Page 28 of Go Alone

Marcus steepled his fingers in front of his face and solidified his hypothesis. Nearly twenty years ago, a young, ambitious Deborah Holt had realized that despite her ambition, she would never rise to the top of the dogpile. Rather than settle for a life of struggle, she had formed a plan to take advantage of the growing subprime crisis.

Knowing that lenders were about to be saddled with billions of dollars of property they couldn’t sell and billions in loans they couldn’t collect, she had instead approached an equally enterprising if not young zoning commissioner, and together, they had scratched each other’s back.

Deborah got a kickback for getting the homeowners out of the properties Howard wanted, and Howard got to establish his own inspection firm so he could run the same scam in the future, which was exactly what he did.

“I think the Garfields figured that out,” Marcus said aloud. “I think they got something on you, and you got scared. I think you cleaned your house and then cleaned them out of house and home to get them back for scaring you.” He nodded. “I’ll just bet that’s what happened. And I bet if I talk to Sylvia Garfield, she’ll tell me the same thing. Maybe she’ll also tell me who decided to right that wrong by murdering you in your neighbor’s home.”

He texted Kate the update, then left the office, locking the door and setting the alarm behind him as the building manager requested. The sky had deepened to purple and night lingered, ready to pounce.

Marcus had found footprints of the slain prey. He would follow those footprints until they intersected with the predator’s footprints. Then it was only a matter of time.

But death was also only a matter of time. Marcus was closer, but the killer was still too far away. Marcus was looking for sign, but the killer was actively stalking prey.

And like all predators, once he tasted blood, he wouldn’t stop until he’d eaten his fill.

CHAPTER TWELVE

“That’s good progress, Kate. You should be proud of yourself.”

Kate blinked, taken aback by Winters’ encouragement. Winters wasn’t always a wall of ice, but such phrases as ‘you should be proud of yourself’ came few and far between. “Thank you, ma’am. I’m…”

Her voice trailed off. She wasn’t happy with their progress. She and Gabe had spent the whole day not finding what they were looking for. Marcus was currently driving to see Sylvia Garfield hoping that the connection he’d just uncovered between Holt and Greer would bear fruit. Anita was obsessing over Linus Varne, who Kate suspected might not even be a real person but a code for some shady deal or another.

They were making progress, but it wasn’t good progress. It was an activity, not an accomplishment. They were building a strong case against their victims, but they weren't getting any closer to finding their killer.

When Kate didn’t finish her sentence, Winters stepped in. “I understand this is frustrating, and I don’t blame you. But you’re an experienced agent. You know that these cases often reveal the skin and fur before the meat and bones. These details seem useless right now, but they could prove to be the key to your entire investigation.”

Or they could prove to be a pointless waste of time.

Kate didn’t say that out loud, mostly because she caught a parental tone in Winters’ voice that she didn’t like. It was bad enough that everyone thought she was going to hop right off the deep end every time Elijah Cox was mentioned. She didn’t need them treating her with kid gloves each time she hit a roadblock.

So instead, she said, “Thank you, ma’am. I’ll call you when we have more.”

“I’ll have Poppy dig further into the Linus Varne question and the partial description of your suspect,” Winters replied. “If there’s anything out there, she’ll find it.”

Just like she found the answers about my father, Kate also didn’t say. “Thank you.”

Winters hung up, and Kate sighed heavily and tossed the phone onto the table, where it bounced with a sharp thwack. It was a good thing she invested in a heavy-duty phone case.

She got a text from Marcus. Fourteen words. No emotion since they were typed into a cell phone and broadcast as microwaves across cell phone towers, but Kate could hear the growl in Marcus’s voice as he typed them. Sylvia Garfield is dead. Not murdered. Heart attack six days ago. On my way back.

And just like that, another thread had unraveled. Kate sighed and ran her hands through her hair. What a wonderful day.

Her phone rang again. Gabe. Please let this give us something, she thought.

She answered. “Gabe? Please tell me you have something.”

“I do!” Gabe said brightly. “Persistence makes perfect, if you’ll permit me to alter the old aphorism.”

“Oh thank God,” Kate said. “Talk to me. What do you have?”

“So the document is not exactly a legal document. Well, I suppose it is, but what I mean to say is that it’s not a government document.”

His voice was jovial and animated with the excitement of solving a puzzle. In this case, only a piece of a puzzle but possibly the main piece. She could just picture him flitting around his office, all five-foot-nothing of him, checking his tweed or tartan or brightly colored silk suit and pouring himself a carefully steeped cup of some obscure tea or coffee that cost far too much money as he recounted his success to Kate.

“No? What is it?”

“It’s a land covenant.”