to open a trap door and let her sink farther down.
Claire asked herself the obvious question about the masked man’s identity. Johnny Jackson was in his seventies. He was vigorous and athletic, but the masked man in the more recent movies was clearly younger, closer to Paul’s age. He had the same soft belly, the same hint of muscles that were too infrequently exercised at the gym.
Adam Quinn’s body had been toned. Claire hadn’t seen it, but she had felt the power in his broad shoulders and the hard muscles in his abs.
Which meant something, but she wasn’t clear what.
The computer monitor finally flashed to life. The desktop came up. As with Paul’s other computers, all of the folders were stored in the dock that ran along the bottom of the screen. She ran the mouse over the icons.
RAW.
EDITED.
DELIVERED.
Claire left the folders alone. She opened up Firefox and connected to the Internet. She typed in the words “Daryl Lassiter + murder + California.” This was the man Huckleberry had told her about, the one he believed had kidnapped and murdered Julia Carroll. At least, that’s what FBI agent and future congressman Johnny Jackson had told him.
Yahoo gave her thousands of links for Daryl Lassiter. Claire clicked on the top suggestion. The San Fernando Valley Sun had a front-page article about Lassiter’s murder during his transportation to death row. There were blurry photos of the three women he’d been convicted of killing, but nothing of Lassiter. Claire skimmed a lengthy bit about the history of California’s death penalty, then found the meat of the story.
Lassiter had abducted a woman off the street. A witness had called 911. The woman was saved, but the police had found a “mobile murder room” in the back of Lassiter’s van, including chains, a cattle prod, a machete, and various other instruments of torture. They had also found VHS tapes, and on the tapes a “masked Lassiter tortured and executed women.” The three women pictured in the article were later identified from missing persons reports.
“Joanne Rebecca Greenfield, seventeen. Victoria Kathryn Massey, nineteen. Denise Elizabeth Adams, sixteen.”
Claire read each name and age aloud, because they were human beings and because they mattered.
All of the identified girls were from the San Fernando Valley area. Claire clicked through some more links until she found a photograph of Lassiter. Carl Huckabee had not had the Internet at his fingertips back when Sam Carroll had killed himself. Even if he had, he wasn’t likely to seek confirmation of what his friend the FBI agent had told him—that the man on the tape who murdered Julia Carroll was the same man they had caught in California.
Which was why Huckleberry would have no way of knowing that while Daryl Lassiter was tall and lanky, he was also African American, with a tight Afro and a tattoo of the Angel of Death on his muscular chest.
Claire felt the last bit of her heart give way. Somewhere, somehow, she had been hoping against hope that Paul’s father had not been the man in the tape, that Julia had been murdered by this stranger with the piercing brown eyes and a dark scar running down the side of his face.
Why couldn’t she give up on him? Why could she not reconcile the Paul she had known with the Paul she now knew him to be? What sign had she missed? He was so kind to people. He was so fair about everything. He loved his parents. He never talked about having a bad childhood or being abused or any of the awful things you hear about that make men turn into demons.
Claire checked the time on the computer screen. She had another eight minutes before Paul called. She wondered if he knew what she was doing. He couldn’t monitor the cameras inside the Fuller house all of the time. He would be driving just under the speed limit, keeping both hands on the wheel, staying as unobtrusive as he could lest the highway patrol stop him and ask what he was keeping in the trunk.
Lydia would make noise. Claire had no doubt that her sister would raise hell the minute she was given the chance.
Claire just had to find a way to give her sister that chance.
She leaned her elbows on the worktop. She looked at the folders on the dock. She let the mouse hover over the one labeled EDITED. Her finger clicked the mouse. No password prompt came up, likely because if someone was