don’t recognize. The feeling of that.” He leaned forward slightly. “We’re meant to be connected to other people. And anything else feels foreign—alien—like we’ve been forgotten in a place where we don’t belong.”
Five angels mistakenly sent to hell.
Was that how their killer felt? Was that what this whole exercise was about? A desperate escape from whatever form of hell he’d found himself in—lost and alone? Forgotten? “Damn, Carlyle. You can spew some deep shit when your mouth’s not full of food.”
Ransom grinned. “Don’t I know it.” Then he raised the comic and went back to his reading.
Reed watched him for a few seconds, and then picked up the binder again, beginning on the first page.
The halfway house had been generous enough to list the names in alphabetical order and include any information they had on the habitant—former address, phone number if any, and dates of residence.
The list of names started five years prior and continued up through the current date. Reed read through them semi-quickly, flipping through the pages in the hopes that one of the names would stick out to him, but not expecting any to. As he got close to the end, he paused, moving his finger back up to the name he’d almost missed as his mind was only half on the task.
“Everett Draper?” he murmured.
“Huh?” Ransom asked, looking up from the comic.
“Draper,” he said, frowning. Reed sat up straight, pushing the binder back farther from where he’d had it leaned on the edge of his desk. “Gordon Draper’s grandson. The former director of Lakeside Hospital.”
“The dude who called about the comic?”
Reed nodded, thinking. He hadn’t mentioned anything about his grandson living at the halfway house, but why would he have? Gordon Draper hadn’t known the place was part of their investigation. And his grandson was dead. He’d committed suicide. Reed hadn’t asked how or why, it hadn’t been his business. The old man was obviously still torn up about it. It made sense, though, because if his grandson suffered from some form of mental illness, he would have lived in a halfway house or somewhere similar at some point.
Ransom’s mind was clearly going in similar directions, because he said, “All right. So the kid who lived at the halfway house had a grandfather who worked at the hospital where one of the victims was found.”
“Yeah,” Reed said distractedly. “But he’s dead.”
“By suicide.”
“Yeah.”
“Is it my imagination or do we have a lot of suicides on our hands in this case? I know we can rule out the falling deaths as murders, not suicides now. But we still have Sophia Miller, the girl who brought charges against Sadowski . . . Draper’s grandson . . .”
Reed glanced at Ransom. “I don’t know that that’s unexpected. The suicidality rate is high among the mentally ill.”
Ransom shrugged. “True.”
Reed chewed on the inside of his cheek, thinking. “Speaking of Sophia Miller, her mother said she dated someone at that halfway house, right?”
“That’s right. She did.”
“Think it’s possible it was Everett Draper?”
“Possible. And that would be another connection.”
“Yes,” Reed murmured, though what that might mean was still elusive. “I think we need to talk to Draper again.” Reed picked up his phone, going through his received calls from the day before and calling Draper’s number. He picked up on the fourth ring.
“Mr. Draper? This is Detective Davies calling.”
“Hello, Detective. This is a surprise. What can I help you with?”
“I looked up the comic you told me about. It was extremely helpful. Thank you.” He didn’t want to let on exactly how helpful the old man’s tip had been, not yet. It was something the media did not have, and something the killer didn’t know they had either. They needed to keep it very close to the vest at this point.
“Ah. So you’ve read it. Interesting stuff, isn’t it? If not a bit macabre. That appealed to my grandson, though.”
“Yes, ah, I’m actually calling about Everett. His name appeared on a list of residents who lived at a halfway house that’s come up in our investigation.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. Did you know your grandson lived at a halfway house right before his death?”
“Yes. Everett had issues, Detective. I made it clear he always had a home here but unfortunately, he preferred not to live by my rules, as reasonable as I believed them to be.” He paused. “I had hoped that house would be good for him. Living among his peers, gaining some independence. Finding a cocktail of medication that allowed him to function at a