Latent Danger (On the Line #2)(28)

Kate felt a soft touch on her arm and opened her eyes to see Liz looking at her.

“I’ll go with you,” Liz said. “We can go together. They’ll care more that you’re coming forward now with what you know.”

Kate closed her eyes again, but she nodded before she could chicken out and change her mind. She would tell the cops what she knew about Sawyer.





Chapter Nineteen





“Holy...” Zach didn’t finish the expletive.

Zach, Ronan, and Shauna stood looking at the projection of Stephanie’s computer on a large screen in front of them.

“Thought you might want to see those,” Stephanie said, as though she hadn’t just pulled up evidence that would put the final nail in the coffin at Jonathan Sawyer’s rape trial.

They were looking at deleted messages from the Facebook group the Elmhurst Academy boys had been using to tell each other how far they’d gotten in their sexual exploits. Sawyer had posted pictures of Carrie and Hillary, letting the other guys know he’d slept with them, only to delete the posts later.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Zach said, as he realized what was wrong.

“Listen puzzle man,” Ronan said, referring to the way Zach often seemed to fit the pieces of a puzzle together, “this shows he was involved with those girls. It supports Hillary’s allegations and it also goes to motive. Hell, maybe all of this started because Carrie threatened to talk. He killed her to silence her, then got a taste for it.”

Zach dug his feet in. “No, something has been off about Sawyer from the start. I think he drugged and raped those girls, but I’m not convinced he killed them.”

“Why do you say that?” Shauna asked, her tone open, as though she was ready to hear him out and weigh his argument.

“Because, this makes no sense. If he killed Carrie and Adrienne, he wouldn’t have deleted the posts for Carrie and Hillary, but left up the one about Adrienne. He would have deleted it too, before she was found. If he only raped the girls, he might have gone and deleted the one for Carrie as soon as she went missing.”

“Maybe he just didn’t think Adrienne’s body would be found so soon. She was left out in the woods. It was a fluke she was found that easily,” Ronan argued. “And what was his reasoning for deleting Hillary? She isn’t missing. Why delete her but then post about Adrienne?”

Zach scrubbed his hands over his face, letting out a growl of frustration. “I don’t know.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense either way.”

Shauna spoke. “Let’s assume he isn’t our killer. What if he was just deleting the posts after a short amount of time. Sawyer showed us he’s cautious. He talked about his rights like he’d looked up legal rights and the limits of what we can and can’t do. He didn’t think we could get into the Facebook account, but surely he had to know we could if we got a warrant. So, what if this was just him being cautious about the rapes? He posts them to brag to his buddies, then deletes them soon after that? Only Adrienne was killed before he had a chance to delete that one?”

Stephanie clicked a few buttons while they all looked to her. When she looked up, she nodded. “It’s possible. Each post was deleted about three days after it was posted. He had a few others in there, and he tends to delete the ones that brag about his conquests within a few days. He leaves any posts up where he’s just rating a girl’s looks or whatever.”

The room was quiet as they digested the information. It was broken only when the intercom on Stephanie’s phone beeped before a voice came over the line.

“Stephanie, you got Reynolds in there with you?”

Zach recognized the voice as that of the desk sergeant currently on duty and answered. “Yeah, Phillips, what is it?”

“There are two girls here asking to see you, detective.”

The fact the man didn’t snicker when he said it told Zach it was probably linked to this case. No matter how much they all relied on humor to break the tension, no one was joking where this case was concerned.

“On my way,” Zach said as he thanked Stephanie and left the room, holding the door for Ronan and Shauna.

He couldn’t help himself. He breathed in as Shauna walked by, letting the scent of her calm his frustrations. Truth was, the scent of her added a different kind of frustration, but it was one he enjoyed. He couldn’t place it, but it was sweet. Sweeter than you’d think for a female cop who could take on a number of her male coworkers and win in a fair fight. Shauna was somehow powerful and graceful all at once, like she was born to the strength in her body and wore it with ease.

She turned her head, giving him a look that said she was aware of what he’d just done, and he grinned at her in return. He didn’t care if she knew. He needed the distraction right now.

She gave a small shake of her head with a laugh that gave him hope and strode ahead of him to where Ronan waited at the elevators.

When they got to the bottom floor, they found Kate Sorino and Liz Gordon waiting for them. The pair looked like an unmatched set. Kate fit the role of the wealthy girl who was part of the popular clique. Her clothes were casual, but you could see they were expensive. Her makeup was applied just so.

Liz stood next to her in clothes that might have been just as expensive as Kate’s but they somehow didn’t look the part. Her shirt and skirt matched but didn’t go together in quite the same way Kate’s did. Not that Zach knew a damned thing about fashion. That was probably why he couldn’t put his finger on what was wrong, except to say that it was off somehow. And her makeup was a little too heavily applied. Not in the way of someone who was going for the tortured teenager goth look. She had tried to look like she was going for subtlety, but it was coming off as anything but.