She let her mind wander, as she did sometimes. Thinking of little Bump, of their family. Thinking of doing the right thing. This was when good deeds really mattered. When they were difficult to do.
Zoe glanced at Tatum, and he sighed. “Can I use your bathroom before we leave, Mrs. Carpenter?”
She almost said no. But then again, they had a small bathroom just across the kitchen’s doorway. “Sure,” she said. “It’s just over there.”
He followed her pointed finger, and she kept her eyes on him until she was sure he went nowhere else. Zoe sat down in front of her.
“Leonor.” Zoe’s tone was soft, just above a whisper. As if she didn’t want Tatum to hear. “There’s something important you need to know.”
Leonor said nothing, but she found herself leaning forward to hear the woman’s voice better.
“I knew Daniel back when I was a child,” Zoe said. “He was our neighbor.”
Leonor felt a flash of astonishment, followed by the sudden realization. “You’re the Bentley girl!” she whispered, smiling warmly. “Daniel told me all about you.”
CHAPTER 76
Zoe wasn’t sure if she could hide the shock that shot through her as Leonor said those words.
Daniel told me all about you.
Leonor hadn’t said it angrily or accusingly. In fact, whatever Glover had told her about Zoe made her seem more friendly.
She forced herself to smile lightly. “That’s right. I was fourteen when he left Maynard. I knew him quite well.”
“He told me you worked for the FBI, but I didn’t make the connection until now,” Leonor whispered, clearly intending not to be heard by Tatum. “He said you two stayed in touch.”
Zoe felt dizzy. With Glover, it was sometimes impossible to know the purpose of his lies—or if he even believed they were lies at all. As a teenager, she’d caught him lying a few times, and he always made it seem as if he was just joking. But occasionally, he almost seemed to believe the fabrications himself. Did he really think they had “stayed in touch”?
Perhaps he had told Leonor that story to make him seem more approachable. It turned him from a single man with no family to a sympathetic man, caring enough to stay in touch with the neighbor kid.
Whatever the reason, she could use it. “So he told you what happened in Maynard? About the girls?”
“He did.” Leonor’s eyes widened in sadness. “He even said the police suspected him. But you were there, so you know what happened.”
Zoe didn’t have to make an effort to guess what Glover had told the woman. “They caught the guy who did it,” she said. “A high school kid. He killed himself in jail.”
Leonor nodded, and her eyes flickered to the hallway and the bathroom door. “But your partner thinks . . .”
“Never mind what my partner thinks,” Zoe said smoothly. “I’m keeping this investigation objective. We don’t want to make any assumptions.”
Leonor seemed to relax slightly. “That’s right.”
Zoe chose her words carefully. “I’ll be honest with you. There’s some evidence linking Daniel to those crimes. But I get a feeling he was at the wrong place at the wrong time. But if we don’t get his version of what happens . . .” She shrugged. “Things don’t look good for him. The sooner we get a chance to talk to him and clarify everything, the better. That’s why I need to know when he talked to you and what he said.”
Leonor’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Like I said, I haven’t talked to him recently.”
She was losing her. Zoe thought fast. “He’d be safer if he turned himself in. The Chicago PD are looking for him.”
“I’m sure he’ll turn himself in eventually.”
Eventually? Then Zoe realized what the woman was talking about. “After he finishes his treatment?”
Leonor seemed to think it through. Finally she said, “I wouldn’t know. But I doubt he’d get the treatment he needs in prison.”
Zoe suspected that Leonor knew where he was right now. She had to make the woman see things clearly. “Do you know how he pays for the cancer treatments?”
Leonor’s forehead furrowed. “No. Like I said, we didn’t talk recently.”
“He sells pictures on the dark web. Pictures of his victims.” She opened her bag and drew out the pictures. She lay them down one by one.
“This is Shirley Wattenberg. She was twenty-two when she died. He raped her and strangled her and left her in the ditch like trash. This is the picture he took.”
Leonor glanced away in disgust. “You lied to me. You already decided