He inclined his head. “So we have three. How many more?”
“Two. There was whoever did this.” I brought my fingertips to my throat. “I know everyone believes it was that serial killer, but I don’t. I was kidding myself that it could be so easy.”
“I trust your instincts. Who’s the fifth?”
I dropped his gaze, my eyelashes fluttering. “A friend of my grandfather’s.”
“One of his trusted company cronies?”
“Got it in one. I’ve never told anyone about that.”
“Ye can tell me anything.”
I knew that. He was the safest pair of hands I could imagine for a piece of history so fragile it could crack me open. For the first time in forever, I didn’t feel alone anymore. He could have all of my secrets. I could only hope that one day he’d give me his.
Chapter 26
Tyler
Bundled in my hoodie with the white sheets tucked around her and holding a cup of hot tea I’d made her, Dixie calmly talked through her story.
Starting with her throat being cut.
I’d burned to know more about it. What information I’d scraped together from the rest of the crew had been nowhere near enough.
“I don’t remember anything past Manny escorting me home. It was after a long shift, and Manny left me at the bottom of the steps to my flat. You’ve been there. The block has more than one walkway and staircase. Someone must’ve grabbed me and thought they’d ended my life when they dumped me at the boathouse.”
“Has anything come back at all? Being carried, the feel of the perpetrator?”
“Nothing, hun. Figured I’d been knocked out.”
That in itself was something. I released a long breath. “If only I’d given in to my obsession and put cameras outside your place earlier.”
She laughed. “You said the inside thoughts out loud.”
I tried to smile but failed. “Who in your family would benefit most from ye not being around?”
She blinked and switched her gaze to the arched brick window, our reflections watching us where I’d snapped a lamp on to give her the comfort of light.
“You think I was attacked because I was a Marchant? But nobody knew. Except, there were some strange things that happened in the month before.”
“Tell me about them.”
“It’s probably nothing, but I had someone knock at my door right before dawn, not long after I’d got home from work and had gone to bed. They did it multiple times over the course of a couple of weeks, and on each occasion, no one was there. I asked Cassie for time off to investigate it. I was going to wait up and watch out for them. It was driving me crazy, mostly because I got it into my head that finally, someone had uncovered my previous identity.”
“What happened when ye waited up?”
“They never came. Then I got this.” She drew her finger across her throat, her half-smile fading. “Most likely, it was some local kid playing me up because he heard what I did for a living. At least one of my neighbours knew and judged me for it. Anyway, that’s a dead end, and I had another idea.”
I locked away the facts and gestured for her to go on.
“Earlier, when I talked to the skeleton girls, we discussed Esther and Karla. The by-the-neck attack method connects the killer. But what isn’t obvious is how the victims connect. Why them? Then there’s me. If all are sex workers, I fit a pattern.”
I’d heard something similar from Arran, likely courtesy of the women and their combined minds on the problem. “That’s helpful.”
She shrugged. “I’m sure I’m not the first to think it, but if it feels right, maybe it is. And that works for my assumptionsomeone targeted me at home because of my job.” Dixie pondered her mug. “Can I move on to the final name? It’s been churning up inside me for a lifetime. I want to share it with you.”
I already knew who I suspected. There were three trusted company CEOs she would’ve been exposed to as a young teenager in her grandparents’ home. Dixie hadn’t reacted to Sullivan’s name, which she would’ve if his father had been her attacker. That left only one other man. Paul Debrock. Owner of Debrock Finances. A money lender. I’d kill him for what he’d done. “Tell me.”
