Every piece of evidence recovered from Swenson’s house just solidified his testimony. Could he still be unsub beta? Glover’s accomplice?
She tried to imagine a chain of events that fit the evidence they’d uncovered. Swenson had a short fling with Catherine, filming her in the process. Meanwhile his obsession about blood consumption grew. He began fantasizing about drinking her blood. Maybe he bit her during sex; Zoe would have to look through the videos. He went off his meds, becoming more and more volatile.
Then, when Catherine found out about the videos, Swenson began blackmailing her. Eventually she threatened to blow the whistle, and he killed her with Glover, also giving in to his urges and drinking her blood.
Once he did it the first time, he had to do it again. Already off his meds, he lost himself to his urges. So he worked with Glover, helping him to kill Henrietta. Then Rhea . . .
It was tenuous. It didn’t work. The evidence didn’t indicate that unsub beta had any sexual interest in Catherine Lamb. The blackmail didn’t fit with the profile of unsub beta either, who wasn’t one to take the initiative. Unsub beta didn’t plan. He followed. He reacted. And, of course, it didn’t explain all the missing pieces. The pentagram and the knife. Glover’s agenda in all this.
But the thing that struck her the most was that Swenson kept it together throughout the interrogation. Sure, they rattled him, and he was scared, but he didn’t exhibit any behavioral patterns that Zoe would expect from a man going through a psychotic episode. He was lucid and rational.
Had she been wrong about the whole thing? Could Glover’s relationship with his accomplice be just that—a friendship between two cold-blooded killers?
No. The evidence didn’t support it, and her gut didn’t support it either. Unsub beta was spiraling out of control.
Which meant only one thing. Swenson wasn’t the unsub. He wasn’t a killer. And Glover’s accomplice, the real killer, was still out there.
CHAPTER 65
“I’m sorry,” the pharmacist said. “I can’t give you antibiotics without a prescription.”
“It’s for an infection,” he said again, battling the frustration, no, the rage that bubbled up in his gut. He had to stay in control. “From a nasty scratch.”
“I understand, sir, but I need a prescription.”
She stared at him strangely. Could she see the real him, beyond his facade of normalcy? Had it emerged through his skin? He reflexively touched his cheek, but it felt the same as always.
“Do you have something for cancer? Brain cancer?” He wasn’t certain about the exact terminology. Perhaps he should have brought Daniel’s latest test results. But he didn’t even know if Daniel kept them, or where.
The pharmacist exchanged glances with her coworker. As if he couldn’t see it. As if he didn’t understand what was going on. They thought he was weird. Maybe they knew. Maybe they knew about Catherine, and about the woman in the train station, and about the third one currently in his house.
“Do you mean pain medication?”
“No . . . something . . .” Something that would fix the tumor. But that was idiotic; he should have known that. If there had been such a thing, Daniel would have taken it already.
It was the third pharmacy he’d gone to. Third. And that was after being delayed earlier. He checked the time, and a wave of dizziness made him lean against the counter, faint.
“Sir, are you okay?”
How was it possible? Could it really be the afternoon already? He tried to recall the day, remembered bits and pieces. Fragments of conversations. He’d panicked for a while and had been forced to catch his breath in the car. But that had been just ten or twenty minutes, right?
“Sir?”
He turned around and left. The man behind him in line seemed to shrink to the side to avoid touching him. They could all see. He’d finally lost control.
He’d go to a different pharmacy. The pharmacist was just a bitch, like the others. She didn’t want to help him. Daniel had been right: some women were just bitches. They just wanted men to suffer. He’d talk to a male pharmacist next time.
And then he saw the newspaper stand.
It was as if someone had punched him in the stomach. There were pictures of that woman on most of them. Rhea Deleon, the headlines called her. And pictures of Daniel.
But it was the picture of Catherine that really got to him. One of the newspapers had a picture of her