste behind a desk and lost himself in unending hours of research. It was that he believed he was the only one who could truly read people. But he’d taught her well, even when he hadn’t meant to. She withdrew a business card, the second of the day. “Well, if there are any papers or essays you can provide to help us get a better understanding of our victim’s recent state of mind and background, that would be helpful. As you can imagine, we haven’t been able to gather much since the phones and internet went down. If you could also let me know the last time she showed up on the rolls for yourcourses so we can get a better timeline of her final days, that would be appreciated.”

“I’ll see what I can do considering the circumstances.” He nodded to Ava and handed off his egg salad sandwich. “Here. You two might need this more than I do.”

“I appreciate it. Thank you.” She watched him rejoin the group of staff hovering at the edge of the corridor. It was possible he’d been telling the truth. Between online courses and a massive increase of enrollment into functional programs like criminal justice and psychology, there was a chance Morrow hadn’t had any interaction with their victim beyond that of professor and student.

So why didn’t she believe him?

NINE

Durham, New Hampshire

Wednesday, October 9

3:53pm

They were losing their crime scene.

She watched as a corner of tarp protecting what little they had left came loose from her position at the lobby front doors. Within minutes, there wouldn’t be anything physical connecting Alice Dietz’s killer to her murder.

Ford handed off a bottle of water he’d produced from somewhere. The interruption to her brooding triggered her reactive defenses. Her heart rocketed into her throat, but she managed to limit it to a slight flinch.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah. I just… didn’t see you there.” She did this. Disappeared into the dark corners of her mind to figure out the right angle, the right pattern, the right relationship to bring everything in a case together. To the detriment of her physical health. Eating, drinking, sleeping—none of it mattered in thecourse of an investigation. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been staring out the glass doors separating her from the scene outside. At least long enough for Ava to be driven, albeit shyly, to go find entertainment with a group of students at the back of the corridor. “Thank you.”

“Have you ever worked a case that didn’t have a shred of evidence to support it?” He took a slug of his own bottled water, as lost in the rhythm of the storm as she’d been.

“No.” Dozens of death scenes, countless man hours combing through investigation files, even more cataloging data into the federal databases for some hope of finding a connection—there’d always been something to go on. To lead her in the right direction. But this case… They were working blind. Having to rely solely on witness statements and character descriptions. That unnerved her. This was new territory. For both of them. But her instincts told her the killer had taken precautions with dumping Alice Dietz’s body as he had with her remains. Ensuring there was nothing left to identify him or the location the victim had been killed. Whether they would’ve gotten anything from the scene before the storm hit remained unclear. “This is your first homicide.”

“How can you tell?” A layer of exhaustion took residence under Ford’s eyes, adding to the strain around his mouth. Up until this point, he’d taken the lead, kept his face of confidence, and held himself together. But she could see the cracks now. The sag in his shoulders and the way he’d socialized less and less over the past hour. The lack of progress was getting to him after a few hours. It was an impatience she understood, that she’d trained to overcome. “The people I hunt are responsible for some of the worst acts of violence in the country, but I’m always dispatched too late. After they’ve already committed their atrocities, and there’s nothing but crime scene photos to study.The bodies are cleaned up and scrubbed down in the morgue, or the victims have already given their statements to police.”

Ford filled his chest with a deep inhale. Preparing himself for something. He nodded toward the fluttering tarps outside, his Adam’s apple shooting down his throat on a swallow. “I’ve never set foot on an active scene until last night.”

“The first time I saw a body, I lost count of how many times I threw up.” Leigh hadn’t told anybody about that. Not even the detective who’d interviewed her afterward. She’d wanted to be strong for her parents, but finding the remains of a twelve-year-old kid in the crawl space of her childhood home had fractured something inside of her. “I want to say you get used to it the more cases you work, but I still have to take an acid blocker anytime I step onto a scene. Helps with the nausea.”

“That strangely makes me feel better about throwing up in the bushes on the other side of the courtyard.” Dark eyes cut to her. His smile made a reappearance, tugging on her insides in an uncomfortable and equally exciting balance.

“I won’t tell anyone.” Her laugh caught her by surprise. Genuine and a little too high-pitched. Damn it. A flush that had nothing to do with the humidity coated her body in an instant. She was a federal agent. She’d faced two serial killers and nearly died in the process, but apparently, embarrassment could still get the best of her. When she’d considered stepping back into the dating scene, she’d apparently forgotten how to interact with the opposite sex. She had to get it together.

“Is that the case file we requested from Durham PD?” He was trying to save her. “The Elborne case?”

“Yeah. I needed to read through it myself.” Leigh locked down the urge to shake her head to reverse time and take another stab at this whole conversation. Handing over the manila file folder, she added a hefty amount of space betweenthem to save him from the rush of sweat pooling beneath her blazer. Had someone turned on the heater?

Ford took the offered file and flipped through the first few pages despite the fact he’d already reviewed it all. He took a particular interest in the crime scene photos. “Anything stand out to you?”

“Nothing too enlightening. Teshia Elborne, nineteen years old, psychology major who made the Dean’s List most semesters, high school popularity followed her to college. She was involved in a mass of student organizations. Biology club, rowing, student union. If Granite State had cheer, she would’ve been captain.” Leigh had already known all of this before reading through the file. Memorized it, fed off of it eighteen years ago. Because there was no way someone could be so… perfect. “She was well liked. No disputes with roommates or fellow students. Professors had nothing but good things to say about her. Her parents told investigators she’d never had problems with her mental health or rebellion. On the surface, she was the picture of innocence.”

“On the surface?” Ford’s intensity focused on her between page flips. “You think she was hiding something?”

“Doesn’t everyone?” She hadn’t meant the words to sound so scathing. “Teshia Elborne and Dean Groves dated for about six months. Things ended… badly between them two months before her death.”

A flurry of betrayal coated the inside of her mouth, acidic and bitter. Or maybe her stomach wasn’t happy with the egg salad sandwich from Pierce Morrow, which she and Ava had shared. She had no allegiance to Dean Groves. And yet the part of her that’d failed to prove her father’s innocence all those years ago wanted to pick up the fight for Dean all over again. To prove she hadn’t misjudged him all those years ago. That he hadn’t turnedout to be one more person in her life who’d chosen violence over her.

“The report says he caught her cheating on him. An altercation ensued; campus police were called by a student in one of the neighboring dorms. She heard the fight through the walls and was worried it would turn physical if someone didn’t intervene.” Ford moved on from the photos, more focused on the statements taken from friends, family, and the dorm neighbor. “Is that what made him an initial suspect?”

The only suspect. It didn’t matter Dean had moved on. Didn’t matter that he’d sworn he didn’t have feelings left for Teshia or in the short amount of time they’d been together he claimed to have fallen in love with Leigh. Looking back, she could see how his charm and her inexperience in a relationship had preyed on her past trauma. How he’d taken advantage of her feelings and used her to convince her to give him an alibi, despite the evidence staring her in the face. Ultimately, Durham PD had done their jobs and used the incident with Teshia to support Dean’s guilt. “Teshia had been seeing a guy from back home on and off again since high school. He would come see her on campus whenever he could get away from his dad’s farm. Police interviewed him, but they dismissed him as a suspect. Confirmed he hadn’t been anywhere near campus the day she died. That left the most recent upset in her life.”

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