August 2019
Minneapolis
The next morning, while Jason was still sleeping, Sofia hid downstairs, logging onto her fake Instagram account, looking for anything new. Idly she scrolled through the feed.
Then she saw a picture Ali had posted and froze, the hairs on her neck tingling. It showed him hugging some other guys. He was in Somalia. He had left the country. No wonder she hadn’t seen anyone at his house the other day. Fleeing the country was an obvious huge fucking red flag.
She punched in Detective Marley’s number. “Ali Yassin is gone. He left the country.”
“It’s five in the morning, Mrs. Kennedy.”
“For god’s sake call me Sofia. And I don’t care what time it is. What if he left because he killed her, because he’s guilty?”
“He had an alibi.”
“Yeah, by his girlfriend who used him as her alibi, as well.”
Silence.
“Is he cleared?”
Marley gave a long sigh. “No. Not completely.”
“What about the girl? Or his roommate?”
“Why don’t you come in later and we’ll chat. I wanted to ask you some questions anyway about some leads that have come in.”
“Leads? What about my neighbor?”
“Meet me at the station at nine.” He hung up.
Sofia sensed rather than saw Jason behind her.
“What’s going on?” he said, his voice thick with sleep.
“Nothing,” she closed the laptop hoping he hadn’t seen the screen. “Detective Marley wants us to come in at nine to discuss some leads.”
He didn’t answer.
“Jason?”
“Are there any leads?”
Sofia blinked.
Jason sighed and ran a hand through his hair.
“You don’t want to come?”
“Do you want me to? I was going to get dressed and go to the grocery store to get what we need for the dinner.”
The dinner. Her heart skipped a beat. It was tomorrow. Jason was going to the grocery store instead of helping her find their daughter’s killer. Jesus Christ.
Sofia wanted to scream, Of course, I god damn want you to.
But then she realized it might be better if Jason stayed far away from any knowledge of Kate’s killer. It was better he didn’t know. That way he would never be accused of helping Sofia.
She stood and walked over to him, brushing his bangs back from his forehead and leaning in to kiss his cheek. “If it’s anything important, I’ll bring you up to speed.”
She worked her jaw, thinking. Coming up with a plan. Suddenly, she noticed the silence. She looked up. Jason was watching her. She’d nearly forgotten he was there.
Detective Marley would have made a terrible poker player.
The first thing he asked after Sofia settled into her chair at the police station, was what she knew about the manager at the bookstore where Kate had worked.
Her eyes grew wide. “Is he a suspect? That mousy little man?”
He shook his head. “Mrs. Kennedy.”
“Sofia.”
“Sofia, everybody is a suspect until they are not.”
She chewed on that for a second.
“Am I?”
He shot her an amused look. “No.”
“Is Jason?”
“Nope.”
“Who else is cleared that we know.”
“Frankly, nobody else is ‘cleared’ if that’s what you mean.”
“The neighbor?” She gave him an exasperated look. “Is he still a suspect?”
“He’s a person of interest. But so are a lot of other people.”
“Like Ali?”
“Maybe.” He shrugged.
Sofia leaned forward and caught a whiff of cigarette smoke. She couldn’t believe she’d never smelled it before. “So, how could you let him leave the country?”
“Let him?”
“Yes. Let him.”
“With all due respect, you’ve been watching too many episodes of Law & Order.”
Sofia felt the rage boil up inside. “With all due respect, fuck you.”
He stood and put his hands out. “Hey, hey, hey, I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. But you can’t roll in here telling me how to do my job. I’ve been busting my ass to find who did this to your daughter.” He paced. “My kids are angry because I’ve missed every swim meet, every gymnastics match. My wife is on the brink of divorcing me because I’ve missed every dinner and every teenage hormonal melt down that she’s had to deal with solo for the past three weeks. You’ve got to let me do my job.”
Sofia watched him with eyes wide. And then guilt swarmed over her. He settled back into his chair. “Again, I apologize for patronizing you, but you have to understand the only person—besides your husband—who cares more about making an arrest in this case than you—is me.”
Sofia chewed on her lip. “Then why do you call it “this case” and why do you refuse to say Kate’s name most of the time. Your words make me wonder how invested you are in solving my daughter’s murder.”
“Aha. I get it now.” He raked a hand through his hair. “It’s like this. I’m the father of two girls. Seeing a girl a few years older than them murdered is a punch to the gut for me. I know your daughter’s name. I know more about her than you’d ever dream. That’s my whole life right now. I’m so immersed in your daughter and her life and her death that I’m neglecting my own life. Some cases fuck with me, pardon my French, more than others, and this one, a girl a few years older than my two, well, Sofia, this one fucks with me royally. So, if you think I don’t give a shit, based on a few words I use, you are dead wrong.”
Sofia had been listening carefully. When he was finished, she stood, pressed her lips together tightly, and nodded. “Okay.”
He cleared his throat and waited until she met his eyes.
“By the way, for some reason, I can’t find anything in the papers about your parents being killed.”
Sofia felt her core grow cold. Keep it together.
She cocked her head. “Really? That’s odd. But things weren’t really online back then.” She put a confused look on her face. “I was pretty young but you’d have thought it would’ve been a big deal at the time.”
It seemed like he looked at her for an extra-long second, but then he stood.
Driving away, Sofia knew she was right to want to find Kate’s killer herself. Her father was wrong about 99.9 percent of the things he’d taught her, but surprisingly, on this one thing—we don’t call the cops, we handle it ourselves—he’d been right.
Marley was playing a game. He knew she had lied about her name and her past. Did that mean he knew about Angelo? She needed to find out who killed Kate before Marley found out who Sofia really was and what she was capable of doing.