Roses from My Killer Read online

  And she knew he’d want her to eat before going back to that place.

  Ignoring his suggestion, she gave him a peck on the cheek and started for the closet. “What’s for breakfast?”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  They opted for the breakfast in the B&B dining room.

  It was a buffet this morning, and Parker told Miranda to sit while he piled a plate for her with bacon, Southern style grits and a veggie-and-sausage omelet.

  Knowing she wouldn’t eat all that food without prompting, as he set it down, he gave her a stern clean-your-plate look.

  Okay, okay. She took a sip of the hot black coffee and dug in. The food was delicious. Fresh and cheesy and warm. And as she munched on a piece of crisp bacon, her head began to clear.

  Parker always knew what she needed.

  Wesson was chatty over a strawberry waffle she’d heaped high with whipped cream. “Afton called his attorney as soon as we got to the station last night. The lofty Mr. Weitz is flying in this morning, so I guess we’ll get to meet him in person. Afton said something about slapping us with a lawsuit.”

  Parker lifted his mug of coffee. “Nothing to be concerned about. The Agency has had lawsuits before.”

  Miranda hadn’t heard that before. She imagined Estavez, or someone in his firm, would have made mincemeat of anyone who’d tried to sue Parker.

  “Did they get Afton’s cell phone?” she asked.

  Wesson nodded. “They took it when they booked him.”

  “Did they find any text conversations with Josie?”

  “Not yet. Hill and Becker were working on it when I left.”

  She stared down at what was left of her omelet. “How’s Smith doing?”

  “Oh, man,” Wesson sighed. “Cindy’s so relieved we solved this case, she wanted to throw a party. She told me she hadn’t had a good night’s sleep since she found Josie in that house on the beach.”

  Miranda could relate to that. “I hope she got one last night.”

  They finished up, got into the Nissan and drove the short distance to Mariner Point and Afton’s lavish estate.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  The white structure glistened like a castle in the morning light. It was a luxurious place, even with the yellow crime scene tape stretched across the yard.

  Neighbors had come by to find out what was going on, and Hill had them lined up on the lawn along the bushes near one of the turrets for questioning.

  Where was Tremblay and her news truck? Miranda wondered as she crossed the front yard. Maybe she’d celebrated last night and was sleeping in. With Parker and Wesson behind her, once more Miranda climbed the stairs to the front door, which stood open.

  Inside several deputies from the county were going through the place room by room.

  In one of the bedrooms on the first floor, Miranda located Smith. Dusting for fingerprints, she was running a brush along the top of a dark wood nightstand that sat next to a huge four poster bed with a golden cover and a ton of pillows.

  “Have you found anything yet?”

  Smith turned to her, gloved hands up like a doctor about to go into surgery. “Not yet. But we’re going to find something. I can feel it.”

  Her eyes sparkled. The woman was glowing.

  She ought to be. She’d helped solve the biggest case ever to hit this area. Miranda hoped she was right about the evidence.

  Smith handed Wesson another pair of gloves. “Want to help?”

  “That’s what we’re here for.” She turned to Miranda.

  “Sure, go ahead.”

  Wesson slipped on the gloves, then got a brush and powder from a kit on the floor and the two began giggling together like schoolgirls.

  Miranda gave Parker a wry look, then moved out into the hall and up the staircase.

  On the top floor she bypassed the hall to the living room and headed the other way. She saw officers she didn’t recognize working in a large open kitchen going through the white cabinets and examining the granite countertops. She found Deweese in a nearby semi-circular dining area with high windows and tall wicker chairs surrounding an elegant table overlooking the sound. The color scheme here was an airy combination of white and blue and gold.

  “The place is a rental, fully furnished,” he said to them after exchanging good mornings.

  “So Afton doesn’t own this house.”

  “No. He rented it for a month, though.”

  Long enough to kill Josie and whoever those “others” were. Last night, she’d been thinking they were his ex wives. Last night that had seemed to fit. But Mia Brown and Catherine Judson both lived in New York. Maybe he was going to lure them down here, like he’d lured Josie into going on a date with him.

  “This place doesn’t happen to be managed by East Seaside Properties, does it?”

  Deweese shook his head. “No, another company handles it.”

  She let out a breath of annoyance.

  Hunting for trace, the detective ran an angled flashlight over the end of the table. “Afton didn’t say much last night, but he did insist he was here all Friday night.”

  “Could anyone confirm that?”

  “He couldn’t think of anyone.”

  “So he hasn’t got an alibi.”

  Deweese moved to one of the chairs. “Not yet.”

  “Mr. Weitz may help him construct one,” Parker said wryly.

  “Thanks.” Miranda said to Deweese.

  She stepped through a nearby set of sliding glass doors and onto a wide wooden porch with a white table and chairs.

  A nice setting for viewing the water.

  She shoved her hands in her pockets and stared out at the sound. She couldn’t shake the nagging feeling in her stomach.

  She turned to Parker. “What do you think?”

  His gaze followed the horizon in the distance. For a long time, he didn’t answer.

  “Parker?”

  “The evidence we have so far is circumstantial.”

