“Explain,” Blayne said, softly caressing his thumb across Ethan’s calf muscle.
“This is going to sound horrible, but here goes.” Ethan let out a sharp breath before going on. “As long as I had him, I didn’t need to date. It’s like he gave me enough of what I needed, so I didn’t worry about myself, my own feelings or relationship needs. I got all the physical intimacy I needed and the rest of my needs from my family and friends. It’s hard to mourn a person when you were both using each other.”
“That’s pretty deep,” Blayne said.
“I’ve spent the last couple of days running all this over in my mind again and again. I know I’m sad about what I lost. I’m mad as hell someone killed him, but maybe this frees me to find something else, something more.”
“Come here.” Blayne opened his arms to Ethan. Ethan scooched across the couch and let Blayne wrap his arms around him in a gentle hug. “Now I completely understand why you needed to get away from life for a few days. Damn. I don’t know what I would do if I were in your shoes.”
Ethan pulled back a bit to look up at Blayne. “You wouldn’t be in this position, because you wouldn’t have been dating a hopelessly closeted soap opera star.”
“True that,” Blayne said, nodding his head. “But I’ve dated and slept with a ton of closet cases over the years. Okay, well, maybe not a ton, but I’ve had more than my fair share of them.”
“Oh, and there’s one more thing I need to tell you,” Ethan started.
“Yes?” Blayne said, nervousness flashing across his face.
“My name’s Ethan, not Roy.”
* * * *
Agent Murphy
After she spent the afternoon at the airport helping coordinate the first responses to the Peregrine Airlines crash, Agent Murphy had wanted to go home and sleep. Sadly, leaving her office wasn’t on her agenda any time soon. The sound of a new email hitting her inbox broke her concentration as she wrote her report from the afternoon. She grumbled a moment at the loss of her train of thought but opened it, anyway.
She read the subject line,Dunning and Hawthorne Forensic Analysis Report. She double-clicked the email and began skimming through the document, looking for the important parts. The female victim’s neck had been snapped.Expected that one. No bullet had been recovered from the male victim. However, shards of ceramic in the wound were found during the autopsy.Wow, didn’t expect that.On a hunch, Murphy pulled up the ViCAP—Violent Criminal Apprehension Program—database and looked for unsolved murders where a ceramic bullet had been suspected. She skimmed through the information. Several pretty high-profile assassinations had been, and a few lesser-known ones stood out as being eerily similar.Clearly, we’re dealing with a pro.How has no one put this together?
She kept reading the report. Based on the evidence pulled from Daniel Hawthorne’s cell phone, he had received a message from Cynthia Dunning earlier in the evening. The report read…
Our specialists believe a message was received, but we could not find what the message contained. We checked his phone and the server backup after getting a court order. Both were wiped clean. Someone went to great lengths to delete any evidence of the content of the email. We know the email was automatically forwarded to two other cell phones. However, the email trail may be a red herring, not the message sent and received.
Unfortunately, both email addresses were associated with freemail.com accounts. We’re still in the process of getting a court order to get access to those. However, previous experience with freemail.com has led us to believe those will be dead ends. Freemail.com prides itself on the anonymity of its users, so there’s no way to trace the emails back to their originators. Again, let us reiterate, we are still not one hundred percent sure the email is even the right trail to follow. We need to get our hands on a phone with the message still intact.
Murphy reread the paragraphs, trying to make heads or tails out of it. She moved on to the next segment of the report. She read through the trace evidence found at both Dunning’s and Hawthorne’s residences. There was little-to-no evidence at Dunning’s place, which didn’t surprise Murphy. The assassin was clearly a pro and knew how to clean up after themself. She then read the evidence from Hawthorne’s house.
The DNA within the condom did not match the victim. However, DNA outside did.
She took a second to let that tidbit of information settle.This definitely backs up what I learned from McNeil this afternoon. If I were a betting woman, the other sample is Ethan Bond’s.
She sent the forensics team a quick email asking them to get sample DNA from Ethan Bond for the missing person case. She wasn’t sure how, but Ethan seemed to be the center of this shitstorm.
* * * *
Blayne
Blayne had put the spaghetti in the boiling water when there was a knock on his front door. He added a quick dash of salt and olive oil before heading to it.
“Good evening,” Kira said, walking into the apartment with a bottle of shiraz.
“Good evening,” Blayne said. “The spaghetti just went in the water, so we should be ready to eat in about fifteen minutes.”
“Perfect. I’m starving. I missed lunch.” Kira entered the living room, strolled right up to Ethan, extended her hand and said, “Kira Strickland.”
Ethan stood up, grabbing Kira’s hand, saying, “Ethan Bond. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Ethan? I thought your name was Roy.”
“Long story,” Blayne interjected. He watched as Kira raised an eyebrow. He could only imagine what was going through his friend’s head. Thankfully, she didn’t pursue the interrogation any further.
