Page 49 of The Perfect Obsession
“That’s not a very convincing answer from a man under arrest for multiple murders,” she said acidly.“Care to try again?”
He was quiet for a moment.When he answered, his voice was thick with regret.
“Because Amanda didn’t know about it,” he said.“Everyone joked about me dating Caroline and Diana.Amanda joined in the teasing.It was all good-natured—no jealousy.But I wasn’t sure if she’d be so sanguine about the Jennifer hookup.And after so many years of keeping it a secret, it felt like admitting to it would be this big thing.So I never did.”
“How do you know Jennifer didn’t tell her?”
“Because she told me she didn’t want Amanda to know either,” he said.“She felt the same way.We were both worried that it would cause awkwardness or worse.And since it was just one time years ago, we just decided to bury it.I had no idea that anyone else even knew about it.How did you find out?”
“I learned about it from Riley Sinclair.But it sounds like it was common knowledge.”
“Who?”he asked.
“Riley Sinclair,” Jessie repeated.“You don’t remember her?She was a junior when you were all seniors.”
“I think the name sounds vaguely familiar,” he said.“But I can’t really place her.I guess she was one of the friends who kind of fell away over the years.I only really kept track of the ones that Amanda still actively stayed in touch with.”
That jibed with what Sinclair had said, too—that over the years, she’d fallen out of communication with the others.If Krantz was the killerandhe was being truthful, it seemed that Sinclair was safe from him, as he appeared to barely remember her, much less hold some kind of grudge.
On the other hand, if he was being honest about being unaware that anyone knew about him and Jennifer, that muddled his reason for killing her, if he did it at all.Why kill her over a secret she was keeping?The other question was: who else might have known about their involvement, and could they have some reason to kill all these women?
“How well did you know Alannah Murray, Kylie Stoner, and Tess Singleton?”she asked.
He shrugged.“I mean, I know their names, that they went to Thornfield and were generally part of the friend group.But I’m not sure I could pick any of them out of a lineup these days.”
That last comment made his whole face sag.Jessie suspected that he would be pictured in a lineup sometime soon.But she didn’t care about that at the moment.
“Look, Mr.Krantz, I’m going to be straight with you,” she said.“Right now, you’re on the hook for this.Some people will claim you did all this yourself.Others will suggest you were in cahoots with Amanda and then killed her to shut her up.”
“Who says that?”he bellowed, his face turning red.
She plowed ahead without answering.“I’m willing to entertain the idea that it was someone else who did all this.But if that’s the case, we need your help to determine what might be motivating the killer.There are still four women out there who are potentially at risk, if not from you, then from someone else.I need you to help us find the connective tissue among them.”
He shook his head violently.“Don’t you think that if I could, I would?The woman I love is dead.My whole life is in shambles.If I had some magical answer for you, I’d already have given it.I feel like I’m being set up to take the fall for this, and I don’t know why.”
Jessie froze at hearing that.It was an intriguing idea.If one were to give Krantz the benefit of the doubt, then the theory that he was being made a patsy suddenly seemed credible.Why would the killer leave the tie beside Amanda Krantz’s dead body when they didn’t do the same with the scarves that served as the other murder weapons?
If he was being set up, that meant the real killer was still out there and that all four remaining women from Thornfield were potentially in danger.
“I’m going to ask you this again to be clear,” she said.“Did you ever have any romantic or sexual involvement with any of the women I just mentioned: Riley Sinclair, Alannah Murray, Kylie Stoner, or Tess Singleton?”
“I swear I didn’t,” he implored.“Like I said, I barely know who they are.”
If that was true, then there was some other connection among all these women, something Jessie had missed, something that still put them all at risk.
“Detective Hernandez, can I speak to you privately for a minute?”she said.
Ryan grabbed the phone and stepped out of the interrogation room.
“What’s wrong?”he asked.
“If he did this, then the other women are safe,” she explained.“But if he didn’t, and I’m open to that possibility, then I think we need to take it to the next level.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t think that the private security personnel at hotels, resorts, gated communities, or apartment buildings are sufficient.If this person got into people’s homes without leaving a trace of their identity, then they can probably get past rent-a-cops too.”
“So what do you want to do?”he asked.