  “So there’s little chance he’ll be convicted.”

  “Cases like this have been won before.”

  “With a high powered team of attorneys from New York defending the accused?”

  She was sure Weitz would bring in everyone he could.

  “It would be stronger if there were more evidence.”

  “And if there isn’t any?”

  His eyes narrowed, he seemed as troubled as she felt. “Then the prosecutor will have to go with circumstantial.”

  “And he could be wrong.”

  Parker’s jaw went tight. “That’s why it would be best if we find something definitive.”

  She knew it. He was having his doubts, too.

  He turned to open the glass door again. “Let’s help the police do just that.”

  “I will,” she said. “I just need a moment to process everything.”

  With an understanding look, he stepped back inside the house.

  Miranda took a set of outside stairs down to a tiled area with a kidney-shaped pool. Wondering why you needed a pool with all the water in the area, she spotted an officer dragging it with a grapnel.

  “Find anything?” she called to him.

  He shook his head. “No, ma’am.”

  She headed out toward the fence that edged the backyard. There was another set of wooden stairs there, these leading to a dock that stretched out into the water.

  She climbed the stairs and walked the length of it, her shoes clattering against the boards. When she reached the end she shielded her eyes and stared out at the water, her mind racing.

  No physical evidence.

  No sign of flowers or bloody clothes or gloves. No sign of Josie’s cell phone or her clothes. Or a bloody knife.

  Afton could have tossed most of that in a dumpster by now. Or burned the evidence in his fireplace or the backyard. Or just taken a walk along this dock and dumped everything into the water.

  Not enough evidence to convict. Only circumstantial.

  The sky
was starting to turn cloudy again. The wind was picking up, too.

  Her gaze wandered to the shoreline. Every house in this community was equipped with a dock like this. Most were empty now, but there was a boat or two waiting patiently for their owners to take them out for a spin. To the south, beyond the residential piers, she could see a marina where more boats were moored.

  She stared out at the sound that separated Roanoke Island from the two-hundred mile stretch of sand and beach that made up the barrier islands.

  Another thought struck her. How did Afton get access to that house in Nags Head? And why go there? Was he the one who’d taken those missing keys? What was his connection to the place?

  There were several boats out on the water. Skiffs and trawlers, several closed-cabin yachts. Even a patrol boat, keeping everyone safe.

  Diehard fishermen. She’d never comprehended going fishing for recreation. Not after she’d worked on a lobster boat in Maine. Fishing was hard, arduous work. Every muscle in her body had screamed at the end of each workday.

  Circumstantial evidence, she thought again bitterly.

  Barely enough to charge Afton, let alone get a conviction. There might be something of Josie left in that dark colored vehicle, though he’d probably had it cleaned. The man was careful, thorough. The first crime scene proved that. And they couldn’t prove his car was the one in the video from Bayside Manor.

  What if they couldn’t find anything else? Would she and Parker be left with their doubts while Afton was charged and the case proceeded? If he got off, would it be because she hadn’t done her job well enough? If he was convicted, would she always have to wonder if she’d sent an innocent man to prison?

  Last night. The look of shock on Afton’s face when she told him Josie was dead. It had seemed real, but she’d told herself he was acting. Once more she could hear his anguished cries when the police came. Those had seemed real, too. And beyond that, even though Afton seemed to have a bad temper and had been intensely angry last night, something about him just didn’t add up. After another moment, it came to her.

  He didn’t seem crazy enough.

  Not enough to kidnap his ex-wife and slice her up with hearts. Not enough to leave a message written on the wall in her blood.

  A thumping sound jolted her out of her thoughts.

  She spun around to face the house, expecting to see someone coming toward her on the dock. No one was there. Then she realized the sound was closer.

  Thump, thump. Thump, thump, thump.

  Her stomach started to churn, her skin to tingle. She felt that familiar itchy feeling. A swarm of vicious insects crawling up her neck and spine.

  It always came too late.

  She leaned over the piling and peered into the water. And then she saw it. The source of the sound thumping against the underwater pole.

  It was the body of a woman. Naked. Dead.

  Her long black hair floated lazily around her head, halo like. She dipped down into the water a moment, but as the body bobbed up again, Miranda got a better look at it. She could see the lovely face, the touch of Asian in the eyes, though the makeup had been washed away. The stubborn, fiery spirit that had once inhabited the body was gone, leaving nothing but a lifeless form. It was exactly who she’d thought it was.

  Angela Tremblay.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  The sight of the floating body made Miranda so dizzy, she had to brace herself against the piling so she wouldn’t fall into the water herself.

  “Parker,” she screamed.

  What was she thinking? He couldn’t hear her.

  She turned and ran toward the house. Cell phone, she thought, when she was halfway down the dock.

  Digging the phone out of her pocket, she dialed it with trembling fingers and pressed it to her ear.

  Parker appeared on the deck of the house just as he answered. “What is it?”

  “Get Deweese and Smith and anybody you can and get down here right away. We’ve got a floater.”

  It seemed to take an hour before they all reached the spot where the body was still bobbing in the water.

