“Why not?” I asked, letting my voice get sharp. Whatkind of idiot didn’t report an explosion to the police? “Wouldn’t that be the normal thing to do after someone destroys your property? File a police report, tell them what you know?”
“Normally,” she said. “But it happens that the woman I’m investigating died when her car blew up in her driveway, with her in it. Everything about her murder has been weird. I came to Atlanta following a lead—my only lead—and then my van gets blown up. I don’t believe in coincidences. Generally, things that look like coincidences aren’t. There’s always a connection when you dig. And this—” She shook her head. “I’ve tried talking to the police who investigated her murder, and I got shut down fast.”
I didn’t love the parallel between Sylvie’s van exploding and the murder victim’s car blowing up, but I pushed back. “I’d think that would be procedure. The police generally don’t love collaborating with the media.”
“I’m not really the media,” she said. “And yeah, sometimes they don’t love civilian investigators. I get it. But this was different. I’ve worked with law enforcement. I know there are bad apples out there, but I respect what they do. The detectives I usually work with want to solve these murders as much as I do—more. They’re invested. They care.”
“But not this time,” I prompted.
“This time, no. They just wanted Emily Shaw’s murder to go away.”
Every cell in my body went stiff when Sylvie Calloway said that name. What were the odds? Like Sylvie, I didn’t believe in coincidences.
Her eyes sharpened on me, and I knew I’d given something away at the mention of Emily’s name. Deliberately, Ididn’t follow up. “Walk me through what happened. What time did your van blow up?”
Sylvie sat back and went through the events of the night before, ending with her huddled in a rainy alley, watching her van burn.
“Did you stick around to wait for the fire department? Talk to the cops?”
“No,” she said. “I took off. I found a place to hole up that was somewhat dry and headed here as soon as I thought you’d be open.”
“This is the part that’s intriguing me,” I said, still ignoring her mention of Emily Shaw. “Our address isn’t available online. It’s not listed in the phone book—not that anyone even uses those anymore. I have to wonder, how did you find Sinclair Security in the first place? Usually, people get here by referral.”
“You know how I said I came to Atlanta following a lead? Well, you’re the lead.” She dug in her backpack and pulled out an envelope, and from that envelope a yellow sticky note.
Written on the front in handwriting I didn’t recognize were two scrawled letters,SS, the street address of our building, and the number to Sinclair Security’s direct phone line. Emmett had found a connection from Emily Shaw to Silas, and now we had another from Emily to Sinclair Security.
“And where did you find this?” I asked, handing the note back casually, as if it wasn’t important.
“My murder victim. I connected with her old neighbor. This showed up in the mail.”
“Interesting,” was all I could say as everything I knew flipped upside down. I’d walked into this room wondering how quickly I could ditch the murderpodcaster and get back to the business of figuring out what had happened to Silas. Now it looked like the murder podcaster was our best link. The only lead we currently had on Silas went straight to Emily Shaw. If we could find out who killed her, we’d be that much closer to finding Silas. But Sylvie Calloway didn’t need to know any of that.
“The sticky note brought you here. You said you had questions. Ask away,” I said, leaning back.
Sylvie’s eyes narrowed in what I thought was frustration. At what, I couldn’t tell. “Is Emily Shaw a client?” she asked.
I shook my head. “You have to know I can’t answer questions like that. Confidentiality is a big part of what we do.”
“Understandable,” she said, making a note on her pad in some kind of shorthand I couldn’t decipher. “You can’t confirm if she’s been here. I tracked her to Atlanta several days before she died, but I don’t know what she was doing here.”
That was news to me. Emily Shaw hadn’t been at Sinclair Security, but had she been headed to us? Had Silas sent her to Cooper? If he had, she’d never made it.
“I hate to give you a dead end, Sylvie. I really do. And normally, I would tell you I can’t disclose any information about a client. I absolutely wouldn’t tell you a thing if Emily Shaw were a client of Sinclair Security. But she’s not. Which leaves you with nothing. Correct?”
Sylvie gave an abrupt nod. I could practically hear her teeth grinding.
“And you still have a problem. Your vehicle was blown up.”
“My home was blown up,” she corrected.
Interesting.I hadn’t pegged her for the van life thing, but it made sense for a podcaster who needed to be mobile.
“When you say a van, like a camper van?” I asked.
“Exactly,” she said. “My home on wheels.” She let out a sigh and sank back into the chair, for the first time losing her composure as fatigue washed across her face. She’d told Alice she hadn’t eaten. She had to be at the end of her rope.
I wasn’t above using that to my advantage.
