Page 27 of Evidence of Us

“She’s dead,” I tell him. “But you knew that, considering your semen is inside of her. How’d that happen?”

“I don’t know.” He looks down, breaking eye contact with me. He’s getting nervous.

“You don’t know? Did you rape her before or after you strangled her?” I ask. “Did you wait until you had already dismembered her?”

“You’re sick!” he snaps at me.

“I’m not the one raping my siblings,” I say. “We have a positive DNA match to you. So, yes or no, did you rape your sister?”

“No,” he says, pausing for a second. “Fuck. Fine… Harper and I have been sleeping together for a while. When her boyfriend wasn’t around, she could just say she was with me, and it would be fine. Usually we use condoms but…”

“So you are saying you had Harper’s consent to leave your semen inside of her dead body?” I ask, intentionally twisting his words.

“No,” he sighs. “I saw her yesterday. We hadn’t seen each other in a while, so we fucked in my truck. I told her we should just go back to my house, but she was in a hurry to get to the grocery store and home so she could make dinner for her boyfriend. She climbed in my lap and… well, you know…”

“You’re saying that Harper, that beautiful and successful woman, was not only sleeping with her boyfriend, but also with you? You don’t exactly look like…” I say, looking him up and down before continuing with a subtly disgusted look on my face. “...Her type.”

“It’s the truth,” he growls. “She loved me.”

“As a brother,” I correct. “Did you get upset when she laughed at you for admitting you were attracted to her?”

“Fuck you!” he stands up and shouts at me.

“Sit down and stop acting like a child!” I scold him. He sits, but he’s not happy about it. “Now then… Why did you kill your sister?”

“I didn’t. We hooked up in my truck, and then she went to the store,” he says, sitting back in his chair.

“What time?” Zeke asks.

“About six,” he answers.

There is a knock on the window behind us, so Zeke and I get up and leave the room. “Arrest warrant was denied,” Kevin says with a heavy sigh. “The DA says there is nothing definitive that says she was raped, because it was non-violent, so there is too much reasonable doubt. It very well could have been consensual.”

“It’s not,” I say. “You know it’s not. If we let him out of here, he is going to hurt someone.”

“I know that, but it’s going to be better to cut him out now and keep an eye on him,” Kevin says. “Why don’t you and Zeke work surveillance on him tonight? Geno and Parker can go home for a bit.”

“Fine,” I say with a sigh.

“We will hold him as late in the day as we can, but then cut him out,” Kevin says. “Until then, we need to spend all of our timedigging into him, any potential past crimes, and anything that might help us arrest him.”

“Got it,” Zeke says. I walk out of the viewing room and go down to the conference room. I stand in front of the boards and just look over all of my notes. The answer is in here somewhere; I just can’t find it yet. We know that it is Adam Sloane, but we can’t prove it yet.

We spend all day going over every bit of information that we have. I focus on the boards and a timeline for all of the victims based on the victims' social media, reports from their loved ones, and what is known as fact about their murders.

I am sitting at the table, looking through old case files, when I realize something. “Guys,” I say, sitting up.

“Hmm?” Zeke asks, looking at his laptop.

“Adam has an older sister. Well… Had. She’s been missing for five years,” I say. “Their parents were addicts and in and out of jail. She… uhh… Amanda Sloane… She had custody of Adam from the time he was ten until eighteen. That’s when Adam started getting in more trouble and wasn’t really around his family. Amanda moved back five years ago and went missing a week later. Her husband was found shot to death.”

“So Amanda was likely the one abusing him,” Parker hypothesizes.

“Mhmm. Ten years old being raped by your big sister? That is a recipe for creating a sociopathic woman hater,” I say. “She was an authority figure, but she was also married to a retired professional football player.”

“Ouch. Raped him and likely moved on from him because he was older and she was uninterested, but then he sees her years later with a man who is the exact opposite of him,” Geno says. “And then the little sister rejects him.”

“Alright,” Kevin says as he reenters the room. “Adam is being released as we speak. Zeke and Mariska, you two head out and keep an eye on him. Stay together and don’t take unnecessary risks.”