Page 41 of Three for a Girl

“I exercised, napped, and puzzled.” He snorted, but there was no amusement to it. He sounded hollow, not like Romeo at all.

Chad shuffled foot to foot in front of the table. “You wanna come inside? We can have a shower together, eat and then watch something?”

“Maybe in a little while.”

“You said that yesterday…”

Romeo grimaced. “I was tired yesterday. How’s the case going?”

“You sure you want me to talk about it?”

“You asked about my day, now I’m asking about yours. That’s whatnormalcouples do, right?”

“Yeah, but…”

“But what?”

Chad bit his lip. The silence suffocating him, and he spoke to relieve it.

“You … you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.” Romeo lifted his gaze, and Chad noticed warmth had returned to his eyes. That was the Romeo he’d seen through the barrier at the prison, the one that genuinely wanted to know about his day.

“Turns out Ellen might not have been the perfect angel everyone thought. Her job as a social media influencer was a lie, and someone was paying her a significant amount of money every few months.”

“For what?”

“We don’t know that yet.”

“Interesting … she’s got a big following, right?”

“Over 200,000.”

“Why not bring her boyfriend in for questioning?”

Chad gave Romeo a soft smile. “We can’t, he’s gone missing.”

Romeo’s eyebrows shot up. “Missing?”

“Disappeared from near the station after he spoke to us.”

“Do you think he killed Ellen—”

“We haven’t ruled that out completely, but my gut says no.”

“Your gut? Does that stand up in court? A detective’s gut?”

“It’s stands up in my court, the court of Chad. I still might be proved wrong, but our current theory is Kerion’s been taken.”

“By the killer?”

Chad nodded. “That’s what we’re working with.”

“He’s killed his number four.”

Chad frowned. “There’s nothing to suggest the killer’s doing a countdown. Kerion could still be alive—”

“I remember what it felt like. The first one, I couldn’t enjoy it, my nerves were all over the place, but the second—number 4, that’s when it started to feel good, soright.”

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