Page 25 of By the Time You Read This

Raisa thought of Helen and Lindsey, and this other murder victim. Of Isabel.

There was something here to unravel. Raisa always got a few days off after every case to make up for the weekends she missed while on the investigation. She owed it to ...someoneto at least try to follow a few leads here.

Even if that someone was herself.

“No,” Raisa said. “Let’s camp out a couple days. If you have the time.”

“I have the time.”

It sounded like a promise.

“Hey,” she said as she climbed into the SUV. “We should probably look up the name of that homicide victim.”

Reddit Thread: R/Nostupidquestions

Jake4537:If someone is blackmailed into committing murder, are they charged the same as someone who is just a psycho?

Tiredgirl:What you’re talking about in terms of person B (the blackmailed person committing the crime) isduress. It’s an argument that can be used by a prosecutor, similar to self-defense, but they need to prove that any reasonable person would have acted the same way. They also have to show that they couldn’t do something like ... go to the police (guys always go to the police pleaseeeee I know they’re like problematic but in that situation, just go! to! the! police).And—here’s the important part—most states have found that duress doesNotcover murder (or sexual assault) because even if the person is threatened with death they should have died rather than kill someone else.

Tiredgirl:now back to person A who is doing the threatening—they won’t be charged with murder. But that doesn’t mean they’ll get away with it. Think Charles Manson. He was the reason that Sharon Tate and Co. were killed but he didn’t actually murder anyone. So he got conspiracy to commit and a death sentence (that was later commuted to life sentences). The lingo for this isproxy murder.

Jake4537:even if they threaten your kid or wife or something? You still can’t use it as a defense?

Tiredgirl:yeah that’s correct. You might get a lighter sentence from a sympathetic judge/jury, but you’ll still get charged. I’m too tired (ha!) to get into the philosophical question about the morality of it all, but I’m guessing, even knowing all that, a lot of people would take the jail time.

Chapter Nine

Delaney

Four months before Isabel’s death

Peter Stamkos was an evil man.

Delaney usually tried to stay away from labels like that. Absolutes were only her style when it came to mathematics. But Delaney had “stumbled across” his daughter’s hospital records. She was allowed to call him evil.

But that was not all he was.

He was meant to be proof of Isabel’s power, even from behind bars.

Let’s play a game . . .

Isabel had a talent of figuring out just how to kill someone. Anyone simply looking at her victim list might think she chose based on convenience. If they drove at night on country roads—car accident. If they were a gun owner—suicide.

But that underestimated her genius.

Convenience factored into whatever scheme she hatched, but it was believability that really landed the plane.

Someone afraid of needles wasn’t going to inject too much heroin into their veins. Someone afraid of heights wasn’t going to jump off a tall building.

Isabel enjoyed this part, learning all about her chosen victims so that she could make their deaths perfect.

So what should Peter’s demise look like?

Delaney contemplated that now as she watched his house. She was parked on the opposite side of the street, not exactly being stealthy. She wasn’t in the mood to find a better hiding spot, though. Maybe that would come to bite her in the ass later on. Probably it would come to bite her in the ass later on. And yet, she had no desire to figure out a better option.

Anyway, no one would think Peter Stamkos’s death was anything other than ...

Well, that she didn’t know yet. But, however he went, it wouldn’t look suspicious.

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