Page 94 of Mistletoe and Malice
John tapped some keys on his laptop and studied his screen. “Okay, this all started with the attempted grab Saturday, November ninth. No video. Composite drew only a few dead-end tips.”
“But we now know the guy disguises himself, so that tracks.”
“Affirmative. Suspect left a card for Riley at the front desk of her building on Monday, November eleventh, another Wednesday, November thirteenth, and one on Friday, November fifteenth. Video footage shows what appears to be a different person each time, but we’ve pretty much verified it’s the same guy. He also called her on that Friday, clearly altering his voice.
“Our cyber team—working in conjunction with Petersen—discovered a cloned social media page had been created on Wednesday, November thirteenth, five posts altogether, including the three with doctored images. Petersen had it taken down by Saturday morning, November sixteenth. We also know sometime that week—we suspect between Tuesday and Friday afternoon—he broke into her home and trashed the place.”
“That window is based on …?”
“No muddy footprints or anything else he might’ve tracked in. It was a downpour on Friday, with the storm parked over us well into Saturday evening.”
“Makes sense.”
“We have nothing to tie the break-in to the messages she’s received, so that’s conjecture at this point.”
“I don’t believe in coincidences.”
“I don’t either, so that’s why we’re assuming it’s connected. Riley received another card Monday, November eighteenth.”
“That’s when we tied him to the grab.”
“Affirmative. We do have fingerprints from the envelopes, but nothing in the system. He used water to close the envelopes, so no DNA. Still, I’m shocked he delivered them without wearing gloves. It’s winter. It wouldn’t have been out of the ordinary.”
“Maybe he isn’t aware we can get prints from paper. Or maybe he expected Riley would open them and throw them out.”
“All decent possibilities. Moving on. We didn’t think anything else had happened that week until he made us aware he’d been at the shelter Thanksgiving dinner.”
Colton rubbed his brow. “That kept me awake that night after seeing that photo, wondering how we missed scratch marks on the guy’s hand. I talked to Paul and Trevor about it the next day, and Trev mentioned there were three that day who were amputees. One missing his left arm, but two missing their right. We know this guy can disguise himself. What if he somehow concealed his arm under baggy clothing and presented himself as an amputee?”
“Hmm.” John rubbed his chin. “We have video from the two television stations that were there. We can run through it to see if anyone sitting in the photo’s vantage point area has only one arm.”
“Okay, next.”
“Next came the call on Monday, November twenty-fifth, followed by the package with the photo from the Thanksgiving dinner and a tube of lipstick from her purse the day of the abduction attempt. Tuesday, he saw her leaving the office with her detail, then called her on Wednesday to tell her about it. She also received a photo in the mail of the donor drive. At least she wasn’t in this one, so he didn’t get that close.”
“Close enough. How can we not spot this guy when he appears to be everywhere? He must not be a great shot, or doesn’t have the firepower, because if he wanted to take her out long-range, he could’ve done it by now. That and taking the chance on Saturday tells me he needs to be close to get a shot off.”
“I tell you, when I heard those shots Saturday night, I couldn’t get Avery on the ground fast enough. It wasn’t about anybody but her at that moment.”
“Yeah. I hear ya.” He knew exactly how that felt. The second he’d heard that first pop, his training had him pushing Riley to the floor in the split second before the second. But if that first round hadn’t hit Trevor center mass, would it have found its mark? Or would he have been the one to take her bullet?
As it was, they were fortunate that only one of the other shots grazed a gentleman who was treated and released at the scene. It could’ve been a hundred times worse if anybody had been seriously wounded or killed.
John gave his head a shake. “Anyway, no cards last week but two phone calls, then the shooting Saturday, December seventh.”
“We did catch video footage of him coming in with other kitchen staff. And the guy looks nothing like the composite or the videos of the card deliveries. He must have ditched the disguise on his way out, though, because there’s nothingshowing him leaving. Unless he waited it out somewhere and simply walked out later like any other guest of the hotel.”
“Sure would help if we had a motive for all of this.”
Colton scratched his chin. He probably should’ve shaved that morning, but after a restless night and no assignment to report to, he didn’t want to waste the time he could be meeting with John. “We might.”
John sat up straight. “I’m all ears.”
“What if this all ties into the Shane Everett case?”
With a nod, the detective glanced around the bustling room before leaning closer with his arms crossed on the desktop. “That one’s on my list, too, since the messages she received appear to be warning her off.”
Colton kept his voice low, considering their location. “The abduction attempt occurred five days after her press conference announcing she was taking over Shane’s appeals. I was out of the country at the time, but I watched a tape of it later, and she says right out Everett’s innocent, and she’s putting all the resources at her disposal into finding the truth.”
