Deadly Heat (Deadly #2)(71)

“But today we’re following some new leads.” Monica pulled out photos of the vics and spread them out on the table. Lora glanced at Carter’s picture and waited for the pain to come.

It didn’t. Just… a wave of sadness.

What could have been…

“Other than Creed, did you have any contact with these people before their deaths?” Monica asked.

Lora stared at the faces, the unmarred faces they’d had before Phoenix, and shook her head. “Maybe I saw ’em on the street, but I didn’t know any of them.” Well, okay, she’d heard her brother mention Tom Hatchen once or twice. He’d called the guy a dick, but she’d never met the guy.

“Jennifer…” Monica’s nail tapped against the picture. “Tom. Charlie.”

“I didn’t know them.”

Kenton leaned forward. “Something’s there. Louis Jerome—he was killed because he saw something. Or he knew something. We had word that he wanted to talk about an arsonist—”

“The arsonist just got to him first,” Monica finished.

“Because he didn’t want anyone talking.” Kenton exhaled on a rough sigh. “He must have figured that Larry saw something, too, and that was why he took him out.” His fingers brushed over the photos of Jennifer Langley, Tom Hatchen, and Charlie Skofield. “But these three—these three…”

“Maybe they saw something, too,” Lora blurted. Could be. If he was killing witnesses. “They don’t have to be linked to me.” She did not like that idea.

The door of the Interrogation room swung open slowly.

A woman stood there, wire-framed glasses perched on her small nose, her red hair pulled back in a tight knot. “Or maybe he saw them.”

Kenton jumped to his feet, sending the chair snapping back. “Sam?”

Monica’s eyes widened. “Wh-what are you—”

The woman’s thin shoulders stiffened. “Hyde sent me up here with Dante. I–I’m backup. I’ll be working with Jon.”

And Jon Ramirez stood behind her, wearing the usual expressionless mask on his face.

“I thought you were taking some time off,” Kenton muttered.

“Got tired of that.” Sam licked her lips. “I—I have something I wanted to show you.”

Monica pushed away from the table and walked slowly to her side. “Are you okay?” Her voice had softened, letting in a whisper of worry.

Uh-oh. For Monica to show worry, something bad must have happened to the woman.

Sam’s smile was brittle. “Fine. Don’t worry about me.”

Ah, Lora knew how those words felt. Like a lie.

The new agent pushed a file at Monica, then glanced Lora’s way. “Uh… you’re Lora, Lora Spade?”

She tossed her a smile and tried real hard to look friendly. “My name gets around, huh?”

“I’ve been… pulling your records.”

Oh. Not so good, but she kept her smile in place.

“I’ve been pulling a lot of records. You’re not directly linked to the other victims.” She crept away from Monica and took the empty seat on the right of Lora.

Her words registered slowly. Not directly linked? Right. That’s what she’d been trying to tell them.

“And from what I gathered, they didn’t know each other either.”

“Sam—that’s Special Agent Samantha Kennedy—can find anything on a computer,” Kenton said, appreciation warming his voice. “The woman can dig every skeleton out of your closet with a few keystrokes.”

A dangerous talent.

“I didn’t just use a computer this time. I started to see a pattern, and I knew I had to do more digging.” Sam’s lips pulled down.

A pattern?

“I went to Memorial Infirmary and did some talking to the nurses there. It turns out, a few months back, one of Jennifer Langley’s patients… ah, received the wrong medication.” Her hands brushed the tabletop, skimming just below the pictures. “This was the third time that someone had a dose of the wrong meds on her watch.”

Uh, interesting, scary, but…

“Jennifer was suspended,” Sam continued. “The cops didn’t press charges against her because there wasn’t enough evidence.”

“Shouldn’t our cops have found this?” Kenton demanded. “Malone was sending a team to question friends and family members of all the victims—”

“Captain Lawrence is fully aware of the allegations against Jennifer Langley. He’s been investigating her.”

Lora didn’t speak. She just watched and waited.

“Let’s talk about the other victims first.” Sam’s gaze darted to Lora, then back to Kenton. “We’ll come back to the cops.”

That didn’t sound good.

One of Sam’s brows rose. “Did you know that Tom Hatchen was arrested eight months ago for domestic violence?”

“No.” Kenton’s immediate reply.

Lora blinked and remembered a small woman, with short black hair, staring up at the blazing remains of that garage. Her face had been dazed and blank with shock.

Sam licked her lips. “His arrest was right there, nice and pretty for me to see in the system.” Her gaze darted to Kenton.