  Parker and Deweese climbed down into the water on a nearby ladder. It took three men and a neighbor in a small yacht to get her out and onto the dock.

  Someone covered her with a blanket, but before they did, Miranda took in what was on Tremblay’s body.

  Though the water had washed away the blood, she could make out the deep cuts in her flesh. X’s and O’s this time. Kisses and hugs. And in the middle of her abdomen, a big heart with the initials dug into the middle of it. JY.

  What did it mean? Had the killer been angry she hadn’t said more about Josie on the air? Though he’d left a similar message, he hadn’t seemed to take as much care this time.

  The body lay on the dock for the two hours it took for Dr. Lipman to make her second trek from Greenville.

  After examining the body, the coroner stated the time of death was sometime early this morning. It was as accurate as she could be, given the victim’s condition. COD appeared to be manual strangulation. Same as Josie Yearwood.

  When Ballard arrived on the scene, he insisted it was a copycat, but Tremblay hadn’t released information about the markings on Josie’s body in her broadcasts. She’d blurred the crime scene photos. No one but the police knew about the hearts and the initials.

  Why did the killer go after the reporter that was making him famous?

  Miranda didn’t know. What she did know was that he’d taken her sometime after her final broadcast last night. He’d worked on her during the intervening hours then dropped her into the sound. Maybe from one of neighboring piers, from the marina, from a boat. They couldn’t be sure.

  But one thing was certain. During that timeframe, Aaron Connor Afton had been in custody.

  They’d been wrong about him.

  He wasn’t the killer.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  And so they were back to square one—again.

  Miranda put everyone on the team on a systematic search of all the men on Josie Yearwood’s dating sites. No stone unturned. Do a background check on every last one of them. Find out their whereabouts over the last five days. Find out what kind of car they drove. Find out what they ate for breakfast.

  Parker put a call in to the television station, trying to get information about when and where Angela Tremblay was last seen. They gave him her address, but didn’t know when she’d left after her last broadcast. After he spoke to three different people, a woman took his number and said someone would call him back.

  Weitz had arrived in town an hour ago. As soon as he learned about the second victim, he demanded Ballard release his client. Reluctantly the sergeant complied. He was holding onto his theory of a copycat, but Miranda knew Afton was innocent.

  Of this crime, at least.

  There was a new guy on the news taking Tremblay’s spot. Far less flamboyant, he wore a bland face and spoke in a low monotone as he reported the demise of his coworker.

  A heaviness hung in the air like a thick fog over the ocean. The sense of failure, of death, of defeat permeated everything. The Manteo police were involved now, as well as the County Sheriff’s Office.

  Miranda’s team was growing.

  The whole area was in shock over the second murder. Calls came flooding into the police department demanding to know why their favorite reporter hadn’t had police protection.

  Ballard had to barricade himself in his office.

  When she went to get sodas for the crew in the break room, Miranda found him leaning on his arm against the refrigerator.

  He looked up when he saw her, not bothering to hide his feelings. “I can’t believe Angela’s gone. I was starting to have a real crush on her. I was going to ask her out when all this was over. Oh, God.”

  His eyes tearing up, he hurried out of the room.

  For the first time, Miranda felt for the man.

  She went down the hall and stood for a moment, watching the b
usy hub of activity in the work area.

  Suddenly she remembered something.

  She put the drinks down at an empty desk and moved to Deweese’s area where Parker stood looking over his shoulder at a long list of names from Love Prospectors.

  She touched his arm and he turned to her.

  “We never checked out that third guy on Josie’s website.”

  “You’re right. We didn’t.”

  She checked her phone for Becker’s old message. “His name’s Ernest Price. Lives in Wanchese. You know that.” They’d started that way yesterday.

  “Wanchese is about ten miles away,” Deweese offered. “On the south part of the island.”

  Parker’s back straightened. “That’s interesting.”

  “What is?”

  “The home address the television station gave me for Ms. Tremblay is also in Wanchese.”

  Miranda’s heartbeat kicked up. “We need to get down there. Can you break away?”

  “I can handle this,” Deweese said.

  Parker reached for the jacket he’d slung over the back of a nearby chair. “Let’s go.”

  “Everyone stay focused,” Miranda called out as she grabbed her coat and headed for the back door. We’ll get a short list together and prioritize it when we get back.”

  “Unless Price is our guy,” said Hill, giving her the thumbs up. He’d overheard the conversation.

  Miranda returned the gesture. “Right. Stay positive.”

  An almost impossible task after last night’s failure, but they could try.

  Once more Parker drove the Nissan back across the bridge over the sound, and this time turned left, heading south through an area with little but grass and trees and storage places and repair shops.

  “It’s early afternoon. Price might not be home,” he said, studying the sky that was turning cloudy again.

  They’d wondered about that yesterday.

  Miranda consulted Becker’s text. “He works for a seafood plant in the area. Let’s try him there.”

  After another five miles or so, they entered an industrial area dotted with boating suppliers and repair shops and maintenance services for seagoing vessels. They passed a dozen or so semi trailers scattered across a sandy lot, and a small harbor where commercial vessels were docked.