but I’m self-analytical enough to know why. She pulls me into the deep, complicated puddle of grief, which muddies my mind and affects my performance.
For now, I settle on texting her: Mom. I love you. I’m safe. I’m working a case. I’ll call you tomorrow. I promise.
“There you go,” I murmur to myself. “I can take you out with my high heels and tell my mother I love you, all in the same night. I am empowered.” Those last words trail off. I am empowered. I can’t function in a place of fear, or I won’t be able to do this job. And this job feels like my purpose. It has since I was a small child. I sip my wine and set down my glass. “Okay.” I shrug out of my jacket, ready to dig in.
My mother returns my text: I love you, too, honey. Thanks for letting me know you’re okay. I worry. Guilt stabs at me, but guilt is not empowering. I need to be a better daughter. I know this. I will fix this. I will call her in the morning as promised.
I pull my case file from my bag and lay it in front of me. Next, I grab a pad and pen, scribbling down all my observations from the crime scene tonight. I circle: He’s killed before. I tap my pen on the pad. I need to back that up with facts. I start by downloading the reports Chuck sent me, and my attention immediately goes to a list of professors, teachers, and instructors in the city and state who teach literature. He’s gone so far as to turn the list itself into more lists and narrow down possible suspects based on random criteria: the description we have for the man at the poetry reading and any curriculum with poetry. Thankfully this narrows the list of thousands down to a short list, but I need to make it even shorter. Per Chuck’s notes, there’s also a poetry club on the UT campus, but he has no data on who runs it. More to come. And Lord help me, he’s diving into off-campus poetry/book clubs tomorrow. The list is not going to end.
I move on and try to find clues with a narrower path to travel. I scan the phone records for Summer. Chuck has given me the details on each person Summer communicated with. This man is golden, I swear, and worth a million chocolate bars. Summer took all of his business calls on his cell phone, but none of the people who attended the reading that night are cross-referenced to his call log. I tab through the deluge of data, and as always at this stage, find it too excessive.
He killed before.
He will kill again.
I know it.
I feel it.
I feel the absolute need to cut time and take actions I wouldn’t normally take, almost like a ticking clock on a bomb. And I know why. A husband killing his wife with cyanide is bad. A serial killer killing with cyanide is terrifying. His victims would have no chance of surviving.
Serial killer? Holy hell. He’s killed one person who we’ve confirmed. One person does not make a serial killer, so why am I going there? Why am I certain that’s exactly what we’re dealing with?
My mind returns to the parking lot tonight, to that moment when I felt like evil was trying to crawl right into my soul. To that moment when that evil felt familiar. My mind goes to Roberts’s swift departure and the possible connection he had to my father’s bad deeds. It’s time to consider this case somehow having a connection to me through my father.
Chapter 13
I text Chuck and have him cross-reference my father’s cases with mine and Roberts, as well as anything connected to the Summer case. I text because I don’t like to talk about my father. After I shoot off that message, I hesitate only a moment before I punch in an autodial number for Wade Miller, an FBI agent at the remote Austin office. His agent status is not only helpful right about now, it’s how I met him and how he became my ex, the one who should have been perfect for me but never was going to work out.
“Sam,” he greets, answering on the first ring. That’s something about him I’ve always appreciated. He’s reliable. “Is this personal or professional?”
I hesitate with my reply because this man was there for me, like really there