34

The task force met in the large conference room. Noah couldn’t help thinking about Kit’s comment. He’d wanted to offer to help her with the clothes thing, but thought better of it. When she’d left with her parting comment, he realized she’d read his thoughts like he’d had them stamped on his forehead.

How did she do that?

To survive the turmoil of his childhood, he’d learned at an early age how to keep his face expressionless, nothing about it revealing his innermost thoughts, and yet Kit seemed to do it without even thinking about it.

Unbidden, snapshots of his childhood flitted through his mind’s eye. Years in an orphanage, refusing to give in to the fear of the older kids, hiding his emotions, then his heartbreaking despair as he was shuffled from one foster home to the next with no adoption in sight—now Kit.

She stumped him.

He looked across at her and his heart twisted inside itself. He was going to have to share his past with her if he wanted to pursue a relationship.

“Noah? You have something you want to add?”

The question jerked him from his rare inattention and he flushed, his brain racing to catch up. What was the last thing he’d heard?

“Actually, Captain, I have something,” Kit interrupted.

Noah breathed a sigh of grateful relief. He owed her.

She said, “We’ve had no more bodies show up, but I don’t expect that to last long.” She swallowed hard. “I think he’s taken the girl who lives next to me, and if we don’t act fast, she’s going to die sometime soon. The crime scene unit found a miniature gavel under her sofa.” Kit drew in a deep breath and Noah ached for her sorrow.

She continued. “I feel like that was a message for me. For some reason, he’s zeroed in on me. He’s attempted to kill me three times. And now with Alena’s disappearance, I’d like to set myself up as bait and try to draw him in.”

That got his attention. Noah’s spine went rigid, his blood ran cold. Before he could protest, she went on. “I spoke with Alena this morning before my dip in the river, and she said that Corey had gotten into an argument with someone on the mock jury. She couldn’t remember his name, but I think we need to get a list of those jurors and start asking questions.”

“Sounds like an excellent idea, Kit,” the captain nodded. “Anything else?”

“One more thing. I think we need to talk to Justin Marlowe one more time without his father present. And while I don’t think he was lying about killing Bonnie, I do think he was lying about the knife that was used to cut off her nose, and I want to know why.”

“Do it.”

The meeting adjourned and Kit rose to leave. Noah followed her as she made her way back to her office.

He leaned against her desk. “Hey, thanks for saving my hide in there.”

She gave a small smile. “You owe me.”

“Yes, I do.” He cocked his head to the side. “What would you say if I think my friend has found you a house?”

“I’d say great. Where?”

“When this case is over and we find your friend, I’ll take you to see it.”

A knock on the side of her cubicle swiveled her attention to a man in his late forties. Salt-and-pepper hair cut in a fashionably shaggy style graced his head and black-rimmed glasses straddled his nose.

Kit lifted a brow. “Can I help you?”

“Are you the detectives investigating the law students’ murders?”

Kit lowered her feet to the floor and Noah stood from his perch on the side of her desk to hold out a hand. The man shook it and Noah said, “We are.”

“I’ve debated whether this had to do with anything or not but after Corey’s death . . .” His eyes teared up and he coughed. “Sorry. Corey was my nephew.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry.” Kit laid a hand on the man’s arm and directed him to a chair in the cramped quarters. He sat and Kit handed him a tissue. She said, “You must be Nelson Moseby. We have you on our list to question about Corey’s murder. We had a bit of an emergency with . . . uh . . . another suspect so we hadn’t gotten to calling you yet.”

“I’ll be glad to answer any questions you might have, but I think I may have found a connection between all of the murders.”

Kit’s gaze sharpened. “What do you mean? The only connection we really had was that the victims were law students.” She refrained from saying anything about the body parts that had been removed. That hadn’t been released for public knowledge. “And then your nephew is killed in exactly the same way as the other victims. The only thing is, he’s not a law student.”

“But he did sit in on the mock jury.”

“You mean the trial that all of the law students participate in?”

“Yes. I teach law at the college. I arrange the mock trials and sit as the judge over them. I pick several very promising students to act as the defendant and the prosecutor, alternating them throughout the trial to give them a taste of what it’s like. We do this throughout the semester, but only those with the highest grade-point average argue in the last one.” He sighed. “It’s sort of a tradition. Most law schools don’t do this, pick the best of the best, so to speak, but we do—and it’s the reason we get an incredible number of applications each year. Everyone wants to prove they’re the best.”

“Interesting.”

“They’re also responsible for picking the jury from the list of volunteers. Once they have twelve jurors and two alternates, the trial begins. Then right before the closing argument, the jury votes on whose closing argument they want to hear. All the students must prepare one, but only one gets to present it.”

“Very competitive. And your nephew was on this jury?”

“Yes. As were all of the other victims.”

