Page 46 of By the Time You Read This

“I don’t think it was an accident, either,” Raisa said, and this time St. Ivany nodded.

“A scare tactic gone wrong, maybe,” St. Ivany said.

Raisa glanced at her. That was ... smart. They had talked to both Essi and Gabriela, along with a handful of women at the correctional facility gates. They’d also met with the very person in charge of making sure there weren’t any homicides in her prison. They’d talked to multiple employees. Any one of those people could have gotten spooked and tried to chase them out of town. They might not have known they would catch Kilkenny just wrong.

Raisa didn’t care what their intent was, though. She was going to find the person who had done it and make them pay.

“So you might be onto something with Isabel’s death,” St. Ivany said.

“Yeah, you think?” Raisa bit off.

“You’re a linguist, not a field agent,” St. Ivany said, which got Raisa to finally look at her. She held up a hand. “I’m not insulting you or insinuating anything. I just mean I can’t simply request you join the investigation. I have superiors, too, believe it or not. And I’m guessing yours aren’t going to be happy to have you on this case, no matter how much free rein you might have.”

That wasn’t untrue. She probablyshouldn’tbe working it, if she were being honest with herself. The rules existed for a reason, and even Emily Logan’s investigation brushed too closely to Isabel Parker for anyone to feel comfortable with Raisa’s participation.

“I’ll put in a request from our end,” Raisa finally said, though she wasn’t sure what the outcome of that would be. Normally, if she was contacted independently about an investigation and raised it to the level of her supervisor, he generally signed off on it. But this case couldn’t get more personal.

“If it helps make your case, we do have Emily Logan’s blog posts,” St. Ivany said. “We didn’t find anything useful in them, but they’re printed out and ordered chronologically. You might be more successful.”

Raisa nodded, though she had no desire to dig through the dead girl’s blog at the moment. She wanted to find whoever had been at the wheel of the SUV. “I’ll take a look at it.”

St. Ivany seemed to understand Raisa wasn’t exactly going to do an in-depth analysis on the thing immediately. “I’ve requested a warrant for the bank account of the woman who was involved in the shiv incident with Isabel six weeks ago.”

Raisa straightened at that, finally curious enough to really engage with the detective. “Who was it?”

“A woman named Taylor Bultman,” St. Ivany said. The hit-and-run seemed to have changed her entire demeanor, as if she realized there really was an active threat in her town and she might need FBI assistance. “She’s in for multiple life sentences and had nothing to lose. But she has a kid on the outside who is currently applying to colleges. I’m curious if the money ended up going to him.”

“It must have been a significant amount of money,” Raisa said. “Might help us eliminate suspects when it comes time.”

“Yup.”

“But if the person is smart, that bank account will probably be untraceable,” Raisa pointed out.

“Then we would know it was a hit, though,” St. Ivany countered. “Or a possible one, at least. That would put pressure on the ME, not to mention the correctional facility. They don’t want headlines about a murder in their system.”

That was also not a terrible point. Raisa slid St. Ivany a look, assessing.

“Hey, I’m not actually the bad guy here,” St. Ivany said. “You guys came to me out of nowhere, when I’m working a homicide.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

St. Ivany nudged her. “I’m not an idiot, either.”

It felt like an olive branch, albeit one covered in Kilkenny’s blood.

“Here, give me your number, I’ll keep you updated on the progress of the warrant,” St. Ivany said, opening her phone. “I know you’re not going to want to leave here for something less than a real lead.”

“Did you bring Emily’s blog posts?” Raisa asked after rattling off the digits.

“Yeah, the binder is in my car. I’ll go grab it.”

Raisa didn’t have anything with her to actually analyze the writing. She usually worked off her laptop, which had software that allowed her to track her notes about the author’s idiolect and stylistic quirks, along with breaking down each sentence so she didn’t miss anything.

But sometimes reading a work without any of that hanging over her was effective in its own way.

When St. Ivany returned, she handed over a generic black binder you could buy for cheap at any dollar store. Raisa took it with the respect it deserved as the last remaining words of a woman taken from the world far too soon and in far too brutal a manner.

St. Ivany hovered over her. “Can I ask you something?”

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