Page 50 of The Killer She Knew

They had a nothing but a single mention in the investigating detective’s notes from eighteen years ago.

“This is some shitty police work.” Ford flipped through individual papers stuffed into Teshia Elborne’s case file. Witness statements, background information on the victim, incident report, canvassing reports from the dorms—none of it had done them a damn bit of good in the time they’d sequestered themselves in the too-small study room at the back of the building. Away from the chaos of aggravated students, admin, and piling bodies. “All it says is they interviewed and dismissed the victim’s high school boyfriend as a suspect in her death. No name. No contact information. Bastard didn’t even include the actual interview in the file.”

“There’s nothing here either.” Leigh closed the ME’s autopsy report on Teshia Elborne’s remains. They were getting nowhere.The little progress they’d made turned up one obstacle after the other. And now her focus was lodged on the fact she hadn’t eaten anything but two candy bars in the past twenty-four hours. Hanger was very real. “The medical examiner never found any hint of sexual assault or intercourse. There were no fluids left on the body to analyze or ID the killer, and if there had been, he ensured they were destroyed when he washed and bleached her from head to toe.”

Ford scrubbed a hand down his face and closed his own file. “All right. So how do we find a metaphorical name in a haystack if it’s not in the original investigation files?”

“The investigating detective who conducted the interview passed away last year. So that’s a dead end.” She tossed the autopsy report onto the table between them, careful not to let her attention linger on the unidentified body covered in Ford’s windbreaker a few feet away. “The high school boyfriend obviously had access to the victim, not solely at school but in her personal life. They’d been on again and off again for years according to Dean Groves’s statement, so she trusted him at some level. Allowed him to come visit her on campus. Are her phone records in that file?”

“Yeah.” Ford handed the stack of papers off. “If he regretted her death, why make such a spectacle out of disposing the body? She was left in front of Thompson Hall, same as Alice Dietz. Seems kind of callous to me.”

It was a good question. If the killer had cared for Teshia Elborne as she believed, one would assume there would’ve been some kind of covering to keep her protected from the elements. “You’re right. He didn’t hide her out of shame or try to bury her remains. He’d wanted to make a statement. They’d been together since high school. Something must’ve made him snap when he killed her. It’s possible he was still angry enough afterward not to give her body much consideration.”

“Too bad we can’t get a hold of Teshia Elborne’s high school yearbook. That would make this a whole lot easier. Damn storm.” The marshal leaned back in his chair. “This place is starting to feel like a prison.”

“You been in a lot of prisons?” They’d been shoved together for the past forty-plus hours, but in all actuality, Leigh didn’t know a thing about the man across from her. Other than he certainly knew how to perform under pressure in the kissing department.

He regarded her for a moment. Like he was trying to figure out a puzzle. “A few. You?”

“I’m usually the one to send them there, but no. I’ve only been inside a prison once.” She scanned through Teshia Elborne’s phone records from eighteen years ago. None of the numbers lined up in neat little columns made any sense to her, but she was able to identify one number that called the victim multiple times a day. All incoming. There was no indication Teshia Elborne had ever been the one to initiate. The high school boyfriend’s? She circled the number and made a note to look up the area code once power and internet were restored. It wasn’t much, but it could get them one step closer to identifying the victim’s ex. “I visited my father a few days before his sentence was overturned. Can’t say I’m a fan. Though I’d even go for prison food at this point.”

“Gruel. My favorite.” He shifted his elbows to the table, meeting her gaze head on. “I’ll keep your lack of expectations in mind for our date.”

She couldn’t fight the laugh charging through her chest. In an investigation of dead ends, multiple bodies, and emotional havoc, Ford had somehow managed to keep her on course. A light at the end of a suffocating tunnel. The overpowering odor of caked deodorant drove into her nostrils. The shirt she’d borrowed from the locker room wasn’t holding up as well asshe’d hoped. “Not sure you’re going to want to get anywhere near me when this is finished. Between whatever was in that basement water, the sludge from the mason jars, and my own personal brand of disgustingness, I’m smelling ripe.”

