Page 35 of The Killer She Knew

“I know. And if you feel the need to be the one to tell them the truth, I wouldn’t blame you.” She would lose her job. She would face criminal charges. Every case she’d ever worked would be torn apart and assessed. Air lodged at the top of her chest. She hoped he didn’t run straight to Director Livingstone with her admission, but she wouldn’t ask him to keep her secret. Secrets killed, and he deserved better than that. “I wouldn’t blame you for canceling our date either. Not that those are comparable.But it’s not every day a woman you’ve asked out admits to committing perjury.”

“Is it technically perjury if it happened outside of the courtroom?” He’d shut down his expression. Locked her out with that stillness that said he was feeling too much and didn’t know what to do with it.

“That’s a good question.” The words left her mouth as nothing more than a whisper. Because she knew he didn’t really care about the technicalities of perjury. He cared that she’d lied. What self-respecting law enforcement officer wouldn’t? “What happens now?”

Ford cut his gaze to the body mere feet away, him on one side of the divide, her on the other. It’d been a body that’d brought them together. Another one might thrust them apart. And then who would she have?

“You said whoever is killing these victims is disciplined and focused. He does everything for a reason. He stalked his victims, learned everything he could about them. Right up until he killed Alice Dietz. She’s the outlier, but now she doesn’t seem to be the only one. What purpose did Tamra Hopkins’s murder serve?”

So they were going to gloss over the fact she’d had a personal relationship with one of their suspects? All right. The tendril of defensiveness unwound from around her ribcage. “She must’ve seen something she shouldn’t have.”

“What makes you say that?” Ford asked.

Leigh wasn’t entirely sure. “As much as Tamra theorized about Alice Dietz having a secret relationship, I don’t think that’s why she was poisoned. She’d read a couple messages from Alice’s phone, but she couldn’t recall the number they’d come from and didn’t know who Alice had been involved with. I think our killer has made his first mistake.”

Ford’s eyebrows nearly hit his hairline. “How so?”

“It won’t be possible to confirm until the medical examiner can get us a narrower time of death, but based on the amount of heat still in the body, I’m fairly certain Tamra Hopkins was killed after we had Morrow cuffed to the desk downstairs. But he did have the means, the motive, and the opportunity to murder Alice Dietz if she’d planned on taking their relationship public.”

The marshal’s gaze floated off to Leigh’s left. Not really focused on anything in particular. “What could she have seen to gain the killer’s attention?”

“I don’t know yet, but the way she was left—without wiping down her body with bleach or arranging her as Teshia Elborne and Alice Dietz had been found—tells me killing her wasn’t planned,” she said. “It was a reaction.”

“Well, that… doesn’t make me feel good.” Ford practically melted into his chair, legs splayed wide and away from his body. The posture didn’t look natural. A forced calmness and ease that didn’t match his personality. “So now what?”

He was trusting her to do the right thing. To get this investigation back on course. Willing to move past her admission and forge ahead toward the truth.

“If our unsub has a law enforcement background, everything we’ve recovered in evidence has been compromised. The bottles of cleaner, the containers of arsenic and cyanide, the driver’s licenses we recovered—we can’t rely on them to build our case. The primary crime scene is gone. Any evidence he left behind has been destroyed by the storm, and the medical examiner can’t get to Alice Dietz’s autopsy until the electricity comes back on.” Leigh pulled in a deep breath, waiting for the marshal to come to their next step on his own. “But there’s still one key piece of evidence the killer didn’t expect us to find.”

Ford narrowed his gaze on her. He lost the casual posture, pushing back in his chair. “You have to be joking.”

“It’s the only way.” A shiver tremored through her, and Leigh’s body temperature dropped in preparation. “We have to go back to that basement.”

TWENTY-TWO

Durham, New Hampshire

Thursday, October 10

11:36 a.m.

She couldn’t force herself to take the next step forward.

Leigh stared at the foot-deep pond pooled at the bottom of the steps leading into the basement. There was no telling how deep the water had swelled in the past twelve hours. Certainly enough to make her hesitate.

She’d changed back into her slacks and blouse. No point in ruining the perfectly dry sweatpants and hoodie she’d borrowed.

“You don’t have to do this.” Ford took position over her shoulder. The lobby was silent as students and staff lapsed into a seemingly temporary acceptance of their circumstances, intensifying his voice to the point she felt it in her bones. “According to the officers the chief sent over, Durham PD is clearing the flooding from City Hall. They can be here in the next couple of days with pumps. Whatever evidence is down there isn’t going anywhere.”

“Who else might die in that time?” She didn’t have to look at him to feel his attention burning between her shoulder blades. It was cute the way he worried, but she could do this. She had to do this. “Besides, it’s not like the killer would risk drowning just to wait for me to go back into that room.”

“Screw the plan. There’s no way in hell I’m letting you go down there alone.” The marshal stripped off his suit jacket and tossed it into the lobby.

“We talked about this.” They’d already agreed. “You need to stay here. Make sure no one disturbs Tamra Hopkins’s body before the medical examiner can get here.”

Ford unlaced his shiny shoes next. Then discarded his black socks and tie. In a matter of seconds, the marshal was stripped of his armor. “I sent one of the forensic techs to guard the remains, and campus police are more than capable of controlling the crowd. You’re not going back in there by yourself. End of story.”

“Fine.” She wanted to argue, but Leigh couldn’t deny the acid charging up her throat at the idea of going into that black underwater hole alone. She descended the final step, flinching as freezing water soaked through her shoes. The door fought against her push, and she powered the flashlight in her hand. Hopefully she wouldn’t drop it this time. “Stay close.”

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