Page 72 of The Murder Between Us
Cole’s breath came hard and fast as he upended the case files and flipped through the first six, checking, and then checking again just to be sure. Yes, that was the difference. Fuck, he’d missed this, totally missed it. The first six girls were murdered alone. In secluded public spaces where Garrett could dominate them in the darkness.
Kimberly, Jessie, and Molly were murdered at home. With their fathers.
Daughters and fathers.
The new victimology was wrong. It wasn’t just young, successful college-age girls any longer. It was themandtheir fathers. Their fathers had to witness. They had to feel it, feel the loss.
What was the reason? Why had Garrett changed his focus? Why was he so fixated on these fathers? What united them? Bart Olson, a sheriff, Garrett’s sheriff. John Hayes, the head of the FBI office. Frank Foster, a meat packer in a warehouse.
He grabbed his laptop and booted it up, logged in, and searched every database he had access to for information on Frank Foster. Something, there had to be something in Frank’s background that tied him to Bart and John.
Frank had put in six years at the warehouse. He was a widower. Kimberly was his only daughter. So far, nothing—
There. There it was. Ten years ago, Detective Frank Foster had been fired from the St. Louis Police Department.
They were all cops.
Daughters of law enforcement fathers.
Which meant—
His phone rang, jarring him out of the black hole he’d fallen into. He grabbed for the phone, missed, and grabbed it again. It fell off the edge of the bed before he swiped it on and answered breathlessly, “Noah?”
“Cole? It’s Jacob. You okay?”
Cole sank to his knees, straightening the case files, trying to create order out of the chaos he’d strewn across the bed. “Yeah. I’m okay. I was digging into the files. I found out a lot more—Jesus, a lot more about who Garrett was targeting. His victimology, it changed. I don’t know why yet, but there has to be a reason.” He was babbling, almost incoherent, his voice shaking as he grabbed papers and photos.
“His victimology changed?”
“Yeah. It’s not just the daughters. He was targeting their fathers. Frank Foster used to be a cop. He had it in for the LEO dads, and he was punishing them by killing their daughters.”
“Fuck,” Jacob growled. “Cole, that’s a problem. A big fucking problem—”
“We have to find out why his victimology changed. What motivated this. God, I need to draw up questions for Noah for his interview tomorrow—”
“Cole, listen to me, damn it!”
“What?” He stilled. Papers fluttered past his knee. His hand clenched around the photo of John Hayes staked to the ground in his basement, reaching for his daughter.
“Andy Garrett.” Jacob exhaled. Cursed again. A radio sputtered static in the background. A sirenwhoop-whooped. “He escaped. About two, maybe three hours ago. We’re still trying to figure out when, and what happened.”
“Hewhat? How is that possible?”
“Officer Fuller was guarding him in the holding cell. I couldn’t sleep, so I went back to the office to go through more files. I went to check on Garrett, but Fuller was dead and the cell door was unlocked. Garrett somehow got him close enough to strangle him through the bars.”
“Fuck!” Cole threw his phone on the bed and grabbed his jeans and a T-shirt from his suitcase. He hopped on one foot, tugging on his shoes. Grabbed his gun and his holster and slid them on his belt. “What are you doing now?”
“We’ve got the entire metro area and the surrounding ten counties on alert. Roadblocks are going up. Every car is being stopped. Birds are in the air. We’re searching for him with everything and everyone. Everyone is getting called in right now.” Jacob’s voice was tinny through the speakerphone.
“Good. Have you reached Noah yet?”
A pause. “I thought he might be with you,” Jacob said carefully. “I couldn’t reach him when I called him.”
Law enforcement fathers and their daughters. A hand reaching for painted toes, but never making it.
“He’s not with me!” Cole shouted. “Jesus Christ, get a unit to Noah’s house! Now!” He hung up on Jacob and dialed Noah as he burst out of his hotel room, bouncing down the three flights of stairs and hurling himself through the lobby for the front desk.
Ring. Ring. Ring. No answer. He dialed again. Nothing. Again.
