“And when is it?” I asked.
“Monday,” Richie said. “One p.m.”
Three days from now.
I stared at the board full of victims’ names—women we knew little about. Was Poulton right? Were two cases one too many for the four of us?
“Well, Gardner and I are spoken for down South,” Cassie said. “If Richie’s blown, that leaves one very special agent to go to the funeral.”
We all looked to Shooter.
“Sure.” She smiled. She put on the voice of a Southern debutante. “Gives me a chance to wear that little black dress I love so much.”
“Great,” I said. “Then let’s get the op going down South on the gun case. Once that’s dialed in, we’ll get Tech in Jacksonville to do a simple wire-up on Jo for the funeral.”
Shooter wasn’t going undercover, so we’d take the easiest and most reliable approach and have her wear a transmitter and a mic, taped to her person.
Everyone agreed, but to my right, Shooter was smirking.
“What?” Richie said to her. “What are you smiling about?”
“This feels like a perfect time to tell you all. I actually don’t own a black dress.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Cassie and I said our goodbyes, and I tossed my empty container into the trash. The soup was tasty, like Richie had promised, but I was still starving.
We packed up our rental car and headed to the airport. Five minutes into the drive, I got a call from Detective Quinones.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“En route to the airport,” I replied. “You got something?”
“A woman from one of the families just texted me.”
“What family?” I asked.
“Susan Jones’s.”
This was the hotel manager. The one who didn’t match the pattern. “We drove out to her family’s cabin this morning,” I said. “No one was there.”
“That’s her ex’s place,” Quinones said. “I just got off with the victim’s mom. She told me some cop is talking to herotherdaughter, Susan’s sister. I just wanted to make sure everything is okay.”
“Detective,” I said. “I can only track what my people are doing.”
“That’s the thing,” Quinones said. “I got two detectives doing follow-up from the tip line. None of them are over there.”
“Hold on a second,” I said.
I texted Shooter:
Are you and Richie still at the station?
A response came back fast.
Yeah. Why?
I stared at the phone. Who was talking to Susan Jones’s sister?
