Bingo, I thought. That’s what had set off his fixation on female athletes.
“After hours of interrogation, he’d finally confessed that he would meet the athletes, flirt with them, and then casually ask if they were seeing someone,” she continued. “If they said yes, he drugged their drinks and lured them away. He usually killed them nearby and then took them to the nearest body of water.”
In the case of Lake Echo—which was more a reservoir than a traditional lake—he hadn’t taken into account that in nine months, we would receive almost no rain. That meant the lake levels dropped so low that the water was much shallower than when he had dumped the body, making it easier to find.
As for Iris, his plan was to kill her and set my cabin on fire, leaving her body in there. When Diden and Steve had shown up, his plan was to add them to the body count as well. He had been dragging Diden’s body back to my room, where he planned to tie them up and then set the fire. But when he heard me come in, he made a quick escape out the window and ran to the shed. He saw thebutane tanks in there and used the rest of his fire starters on the shed so it would ignite and hopefully trap us all in the house.
“Unfortunately for him, they ignited faster than he thought,” Andrews added. “That meant he had injured himself in the process, slowing down his ability to chase after all of you.”
Especially since he hadn’t planned on us going the weird route down the mountain that Iris took us—which, God love her, not only saved us from the flames but also from Jennings.
He was also the one who had broken into Iris’s apartment. After the letter had been dropped off, Jennings had convinced himself that Iris really did take something from the crime scene, so he wanted to search her place to see if he could find it.
“The cotton ball that was found at the scene had a forensic chemical preservative solution on it,” Andrews explained. “He wanted to look for any other evidence left on her clothes after she washed them from the lake. He used some kind of ethanol agent to slow down evaporation until he could get it home, where he had a full forensic kit ready.”
“Damn,” I responded, pissed, but also mildly impressed Jennings was this elaborate in his execution.
“Our forensic team knew what the solution was on the cotton ball very quickly, but we just didn’t know why they used it, or who,” Andrews pointed out.
He’d thought he had done a good enough job of cleaning up and leaving no trace behind, but he’d failed.Especially the part where he’d broken her lock as he kicked in the door—which apparently had happened in haste because he’d heard voices coming around the corner.
Given his medical condition, Jennings had been arraigned from the hospital with a police guard twenty-four-seven since he was deemed a flight risk. He was also denied bail for the very same reason. It would likely be months before his actual trial, but knowing he would be in jail the entire time was a small blessing.
I had been staying at Iris’s apartment since my cabin was condemned. She hadn’t asked me to leave. and I hadn’t wanted to. She needed a bigger bed because my body—especially with hers next to me—was too much for a queen bed.
I had ordered a king bed to be delivered today, and we’d move hers to storage if she wanted to keep it.
I had just pulled up to her apartment complex when the delivery company called to say they were ten minutes out.
Iris was working from home today since she had done a career day event at UNLV this morning. When I walked in, her gaze moved straight to me, and she smiled from her position on the floor as she played with Sarge.
He came to greet me as I walked in, and Iris rose from the floor to join him.
“So, I have a surprise,” I told her as she leaned up to kiss me.
“Is this one of those ‘I have a surprise for you in mypants’ kind of surprises, or more like a ‘I finally decided to take Nancy up on her offer and come play cards with you and her friends tomorrow night’ kind of surprise?” she asked, causing me to laugh.
“Neither, though I like the first idea a lot better than the second,” I told her, pulling her into me and wrapping my arms around her waist.
“Okay, I’ll bite.” She smirked. “What is it?”
“I talked to my boss, and he agreed to let me buy the property on the other side of the ridge near the Wash Wetlands, so long as if I decide to sell it later, I allow the Parks Service to make the first offer,” I told her.
We had been looking to sell off some property near the edge of the park where the old ranger outposts had been but had held back for fear a large developer would come in and put in a strip mall.
I promised O’Connor I just wanted to build my cabin near where I was before, but not in the exact same spot because I hadn’t wanted any issues with PTSD for Iris or anyone else. He agreed, and we would sign the paperwork next week.
She beamed at me, and it was too irresistible to ignore. I crushed my mouth to hers, devouring her, enjoying the soft little noises she never seemed to know she made when I kissed her like this.
Sarge barked, breaking me out of my lustful thoughts, followed by a knock at the door.
Shit. I had gotten so caught up in her that I hadn’t finished telling her the rest of the surprise.
“There’s one more part of the surprise, and I think it’s here,” I said, turning to go answer the door.
“Well, that’s not cryptic at all,” she muttered behind me.
Expecting the delivery people, I chose not to look at the peephole and just opened the door, which was why I was shocked to see Nancy on the other side.
