“Why did you volunteer a DNA sample, Jayden?” Maddocks said.
Norton-Wells glanced at his lawyer—a woman in her late fifties with inscrutable features, her Mont Blanc pen and her writing pad resting on the table in front of her. “I didn’t,” he said blandly. “It was coerced.”
Under the unforgiving fluorescent lighting, Norton-Wells’s complexion was waxy. He looked exhausted and broken. Adrenaline coursed through Angie’s blood.
Maddocks opened his file and slid the photographs of Norton-Wells boarding theAmanda Rosewith Damián Yorick toward him.
He looked at his lawyer.
“Look at the photos, Jayden,” Maddocks said. “That’s you there.” He tapped the first one. “You with Faith Hocking’s pimp, Damián Yorick. And here’s you with her pimp again. And this one—it’s you getting into your red Porsche, license plate visible. And this one—you driving your Porsche up the AKASHA driveway after leaving theAmanda Rose.” Maddocks leaned forward.
“We know you and Gracie were close, Jayden,” he said. “We know about the Saint Christopher, that you made up the story about the stolen Lexus, that you were never at the Auberge. Never parked in that lot up the street—”
“Circumstantial at be—” began the lawyer.
“Notthosephotos,” Angie said from behind them. “That’s proof you were on theAmanda Rosewith Faith’s pimp. Was he Gracie’s pimp, too? Did Faith die on that yacht, Jayden? After you finished screwing her?”
“Detective!” said the lawyer. “We have—”
“We’re getting a DNA seizure warrant, Jayden,” she said. “Based on what we have so far. And we all know what a new set of samples is going to tell us, don’t we? It’s going to tell us you had sex with Faith Hocking before she died. Maybe afterward, too. Fucked her real hard, eh, Jayden?”
His eyes started to water. He opened his mouth.
The lawyer placed her hand quickly on his arm. “You don’t have to say anything, Jayden. We—”
“That’s okay, Jayden,” Angie said, walking slowly around to Maddocks’s side. She stood beside Maddocks, her arms still folded casually. “You don’t have to talk. Like I said, we’re just waiting on that DNA warrant—your DNA will do the talking.”
Norton-Wells’s body spasmed. His lawyer’s hand firmed on his arm. “That’s enough, detectives. We’re done here. Jayden, come with me.” She began to rise from her chair, bringing Norton-Wells to his feet with her.
“Thing that puzzles me, though,” Angie said quickly as they started for the door, “is why you volunteered your DNA in the first place, given what you did.”
He stilled at the door.
“I think it’s because he didn’t kill Faith or Gracie,” Maddocks said. “He might have paid for nice gentlemanly intercourse with Faith—and we know the courts go easy on the john angle. But brutalize and slice those girls? Shove their heads under water and hold them there? Leave little Gracie with her clit cut off, bleeding, her legs splayed open on that grave like that? Carving a crucifix into her face?”
Norton-Wells buckled at the knees, a little noise emanating from his throat.
“Jayden, come, now,” said his lawyer. But he remained rooted to the spot, refusing to follow.
“Well, if he doesn’t speak,” said Maddocks, “his DNA will do it for him, and if so, he’s going to go down for a double homicide—sexual serial killer Norton-Wells, wow, there’s a thing. Going straight to hell, Jayden boy.”
“I didn’t do it.I didn’t do it. I didn’t do it. I didn’t do it!”
He pulled away from his lawyer.
“Jayden!” She reached for his arm.
“No, leave me—I’m going to tell them! Ihaveto tell them. I ... I can’t do this anymore. I didn’t do it—it wasn’t me.”
“Who was it then, Jayden?” Maddocks said. “Whatreallyhappened?”
“Zach did it. Zach killed Faith.”
CHAPTER 69
“All I did was go to the club to have sex, pay for sex. That’s all. That’s how I met her. Gracie.”
“What club?” said Maddocks.
