Latent Danger (On the Line #2)(31)

“Just under eight months would be more accurate,” Zach said.

Carville ran his hand over the smooth surface of the table in a nervous gesture Zach hadn’t noticed the last time they spoke with him.

“You see a therapist, Mr. Carville?”

This brought the man’s head back up, froze his hand on the table top, but only briefly. He resumed the gesture as he answered. “What does that have to do with any of this? It’s a good measure for any head of school or dean to take on. Somewhat like a psychiatrist, I’ve always thought.”

“How’s that?” Ronan asked.

“Well, I see it as part of the job. It allows me to do my job better if I have an outlet, someone to talk to, bounce things off where there’s a confidential relationship. It’s just like any good psychiatrist should have a therapist of their own, to help them handle things. It’s the same way with my therapist.”

“So it’s a purely professional necessity, not anything related to your personal life?”

“Sure, sure. If you want to say it that way.” Carville raised his hand in a take it as you will gesture.

“I’m not interested in how I’d say it. I want to know how you would,” Zach said.

When Carville didn’t expand on that, Zach moved on. “You left your last school when a girl made some accusations against you.” Zach glanced at his notes on his phone, though it was only for show. “When she said you made advances toward her. You hinted she could improve her grades if she agreed to perform certain favors.”

Carville sat up, hands pressed to the table. “She was a very troubled girl. There was a finding of no wrongdoing.”

“You left the school anyway?” Zach pressed, his tone letting Carville know he wasn’t convinced.

“Yes. I came here to work with an easier pool of kids. That school was the kind of place parents sent kids who were on their last chance to turn things around. It was a hard place to feel like you were making any progress, even if the stats showed you were. It was a constant struggle.”

Zach leaned in, his eyes dark and hard. He knew he could intimidate, especially with someone like Carville who just screamed soft. “I think you tried to fuck her. I think you used your position and got away with it there. It probably worked for you for a while, but things started to fall apart. You got frustrated. You came here thinking you could carry on what you were doing, but the girls didn’t cooperate here. You got angry and you lashed out.”

Carville paled and Zach could see the man was shaking. “How dare you? How—”

“You have a student group you run personally here, right?” Zach threw the question out. He wanted the man off balance and he had him close. “Future Leaders Something or Other.”

“Yes, yes. Future Leaders and Innovators. It’s a wonderful group. The students in it are chosen for their ability to lead.”

“Jonathan Sawyer was in that?” Ronan asked this, looking up from where he’d been taking notes on his phone.

“Yes,” Carville said, wariness evident, as though he didn’t trust where they were headed.

“Were any of the victims in the group?”

Carville’s mouth pinched, like he’d just tasted something sour. “Both of them.” He was quiet, his jaw tense.

Zach raised his brows and Ronan let out a low whistle.

Carville went back to rubbing the tabletop.

Zach pushed a notepad toward the man. “Write down the names of all the people in that group.”

When Carville had done that, Zach instructed him to write down his whereabouts for the times the girls went missing and the time of the murders, including anyone who could verify that information. It was time for them to check the alibis of Andrew Carville.

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Chapter Twenty-one





Zach stared down at the body, the emotions running through him going beyond raging, beyond screaming and throwing shit.

“He’s not even trying to hide the bodies anymore.” Shauna looked around as she spoke.

Ronan agreed. “There aren’t any cameras and not a lot of traffic on this stretch, but the body isn’t even out in the woods this time.”

A jogger had stumbled across the body at five o’clock that morning. The girl lay by the side of a stretch of wooded road only half a mile from where Adrienne’s body had been found. Her face was smeared with lipstick. More than what had been on the other bodies. And she’d not only been strangled, her face had been beaten.

“The beating was postmortem?” Zach asked Dr. Kane to confirm his suspicion.

“Yes.”

“That’s different.” Shauna frowned and knelt for a closer look. She stood a moment later when the photographer came in to take photographs.

“Any idea on ID?” Shauna asked.

Dr. Kane nodded. “Her identification was on her. That and a few dollars. Name is Candice Jordan.”

Zach looked to Ronan who was scrolling through something on his phone. He looked up a moment later. “Not a student at Elmhurst. Missing persons report was filed by her father two days ago. She was supposed to walk home from school, but never arrived.”

“Does she have money?” Zach asked, not to make any kind of judgments or anything. He was simply looking for commonalities in the victims. Things that could lead to a hint about where this girl might have run into their killer. It was that kind of thing that could tell them who this killer was.