Tatiana feeds them into the system. A red flag immediately pops up.
“What’s that?” I point.
“That, my freakishly-tall friend is a clue,” Tatiana chuckles. “Her fingerprints match those at two crime scenes.”
She punches a few more keys, and we’re looking at the pictures of Zack Cicero and Elijah Hahn, the ex-boyfriend whose car ran off a mountain. “Detectives found fingerprints at both scenes, but there wasn’t enough evidence to keep them from going with the conclusion of an accident. So, they filed it away.”
“You’ll send those findings to Detective Janecek?” I sink into a chair.
“Already on it. Plus, the prints are still running through the system, so we might get more hits than this. Maybe find out where she came from?”
Think. Think. Think.
I spin round and round in the chair. “So, Dr. Keres came to D.C. the same time I did. She’s somehow tied to Dash Malum, although we don’t know how. And circumstantial evidence leads us to believe that they’re responsible for the disappearances and deaths of my former boyfriends, right?”
“It’s like a Lifetime movie up in here,” Tatiana laughs, then sobers. “Whoops. Sorry. Rand’s still missing. Right. Priorities.”
I glare at her. “You did a search for Jackie Keres and Dash Malum?”
“Is the Pope Catholic?”
“Fine. So, you found nothing. Of course, she would change her name,” I spin in the chair some more.
Tatiana reaches out and stops the chair from spinning. “Lawdamercy! You and Rand are perfect for each other. Y’all love to spin the tar out of those chairs.”
Pain stabs me in the heart, thinking about how perfect Rand is for me. Like we were made for each other. Like destiny.
I frown. “It’s weird. This ghosting has been going on for years. Since I was in high school. Since Dash was in high school. Is it possible he knew the doc then?”
Tatiana clicks away. “Anything is possible. What am I searching for?”
“Dash went to Yearley Academy in Tampa,” I squint, trying to recall more details. “Maybe you could search their archives or yearbooks and look for anything that talks about destiny or fate?”
The tiny hacker snorts but gets to work. “Well, it’s like I’m blind in one eye and can’t see out of the other.”
“I don’t know what that means, but it doesn’t sound good.”
She points to the screen. “Does that woman look familiar?”
I walk closer to the screen. There’s a picture of a young Dash Malum sitting in the library with a dark-haired teenaged girl. They’re huddled over a mythology book. The caption reads: Juniors Jackie Jankowski and Dash Malum start Mythology Club at Yearley.
“Zoom in on her face,” I order Tatiana.
As Jackie’s face gets more prominent on the screen, there is no mistaking it’s her.
“She had resting bitch face even as a teenager,” Tatiana snorts.
It’s not the RBF that captures my attention. “Look at her body language. She’s leaning toward him. He’s leaning away. She’s touching his arm, but he doesn’t notice. Shit. It’s like she’s been in love with him since they were teenagers.”
“If that’s the case - you’re in her way,” Tatiana states.
I flop back into the chair. “So, they met in high school. She’s in love with him. They have these… beliefs. And she’s doing all of this for Dash, right? Somehow, she thinks by helping him kill, he’ll love her back. But he referred to ‘temporary women.’ What if he’s just using her to get to me?”
“Ain’t nothing angrier than a woman scorned,” Tatiana raises her eyebrows. “Except my Aunt Lurlene when you get into her peach pie before it’s cooled.”
I snicker. I’ve seen Lurlene on the warpath. Not a pretty sight.
“I think we can use that to play them against each other when we find her,” I pause as an idea takes root in my brain. “We have to find her.”
