Midnight Betrayal (Midnight #3)(88)
The police hadn’t been totally incompetent, thought Conor. They hadn’t charged him without physical evidence to corroborate the circumstantial. In the end they’d figured out the killer wasn’t Conor. Not that he was going to point that out right now. Maybe she didn’t even know. “Too bad you couldn’t predict that.”
“I gave them way too much credit.” Her eyes went crazy wide. Her face twisted into an angry, animal-like snarl. The girl was freaking out, the gun in her hand trembling out of anger, not fear. “I’d thought they would follow the clues to the logical conclusion. You and Dr. Hancock were involved with that ritual killing in Maine together. You were the last person to see me. I left some strands of hair in your apartment and your car. It should have been airtight.”
“It’s been a rough day.”
She waved the gun. “Oh well. I’ll have to improvise. At the end of the night, it’ll still look like you killed Louisa, then turned the gun on yourself.”
Yeah, dying or letting Zoe kill Louisa were not items on his to-do list for the night.
Just behind Conor’s boots, Louisa stirred. Without moving his head, he dropped his gaze. He could just see her in his peripheral vision. She was struggling to sit up. Even if she got to her feet, she couldn’t run. Not with the concussion he suspected she’d suffered. Rage competed with panic in Conor’s chest. Zoe had done that—and much, much worse. All because she wasn’t the star of the university? No, there had to be more.
Conor needed to keep Zoe talking. The police had the address. It was only a matter of time until they showed up. “Isa was older than you and a year ahead in school. Why would Professor English give you the grant instead of her? She’d been working with him for a year already. Dr. Hancock told me you’d probably get the grant next year. Why not just wait?”
Zoe’s eyes narrowed in anger. “Age has never been a factor for me. I’ve gotten everything I’ve set out to achieve, except the grant that bitch stole from me. Working with Dr. English? Is that how you think she got the grant? She was f*cking him. She thought she was so smart, but he was f*cking other girls too. Professor English isn’t very discriminating.”
“What about Riki and the other girl? Who is she? Why did you kill them?”
Zoe glared at Conor as if he was an idiot. “I killed the other two girls to cover my tracks. I threw Dr. Hancock in to cement your guilt, to make my plan a complete circle, and because she wrote me up for being late a few times. Tardiness. What the f*ck does tardiness have to do with brilliance?”
Conor let the truth wash over him. Zoe had killed a fellow student over a grant. But not in a fit of jealousy. This had been cold, calculated, premeditated murder. Zoe had planned every detail. She’d taken opportunities to improve her scheme along the way, like adding additional killings and framing Conor for the deaths.
She’d done a bang-up job of it too. She might have gotten away with it if she hadn’t gotten cocky and kidnapped Louisa. Actually, Conor thought, staring at the gun, she might still get away with it.
The threads of her twisted logic were unknotting in Conor’s mind. “How are you going to win the grant if you’re presumed dead?”
“I’ll be found at another location, dehydrated but alive.” She lifted her hands toward him. Plastic ties encircled each wrist. The too-tight binds had left bloody rings in her skin. “See? I have ligature marks on my wrists. They’re on my ankles too.” Pride beamed from her smile. “I won’t know why you didn’t kill me. Maybe you were driven to suicide when you killed Dr. Hancock. I won’t dwell on that. I’ll consider myself lucky and not look back. I’ll be the brave survivor of a crazed serial killer.”
“What was my motivation for killing the girls and Dr. Hancock?”
Zoe lifted a hand in a that’s an easy one gesture. “Before you blow your brains out, you’ll write a note of apology to your siblings. You’ve always had a violent side. You’ve managed to keep it in check, but the killing in Maine whetted your appetite. And since Dr. Hancock was the only one who figured out the truth about what you were doing to her interns, she had to be killed too. But you also loved her and couldn’t live without her.”
“No one who knows me will believe that.” As he argued, terror swept cold over Conor. She’d studied him.
“The opinions of your friends and family don’t really matter. The police will buy it. You were a boxer. That implies a certain comfort level with violence. You’ve been in two physical altercations in the past two weeks. The media has blown them both out of proportion. Heath will attest to your bloodlust. If that gangbanger dies, I’m sure the police will try to hang his death on you too.” She smiled as if she knew a secret. “I’ve been watching the news at night on my laptop. You’ve been on the top of the suspect list the whole time. Convincing them won’t be hard.”
No, it wouldn’t. Jackson and Ianelli had wanted Conor so badly for these crimes. They’d jump on Zoe’s explanation. Conor already thought he knew the answer to his next question, but he asked anyway. Anything to spin out some more time. “Did you stab Hector Torres?”
“Is that his name?” She lifted a barely interested shoulder. “I went to the alley behind your bar this morning. I tossed Isa’s bloody clothes in the Dumpster. He was hiding and saw me. I couldn’t risk any more variables.”