Kit scrambled for a pen. “We need the names of all of the others who were involved in the trial.” So, she’d been on the right track after all.

“Sure, I figured you would.” He handed over a piece of paper he’d been holding for the duration of the conversation.

Kit took the paper and scanned through it. Her eyes screeched to a halt as she recognized a name. “And there’s Alena’s name,” she whispered.

Noah leaned over her shoulder. “Your missing friend?”

“Yes. Alena Pappas. She’s my neighbor. She was on the jury.”

“And now she’s missing. That’s the link. The jury. We have to warn all these people and get some protection on them.”

Kit’s phone rang and she snatched it up. “Hello?”

“Kit, it’s Connor, the captain and I need you and Noah in my office. Samantha just got a threat texted to her phone—with a picture of Andy attached.”

Kit bolted to her feet. “Be right there.”

She hung up and Noah raised a brow. With a thudding heart, she said, “Come with me, we’ve got a problem.”

“Let me just give this list to the captain.” Noah fingered the paper.

“He’s with Connor.”

Noah turned to the professor, who stood gaping at them. “Sir, I want you to stay here until someone comes to escort you home. Your life may be in danger and I don’t want to take any chances on you walking out of here without an officer with you.”

“What? Are—are you serious?” As the impact of Noah’s words hit, he paled and his throat worked, but he nodded. “All right.”

“You have any other family around here?”

The man shook his head. “No. My wife died last year and all my children are scattered around the globe.”

Noah took three minutes to track down the right officer and explain the situation, then he and Kit headed to Connor’s office. The assistant DA and Edward Richmond stood to the side, twin grim looks on their faces.

Edward shrugged at Kit’s startled look. “I hurried over as soon as you left the DA’s. Since he is no longer able to . . . um . . . supervise me, my professor arranged for me to shadow the ADA. He called and told me I needed to be in on this.”

“Right.” She really didn’t care right now.

Captain Caruthers sat looking at something on a Blackberry phone. Samantha held Andy in her arms. He watched his surroundings with wide blue eyes. When he saw Kit, he grinned around his pacifier and her heart melted. She walked over and planted a kiss on his bald head.

The tension in the room caused her blood pressure to spike.

Connor looked ready to rupture something. A vein pulsed in his head; his left hand opened and closed, balling into a fist, then releasing. Granted, she’d known him for less than a year, but she’d never seen him this angry.

“What is it? What happened?”

Samantha’s usually smiling face looked strained—and furious. “The creep you’re after threatened my son.”

“How did he get your cell number?”

“I have no idea. And don’t even really care. I’m taking Andy and getting out of town for a while. I’m not taking any chances with his life. Not after—” She broke off and swallowed hard.

Kit had heard the story of how Jamie’s stalker had come after Samantha, entering her home and nearly killing her while she was pregnant with Andy. “Let me see the picture.” She held out a hand and the captain passed the phone over to her.

Andy, asleep in his crib. The picture had obviously been taken through the window. The blinds were cracked, but the photographer’s intent was clear.

The next picture showed him awake and staring at the window.

Samantha paced and patted the baby’s back. “He took that picture of him sleeping and then another when he was awake. Why didn’t I know he was outside my house? Why didn’t I know someone was watching my child?”

Connor crossed the room and pulled her into his arms. He looked at Kit and drilled her first, then Noah, with his gaze. “Whatever it takes, whatever we have to do, we have to find this guy.”

“Absolutely. That goes without saying.” Kit shoved her desire for revenge to the back of her mind and focused on what they needed to do first. “The photo is date stamped. Look.”

Noah and Connor looked over her shoulder.

“That’s Saturday.” She looked at Sam. “Remember how you said he didn’t sleep well the night before?”

“Yes.” The light went on, then fury sparked her eyes. “He took those pictures Saturday evening.”

Kit squinted. “It looks like he put the camera right up to the window. He may have hit it or made some noise that woke up Andy.”

“He’d have had to have a pretty nice camera to do that. One that could shoot in the dark,” Connor muttered.

Sam shook her head. “I don’t care what kind of camera he had. I want him caught. Now. Did the victims’ computers have anything on them?”

“Nothing related to the deaths,” Noah said. “Nothing that would lead us to a suspect. No threatening emails, nothing.”

“Well, I’m out of here. My bags are packed and I’m ready to go visit Brenda Allen, a friend from college. She lives in Florida. My flight leaves in three hours.”

“I’ll be with her until she takes off,” Connor said, “then I’ll be ready to find this guy.”

Kit blew out a sigh. “All right. Be safe.” She looked at Noah and Captain Caruthers, who’d been uncharacteristically quiet during the discussion. “I want to find Justin Marlowe. Now. Alena is missing and I would like to find her. Alive. Because that’s the only way we’re going to find who’s threatened Andy.” She felt a tension headache building. “That was a very big mistake.”