Laurie didn’t want to believe that Dwight was dead. Three hours after Detective Reilly’s departure, she wanted to hear that this was all some misunderstanding. When Dwight had called last night, she was so wrapped up in tracking down Steve Roman and his connection to AG, she hadn’t even found the time to return his phone call. Now that sweet man—that sweet, overgrown boy—was dead, and she was convinced that his death had to be connected to her investigation into Susan’s murder. And she was wondering if she could have stopped it.
Timmy was upstairs playing video games, but the adults all huddled in the den to watch the television coverage. Between Keith’s phone call to Martin Collins and the news reports of Dwight’s death, they were on edge. The LAPD had obtained a warrant for Steve Roman’s arrest, but he was still at large. Was he still in Los Angeles, on his way back to San Francisco, or on the run toward the Mexico border? Could he return to target the team again?
At the sound of the doorbell, Grace let out a yelp, then placed a hand to her chest. “Oh my Lord. I’m like some girl in the middle of a horror movie.”
Leo went to the front door, gun in hand, and gazed through the peephole. “It’s Detective Reilly,” he announced.
Laurie could feel their collective relief.
“Sorry to disturb you,” Reilly said, entering the den with a laptop already in hand. “First I’m afraid I have some bad news. Dwight Cook’s body has been positively identified. I’ll spare you the physical details, but there’s no question that it’s him.”
Laurie blinked back the tears that were starting to form.
Alex leaned toward her and whispered, “Are you okay? We can take a break.”
She shook her head. “No, I’m okay. Please, Detective Reilly, tell us the rest.”
“I didn’t realize this when I was here earlier, but apparently this house is owned by Dwight Cook?”
“Yes,” Laurie said. “He lent us the house to help us out.”
“Help you out, huh? See, one of my fellow detectives was going through Mr. Cook’s computers as part of their investigation. Apparently Reverend Collins wasn’t the only person keeping an eye on your production. Cook had every inch of this place wired for surveillance.”
“Like, spying on us?” Grace asked. “Not to speak ill of the dead, but that’s straight-up perverted.”
“Not your showers or anything like that,” Reilly clarified. “But pretty much everything that has happened in this house since your arrival is on video.”
“The house is usually vacant,” Laurie said. “It would make sense he’d have a state-of-the-art security system in a high-end property like this.”
“It’s not only a matter of the equipment,” Reilly explained. “Given how the video files are set up, we can tell that Dwight actually viewed them. We can also tell when he was watching and what footage he watched. Apparently he stopped watching last night at nine twenty-three P.M.”
Laurie checked the voice mail log on her own cell phone. “He called me just a few minutes later. He said he needed to talk ASAP.”
“We were in the middle of trying to figure out Steve Roman’s connection to our case. I didn’t have time to call. Obviously if I had known . . .”
She felt her stomach drop as Reilly rolled his eyes, clearly frustrated by the dead end.
“Well, here’s the thing.” Reilly flipped open his laptop on the coffee table and began tapping away. “Dwight watched a couple of clips repeatedly.”
He turned the screen so they could all see it. “One clip was the attack on your friend,” Reilly said. Laurie felt sick as they watched the brutal assault on Jerry. Reilly paused the tape just as Jerry’s masked assailant rose from his bloodied body. “See that insignia on his shirt? We’ve got a tech trying to sharpen the image, but at least the body type is consistent with Steve Roman.”
“So Dwight must have called me because he had Jerry’s assailant on video,” Laurie said.
Reilly was shaking his head, fast-forwarding through the video. “I doubt it. He saw the assault for the first time three nights ago and has replayed it multiple times since. He would have called you earlier. But here.” He slowed the tape. “This is the segment Dwight watched right before he called you.”
Laurie immediately recognized the scene from yesterday: Keith, Madison, and Nicole, side by side on the living room sofa, discussing the day Susan was killed. Reilly played the interview to its end and then paused it. “It looks like he kept replaying the very end. Is there some reason he’d be interested in that scene?” Reilly asked.
“I have no idea,” Laurie said. “He wasn’t really friends with any of them apart from Susan. I’ve got to ask, Detective Reilly. If you have colleagues searching Dwight’s computers, are they certain Dwight’s death was an accident?”
“No. If anything, it looks like the scene was staged to seem accidental. They found traces of bleach throughout the entire interior of the boat, and according to the medical examiner’s initial inspection, the nitrogen levels in his tissue are inconsistent with having scuba dived that night. The current theory is that he was already unconscious when his body hit the water.”
“Could this be more of Steve Roman’s crime spree?” Laurie was thinking aloud, wondering if Roman would have a reason to go after Dwight. “The alternative is that Dwight knew something about one of the other suspects.”
“That’s our theory,” Reilly said, “especially if he figured it out as he was watching the end of this video. I thought you might realize its significance.”
Laurie shook her head. What are we missing? she thought.
The buzz of Laurie’s cell phone broke her concentration. She wanted to throw the thing across the room until she saw that the call was from Rosemary Dempsey.
“Hi, Rosemary. Can I call you right back—”
“Are you watching the news? They’re saying that Dwight Cook is dead. And now there’s a warrant out for some man named Steve Roman, and it has something to do with the attack on Jerry? Are we in danger? What in the world is going on?”