Page 45 of The Girl He Wanted

Paige flipped through the pages, pointing out the differences in the handwriting. "Look at this section. The notes in blue are much more technical, while the ones in black are more personal. It's like someone else was writing in the margins, responding to Dr. Kostopoulos's work."

Christopher leaned in, studying the pages. "You're right," he said finally. "That means ... what? That Dr. Kostopoulos shared his copy of the book with someone?"

Paige felt a sense of excitement building within her. This was something new, some new clue that could break the case wide open.

"Think about it. These notes, the way they argue with one another. It's like he had an assistant, someone who was working on this with him, editing him as he went, challenging him."

"An assistant who might be just as obsessed as he was," Christopher said.

Paige nodded. "An assistant with access to the model of the tower, one who could have applied the blood to it. What if ... what if the reason Dr. Kostopoulos felt so guilty was that he worked out what his assistant was doing? What if he felt as though he was the one who had sent him down that path?"

"Why not just call the cops then and tell them?" Christopher asked. "Why wouldn't he just report his assistant to them?"

Paige shrugged. "I don't know. Not for sure. Maybe he felt responsible for his assistant's obsession with the Tower of the Winds. Maybe he felt like it was his duty to try and help him."

Whatever the reason, Dr. Kostopoulos had died without telling them about this other person. That meant that their identity was a secret, one that Paige and Christopher would have to figure out.

"Go through everything here again," Paige said. "See if you can find anything that might point to who this person is. I'm going to look through Kostopoulos's social media again. If he has an assistant, maybe there's a picture of them somewhere."

Christopher nodded, already back to rifling through the documents. Paige took out her phone, scrolling through Dr. Kostopoulos's social media accounts. She knew that it was a long shot, but it was worth trying.

As she scrolled, Paige's mind kept returning to the idea of an assistant. If Dr. Kostopoulos had been working with someone on this, then there was a good chance that they had access to all of his notes, all of his research. They would have known more than enough to do all of this.

Paige paused on a photo of Dr. Kostopoulos at a conference, his arm around the shoulder of a younger man. The man was smiling into the camera, looking happy and carefree.

Me and Alvin at a conference of people actually willing to listen for once, the caption read.

Paige went back through Dr. Kostopoulos's other photos, trying to find more pictures of the young man. She found a few, including one of him and Dr. Kostopoulos standing in front of the Tower of the Winds in Greece.

"Look for any reference to an Alvin anywhere," Paige said.

"There's an Alvin Richards who's thanked in the dedications to a couple of the more recent books," Christopher said. "And the name Alvin comes up in a couple of the notes."

Alvin Richards? Was that the name of the assistant? More importantly, was that the name of the killer? Was that the man who had murdered three women and left them in high places as offerings to the wind?

Also, where had Paige heard that name before? She felt certain that she had, but for a second or two she couldn’t place it.

Then she did.

She started as she remembered, pulling up the police files from Ellie Kane's murder. The police had interviewed several passersby who had seen the body, asking them if they had spotted anything suspicious.

Alvin Richards had been one of them. He'd been there. Had he been watching it all, watching the local cops, laughing at them while they tried to deal with such a horrific murder?

Paige looked for Alvin Richards online, quickly finding his social media. In it, she saw something else that made her stop short: a picture of him in climbing gear, halfway up a rock wall.

"It's him," Paige said. "It has to be him."

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

They found an address for Alvin Richards through the DMV and started driving over there as quickly as they could in the storm. Paige clung to her seat as Christopher sped through the streets of the city, weaving in and out of the little traffic on the road, ignoring the way the water made the streets slippery as they cornered. Paige's heart pounded with anticipation. She didn't know what they would find when they got there, but she knew that it wouldn't be good.

Would Alvin fight when they got there? Would he try to run? Paige knew that they had to be ready for anything that he tried.

The house was a small, rundown place on the outskirts of town, with peeling paint and an overgrown yard, obviously not cared for compared to the houses around it. It was a far cry from the mansion where Dr. Kostopoulos lived. Paige and Christopher parked the car and got out, approaching the door cautiously.

Paige hesitated, her hand hovering over the doorbell. "What if he's not here?" she whispered.

There was no sign of a car in the driveway, while the house was quiet, with no sign of life inside. But that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Maybe he was just hunkering down out of the storm.

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