It was his turn to laugh. Deep and full and warm. The effect chased back the aches in her bones and around her neck. She didn’t want to think about what she looked like from his vantage point. This case had not been kind physically, mentally, or emotionally, but the way Ford settled those dark eyes on her robbed her of some of that self-consciousness. “Considering my last date ended up with me in a hospital emergency room with a stab wound, you don’t have anything to worry about.”

“Your date stabbed you?” Leigh almost choked on the minuscule amount of saliva in her mouth.

“To be fair, he was a fugitive I’d been assigned to apprehend here in New Hampshire.” Ford raised his hands in surrender. “We shared a bag of chips in the front seat of my car. I thought we had something special, but I realize now he was using me.”

“Wow.” How was it possible he’d gotten under her skin so quickly? How had he mesmerized her with sarcasm and jokes and concern when she wasn’t even sure she still had a functioning heart? Leigh turned her attention back to the autopsy report, but there wasn’t anything in there that would give her an answer. “Tell me something real.”

“Real?” he asked.

“Yeah. Something that would come up on a real date and not in an investigation.” Because this wasn’t reality. This was a multiple homicide investigation that only ended with one result: them going back to their respective agencies and cities when it was over. The banter and laughs wouldn’t be enough outside these walls, and they both knew it.

“All right.” Ford sat forward in his seat. “I have a cat waiting for me at home. His name is Edgar Allan Paw.”

Why did that not surprise her? Leigh’s smile hiked higher. “You’re not serious. What color is he?”

“Black, of course.” He made a sweeping motion with one hand. “The damn thing wandered into my apartment when I was moving in and refused to leave. My mistake was feeding it. I realized that three years too late. But I mostly work alone, so it’s nice to have someone waiting for me to come home.”

That space she rarely acknowledged in her chest pulsed. Loneliness had become a close friend over the years, one she hadn’t been able to shake. Even after Ava had come into her life. But things were looking up.

“Your turn,” he said. “Tell me something real.”

“I take it you haven’t gone through my life history currently sitting with the forensic techs.” The killer—whoever he was—had done a good job in collating her life in bits and pieces. Too good of a job. Leigh slipped her hand into her sweats pocket and removed the sliver of newspaper she’d taken from the board before flood waters destroyed it. The edges were curling from the dampness of her clothing, and the print had smeared in places between all the changes of clothes. There was no grainy photograph. Only simple text that shouldn’t have been connected back to her in any way, bleeding across the page. The unsub had somehow made the connection. “My brother was abducted twenty years ago. I didn’t have any proof, but I knew who was responsible. He managed to stay off law enforcement’s radar all that time. Like he’d one day decided he wasn’t going to be a murdering piece of shit. I knew better. People like him… They don’t change. They just get better at hiding their crimes.”

She slid the newspaper across the table. “After solving my brother’s case, I made a promise to find all the other kids the son of a bitch hurt. Starting with the one I found underneath my childhood home.”

Ford stared at the headline of the thin article. “I don’t understand. According to the media coverage, your brother’s body was found underneath your house.”

“My brother survived. I made sure of it.” The admission shook her straight to her core. She’d never told another soul. But Ford had earned her trust faster and more deeply than any other partner she’d taken on. “His abductor used another set of remains to keep police distracted from the truth. I’ve been working to identify those remains, but it seems our unsub, in his quest to get to know me better, already figured that out.”

“Holy shit.” Ford scanned through the newspaper article. “How?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never made my intentions concerning that case public. Apart from you, there are two people in the world who know what I’ve been working on, and neither my director nor the other members of my team would say a word.” While she’d been studying the behaviors and patterns of serial offenders these past few years, it turned out one had been studying her just as thoroughly. The realization cut her thoughts to Ava. What lengths would a killer go to, to get to Leigh? She nodded toward the newspaper clipping. “That article details the disappearance of a twelve-year-old homeless boy who lived on the outskirts of my hometown around the same time my brother was taken. It’s possible he’s the one I’ve been looking for these past few months.”

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