Sixty-one

Yuma, Arizona

“Alvarez?” Church craned her neck for a moment, trying to see what was inside the booth that sparked such an odd question. “No. I haven’t seen him since …” The confusion on her face cleared up, replaced by skeptical comprehension. “He left the conference room to grab a cup of coffee.” She shook her head. “Santos and I were buried so deep in research, I just assumed he’d grabbed some files off the stack and settled in at his desk.”

“But you never actually saw him do it,” Sabrina said quietly.

“No, I just …” Church shook her head. “What are you thinking, Kitten?”

Sabrina took a second look around, just to make sure, half hoping she’d spot him in some dark corner talking to an overlooked witness. No witness. No Alvarez. “Alvarez didn’t duck out for coffee.” Aside from the pair of crime scene techs, they were the only two in the building. “While we were all focused on finding him, he took the opportunity to leave the precinct.”

“Him? You mean Alvarez?” Church narrowed her eyes for a moment. “You think he did this?”

Hearing Church say it out loud, it sounded crazy. A lot of people went to U of A. If she complied a list of people who’d attended the college during the years the killings Church and Santos found, it’d probably be as long as her leg. But how many of them moved to Yuma months before the first victim was found? How many of them were cops? How many of them had access to their investigation?

Despite the mounting evidence, Church was still having trouble buying it. “But what, that gave him a five- or ten-minute jump on you? No way he had time to get the job done that quickly.”

Ten minutes at best, but once you add in her surprise visit from Phillip Song, Alvarez’s lead nearly tripled. Plenty of time to get here before her. He’d left the room before she’d announced her plan to come here and confront the priest. He’d had no way of knowing she’d be here to interrupt him.

But why now? Had he meant to kill Father Francisco? Had something triggered him, or had it been an impulse? Everything she’d learned about Nulo over the past few days told her that giving into impulse wasn’t how he operated. “What was he doing before he left?” She looked at Church, could feel the desperation coursing through her. “He was sitting at the conference table—was he reading something? A journal or maybe—”

“The lab report.” Church narrowed her eyes for a moment—not at her but at the memories she’d been asked to recall. “On the cat you found in the prayer garden last night.”

“Are you sure?”

Church nodded. “Positive.”

Whatever was in that report had been damning enough to set Alvarez off. Scared him enough to push him over the edge. “Did you read it? What was in it?” Probably evidence that pointed directly at him.

“I didn’t,” Church said, giving her a pensive look. “I was in the middle of picking it up when you texted me.” She shook her head. “I just tossed it into the file box you had me swing by and grab from the hotel.”

Her cell phone rattled on her hip and she reached for it. “I need you to get a copy of it,” Sabrina said, punching her finger against the screen. It was a text from a number she didn’t recognize.

375 Bahia

San Felipe, Mexico

You’re welcome.

Seeing it reminded her that despite evidence to the contrary, Paul Vega was involved somehow. He was hiding something. What other reason could he have for shipping Graciella Lopez off to Mexico? “Croft outside?” she said, clipping her phone back onto her waistband.

“Yeah, he’s out there.” Church shot a glance at the main doors to the sanctuary. “He got here before we did.”

Sabrina nodded. “Good,” she said, moving past the techs, couched over the spot where she’d found Father Francisco. “I’ve got a job for him.”

She was halfway up the aisle when it hit her—what it was that had been bothering her about the pair of techs since they arrived—and she turned around to look at them, just to make sure.

Neither of them was Ellie.