Page 27 of Zen's Crash

“Ain’t that the damn truth,” Dutch adds. “I know it’s been ten months since your dad died but you have my deepest condolences.”

The others join Dutch in giving condolences. Lexi tears up but manages to thank them.

Siege gestures to me. “Zen, why don’t you tell us what you found.”

“I traced back Lexi’s family hoping to find something in their background to explain her father’s paranoia and obsession with security. I dug up every bit of information I could find and pieced it together.”

Rigs asks, “What did that puzzle look like when you completed it?”

“To be honest, it was a bit sketchy. I couldn’t find much about her father’s early years. But I managed to get details of his high school and college education and work history. I easily found his marriage certificate and even Lexi’s birth certificate. Then three years later—boom—there was nothing.”

Rigs, ever the analytical brother in our club, murmurs, “It sounds like there must have been an event that changed the course of their lives.”

“I scratched around in public records, newspapers, and such for the area they were living in when everything went dark and discovered something interesting.”

Glancing from one club brother to another, I tell them, “Their last known address was in the suburbs of Buffalo, New York. Her father worked as a literature professor and his wife was a stay-at-home mom to Lexi. Believe it or not, a co-ed went missing. According to newspaper articles at the time, all the evidence pointed to a fellow student. A man by the name of Matthew Graves. He went missing right after the co-ed’s nakedbody was found floating in a pond a couple of miles from the university campus. Then the police discovered that Matthew Graves was a stolen identity, from an old man who died fourteen years earlier.”

Lexi speaks up, “I don’t understand what that has to do with my father. He clearly wasn’t involved in any of that.”

Rigs asks, “How do you know he wasn’t involved? Don’t you think it’s a bit of a coincidence that right after this horrific event happened on the college campus he worked at that he took his family and moved to Las Salinas?”

Lexi looks away. “We didn’t move to Las Salinas right away. My dad moved us every couple of years, and we ended up here about five years before he died.”

I give them my theories of what might have happened. “It could be that your father saw the abduction and reported it, which pissed the perp off. He might have seen the perp staring at the victim, intervened when the perp was harassing her, the perp might have said something suspicious in passing, or your father might have seen him dumping the body. It could have even been a situation where the perp got fixated on your mother. After looking at pictures of the co-ed and your family, I noticed a strong resemblance between your mother and the co-ed. Of course that could have been a coincidence, but it bears closer scrutiny anyway.”

Lexi looks shell-shocked by this piece of information. She’s sitting there with her mouth hanging open while the club officers have all broken out in excited conversation about it.

Finally Rigs asks, “Were you able to pull any information on the perp’s family?”

“No, seeing as he used a stolen identity. I was up for the better part of the night piecing all this together. I plan to get right on that today though.”

Siege begins giving directions, “Alright, this is a good start. Zen, you keep digging for information digitally. We’ll keep protection in place for Lexi. And Lexi, I don’t want you leaving on your own. If what Zen has found ends up to be related to your father, that means the perp has killed twice and has a history of fixating on women and then killing them—he might have gotten obsessed with your mother which prompted the move.”

“That’s a gigantic leap,” she responds, clearly not buying the connection.

“Regardless, it pays to prepare for the worst. If anything short of that happens then we’ll consider it a blessing. Got it?”

She nods, rubbing at her forehead. “Yeah, that actually makes good sense.”

I come to my feet. “I’m going to take Lexi to the kitchen and feed her. If you need either of us, shoot me a text.”

Siege barely acknowledges my words because he’s already diving into a conversation with Rigs about sending someone out to NY to talk with the witnesses. Glad to escape the enthusiasm of my club brothers, Lexi follows me to the kitchen where we fill our plates and get a table in the back of the nearly empty bar.

Since we didn’t exactly part on good terms the last time we spoke, and then I turned her life upside down after seeing thosecrime scene photos, I let a long silence spin out between the two of us.

Finally, she asks, “You really are as good as you say, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, I’m better than most, but not quite delusional enough to think I’m the best.”

“And your club is the real deal when it comes to helping me track down the man that killed my dad, right?”

“Yes, I can guarantee that we’ve solved tougher cases than this one.”

“Alright, I’m gonna calm down and let you guys do your thing.” Shoving food around her plate for a few seconds, she asks, “Do you really think my dad had some kind of connection to that murder case when I was a baby, and it led to the killer stalking him?”

“You tell me. Think long and hard about your mom, and in particular, your dad. And then tell me if any of this rings true.”

“I remember my mom used to wake up screaming and my father used to hold her and tell her everything was going to be okay and that she was safe now.”

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