Page 31 of The Girl He Crowned

“Mom? You want meto move to Virginia? But my job…”

“Your job is allover the place, from what I can see. Besides, isn’t Quantico in Virginia? You couldget to your job just as easily.”

“It’s not thatsimple,” Paige said. She doubted that she would be able to do her job withoutbeing in D.C., and shelikedliving in the city. The small towns of thecountryside held too many memories for her.

“Paige,” her momsaid. “I need you here. I already feel as though I’ve lost years of your life.I just want to be close to my daughter.”

Paige couldunderstand that, and she liked the idea of having her mom closer, especially ifshe was having problems. It was just that her mother was treating it like asimple thing for Paige to change her entire life around.

“I… I’m sorry,Mom, I’m in the middle of a case. I have to focus on that.”

“Just tell me thatyou’ll think about it.”

“I… ok,” Paigeconceded. “But I really have to go now. I have a killer to catch.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Paige woke earlyto the sun streaming through the window of her small hotel room. Small? It wasbarely big enough for the bed, hemmed in on every side by bookshelves so thatmoving too quickly threatened to produce an avalanche of paperbacks.

She hadn’t sleptwell, the covers around her tangled from where she’d tossed and turned in thenight. Questions of whether she’d had any role to play in the downfall ofChristopher’s marriage still mingled with worries about her mother and how theywere going to catch the killer here, producing a cocktail that kept Paige awakenow, staring up at the books around her.

She dressed andgrabbed her laptop, heading downstairs for breakfast. Christopher wasn’t awakeyet, but maybe Paige could make use of the time she had now to try to make someprogress on the case.

She sat at a tablethere with her morning coffee, trying to think about what they knew in the caseso far, and what that might mean in terms of the identity of the killer. Paigefelt sure that there was a way to get to the answers somewhere; it was just aquestion of finding that way.

Around her, theother guests at the hotel were waking up and coming downstairs. Some werereading in the nooks the hotel provided, while others were having breakfast orleaving quickly. Christopher still wasn’t among them yet.

Paige decided tolook at the three victims: Siobhan Maraty, Debbie Danton, and Melody Smythe. Theobvious place to start was with the fact that the first two victims knew oneanother. Was it possible that the third was also connected to them?

William Smythe hadsaid that his wife didn’t know either of the others, but would a husband reallyknow all of his wife’s friends, particularly if they were only minoracquaintances, or linked by something she didn’t want him to know about?

Paige started tosearch through Melody’s social media, looking for any sign of the two women.There didn’t seem to be any messages from either of them, but there wereseveral from men who were obviously hitting on her, and from the replies, itseemed that Melody liked the attention.

I always love aman who knows what he wants, especially a handsome one.

That wasn’t all,though, because it seemed to Paige that she was doing a lot more than flirting.

I’ll see you thisafternoon at your place.

If William Smythehadn’t had a good alibi, Paige might have found herself wondering then if he’d foundout about what was going on and decided to act.

She found moremessages, this time between Melody and her sister-in-law. They were anythingbut friendly.

You bitch. We’vegone to so much trouble to help you out with that gallery of yours, and you stilltreat us like we’re nobodies.

Pay us what youowe us, or your husband’s going to find out all the ways you’ve gone behind hisback.

Again, though,Paige felt like she was going over old ground. Harry Connaught wasn’t their guyany more than William Smythe, and Paige doubted that his wife had the size orstrength for the kind of attacks that had taken place in this series ofmurders.

They’d been overthis. More than that though, there didn’t seem to be any evidence that MelodySmythe knew either of the other victims. Did that mean that their connectionwas simply well hidden, or did it mean that Paige was looking the wrong waywith all of this, and the acquaintance between the first two victims was simplya coincidence. After all, they were both wealthy women in a relatively smalltown. There was no reason why they shouldn’t know one another at least vaguely.

Paige stopped shortat that thought. She couldn’t help thinking that the wealth of the women wassignificant in some way, even if in a town like Eddis it didn’t seem to beentirely unusual.

Did the wealthmatter to the killer in some way? It obviously wasn’t abouttakingthatwealth, because nothing had been stolen from the two victims, according to thepolice reports. Certainly, it hadn’t seemed as though anything had been takenfrom the Smythe household.

Was it someone whohad a particular hatred for rich people, rich women in particular?

Paige looked,hoping to find someone claiming that time was running out for the rich, or something.A site claiming that, along with a pendulum for a symbol, would have been anobvious path to follow back to the killer.

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