Page 35 of Mine to Protect

“You were here? Alone? With them?” John cut in, sounding wounded.

Alta didn’t flinch. “Yes. Can I talk without being interrupted?”

The two men hung their heads and nodded, completely chastised. I couldn’t help the small smile of pride that crept up my lips.

“I remembered having the same thoughts about a few of the husbands from the Smokies cases,” she continued. “That’s what I wanted to see before I brought it to your attention, Chandler. And after looking at all the pictures again, I think I have something.”

“What, that all the husbands are big? That’s not much of a profile for the type of women the unsub goes after.”

“Maybe it is,” she said, straightening. “What if he targets the womenbecauseof the husbands?”

Peters fell onto the couch beside me as he flipped through the pictures. “But none of the women have the same build, the same hair color, background, nothing. I don’t see how—”

“They’re all married to the sametypeof guy,” Alta continued. “Large, arrogant, dominant, huge egos. And that is a type. What if it’s not about the women at all? What if it’s about torturing the husbands, because this guy takes the one thing they feel the most possessive about? What if he’s taking them not to do whatever cruel things other serial killers do to their victims, but to watch the aftermath, the husband’s downfall? Because as big as they are, they couldn’t save the one person who mattered most.”

Silence took over the room as we all processed her theory. It was crazy, but it made sense, especially if the guy wasn’t like the husbands.

“The guy could be weak, comparatively speaking,” I mused as I scratched at my days-old scruff. “Maybe he was the small guy his whole life and resents men who’re stronger than them.” Knowing I was about to set off an explosion, I caught John’s attention and asked, “Is that how you felt?”

“Fuck you,” he seethed and took a step closer. “Just because I don’t ’roid out like you doesn’t mean I’m weak.”

“So you’re just small,” I retorted with an arrogant smile. It was too easy, and way too fun.

Arms folded across his puffed chest, he looked to Alta, who ignored us by flipping through her phone. “I’m big in all the right places.”

I caught Alta’s eyes widening a fraction. So shewaslistening.

“Keep telling yourself that, boss—”

A small but strangely strong hand smacked against my chest, knocking the breath from my lungs.

Hell. The woman could pack a punch. She wasn’t exaggerating about the black belt.

“Enough, you two. Focus on the task at hand. You can schedule a time to meet on the playground after the work’s done to finish this juvenile fight.” Turning to Peters, she asked, “What do you think of the guy targeting the women based on their husbands, not the women themselves?”

Peters leaned back, sinking deeper into the couch after tossing the iPad in my direction. “You could be on to something, but it doesn’t give us any details to how he’s finding them.”

“What’s something all of them would have in common?” I asked, looking to Alta as she paced in front of the fireplace, hands resting on her lean hips.

“Haircuts, protein shakes, favorite coffee, places they ran while they were here. It could be anything,” Peters said with a groan. “It’s a lot of work to go back to all those husbands and track their every move while they were in the parks and outside of it, but it’s worth a shot. It’s more than we’ve had to go off of besides the notes.”

“Notes?” Alta skidded to a halt, almost tumbling forward over her own two feet. “What notes?”

“I was planning to tell you in the interviews today, but you ran away.” Peters leaned forward, clasping his hands between his bent knees. “I couldn’t tell you before because it’s the one piece of the investigation no one knows about. Not the press, not even the husbands. Each of the wives received a card, a love card of sorts, sometime during their stay. All found on their windshields one morning. Every single one of them brushed it off as a mix-up because of the message inside.”

Her chest stopped moving like she couldn’t breathe. “What did it say?”

“‘See you soon. We’ll have so much fun.’ Or something along those lines. Since they trashed the cards assuming it wasn’t meant for them, we can only go off what the husband remembered, which was very little. Some said it was in print, a few others said cursive like a woman’s handwriting, and a few others said it was chicken scratch.”

Scared, accusing eyes shot to me. “Did you know about this?”

I nodded, feeling a little guilty, though not sure why.

John stepped toward her. “I just found out or I would’ve told you. I’m sure this brings up a lot of old memories because of—”

The ‘shut the fuck up’ glare Alta shot him could be felt by everyone in the room.

John cleared his throat and looked to his watch. “Listen, I need to get back. I’ve got a ton of shit to wrap up before tonight. Birdie, want me to drive you home?”

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