“They’re doing it wrong.” He kneels down and starts dragging out shoe boxes from the bottom of the wardrobe. “Who needs this many shoes?” he asks, ending up with twelve of them surrounding him.
I grab one from the top of the pile and pull it open. Black combat boots. They’re gleaming, like they’re new. He hasn’t worn them. The second pair is the same. Brand new. “Present pile?” Maybe he likes giving people shoes as gifts.
“Mayb—hello.”
Dropping the box on the bed, I peer over his shoulder. “Those aren’t shoes.” Three filled paper bags are nestled in the box, the scrunched paper that is shoved into new shoes around them, keeping them secure. Subtly hidden.
“I feel like I’ve gone back in time to school lunches,” Spencer says with a wrinkled nose. He pulls one out and shoves the other boxes out of the way to give himself space before upending it onto the floor.
Jesus Christ.Jackpot.
Right on top is a photo of a woman we’ve never seen before, looking peaceful in a bath. They either consented to him taking pictures of them first, or they haven’t been dead long, based on their colouring. Exactly like the two murders we know about. We were right about him having done it before. An uncomfortable pattern.
The second picture is of Leah Anderson in the bath. They’re fuckingtrophies.
Spencer picks up a curled bunch of hair, tied together with a ribbon. Never mind, that’sthe real trophy. Likely taken from his victims after their deaths.
“I bet if we pulled DNA from these strands, it’ll confirm they belong to Anderson. It’s the same shade of brown as hers. What a sick fuck.”
Can’t argue with that. I drop to the floor beside Spencer and sift through the other objects. A locket with her initials on it and pictures of the two of them together inside it. Newspaper clippings all about her during her acting highlights, some gossip magazine cutouts, and then more than a dozen regarding her murder and the shit the show went through after they used it for publicity.
“He may have done these last two for his daughter, but he started it for himself.” Getting Melody ahead in her career wasjust a convenient excuse to keep going. My eyes meet Spencer’s. “He won’t stop even if he got her the position she wanted. This is more than just fulfilling her dreams. He’s getting something out of this, and he’ll already be looking for his next victim.”
“Call Greer.” Spencer pulls out the other bags and then empties one into the shoe box. All keepsakes connected to Veronica. The fourth is Irene. Pictures of the kill. Things that belonged to her. And more hair. “Why would he be stupid enough to keep these here?”
“He hid them among the shoes.” I press my phone to my ear, the ringing obscenely loud in the quiet room. “He probably figured that most cops are too lazy to look through the whole lot. Get to shoe number seven out of twelve, and you put them back, confident they’re all just footwear.” It’s possible they’re just from his most recent kills, and he stores the rest elsewhere.
“What?” Greer answers. “This better be fucking good; I’m at work.”
“I need you to get a warrant to search Jack Ferguson’s house. You’re gonna want to do it ASAP. Talk to Riley, get it pushed through.”
Greer pauses. “What’d you find?”
“When you get here, make sure you thoroughly look in his wardrobe, and go through every single shoe box that he has.”
He hangs up without answering, and I pocket my phone, confident he’ll get it sorted. He’s an asshole but a competent one.
“Put everything back the way we found it, and let’s get the fuck out of here.” Once Greer gets in here and finds this, our job is done. He’ll arrest Jack and put it through the proper channels. Disappointing, as I’d rather put a bullet between his eyes, but either way, he’s going away for a long time, and that’s still a job well-done.
Spencer stacks them exactly how he found them, carefully selecting the boxes and putting them back in the order he pulledthem out, meticulously retracing his steps so nothing is out of place.
We leave without any trace of us ever having been there.
Spencer’s expression is thoughtful as we strap ourselves back into the car. He licks his lips and swings out onto the street without looking. “Little anticlimactic,” he remarks after a second.
“How so?”
He shrugs. “Greer’s gonna go in and mop up, and that’s it. After all that, we don’t even get to shoot someone.”
“Maybe next time.” I for one am looking forward to some downtime before new cases come our way. Time for Spencer and me and nothing else.
Chapter twenty-six
Spencer
Henry is the lastperson I expect to see when I swing the apartment door open. He’s shifting uncomfortably on his feet, a green supermarket bag in one hand. His thick brown hair is swept to the side, like he’s been running his hands through it. A nervous gesture.
No wonder Kendrick made extra for dinner, the sneak.
