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“How long was it going on?” Dennison asked. This time, Lock and I sat in the observation room.

“He would call me,” Daniel said. “When he wanted certain things done. A lot of it had to do with him sneaking around on his wife. He had me follow her a couple of times. Make sure she wasn’t headed home. He’d pay me a hundred bucks here and there. Just enough to keep me going.”

“What else did he have you do?”

“One time he asked me to set up a video camera and take some pictures. It was at this rental house in some hick town outside Kalamazoo. I was gonna say no. It was sick. I thought it was gonna be him and some chick he was with. He paid me a lot that time. More than he ever had before. A thousand bucks.”

“Who did you take pictures of, Daniel?” Roy asked.

“It was Lock and some girl.”

Roy had his tablet on the table between them. Lock winced as Roy showed Daniel the pictures of him and Corrine.

“Yeah,” Daniel said. “That’s them.”

“Did he tell you what they were for?”

“I assumed. Eli was jealous of Lock. We talked about it a lot. He said he was arrogant. Never had to work for anything. He was gonna take him down a peg. It was a thousand bucks. And I meant what I said. Lock wasn’t there for me like he said he was gonna be. He gave up on me just like everybody else.”

“Oh, Daniel,” Lock whispered beside me. “That’s not true.”

“What was he going to do with the photos?”

“I don’t know. I suppose blackmail him. I never heard what happened with them.”

“What about the girl in these photos?”

“I didn’t know her name. But I knew Eli was screwing her too. I thought that was pretty stone cold. Lock seemed like he was really into her.”

“Eli was screwing her too?” Lock said, stunned.

“He was going to hurt you,” I said. “That’s what Corrine meant. Lock, I think Eli put Corrine up to filing that police report the first time. I think it might have been his idea to blackmail you. She said she protected you and you never knew it. Maybe she couldn’t go through with it. Whatever was going on, she thought she loved you. She thought you belonged together.”

Lock buried his face in his hands. “What have I done?” he whispered. “All this pain. All these people. All because of me.”

“No,” I said. “You can’t think that.”

Palicki’s interview went on for another four hours. By the end of it, he revealed that Eli often met him at Palicki’s house. For more money, Palicki allowed Eli to use it as a place to bring the women he was sleeping with. Palicki had several months-long stints in prison over the years. The neighbor’s granddaughter told him she’d seen Eli going in and out in Palicki’s absence multiple times.

It made a sick sense. It would explain why Palicki’s transfer DNA was found in Gretchen Small’s car. Eli could have had something from Palicki’s house on him when he was with Gretchen. They had found some traces of unidentifiable male DNA in the vehicle as well. I knew it would be a match for Eli Shepherd.

They would not release Daniel Palicki. Not yet. But by the end of that day, they would have Eli in custody.

FORTY-SIX

Eli tried to run. He made it as far as the Detroit Metro Airport before authorities caught up with him. In the end, Piper had provided the key to finding him. She turned over her own phone, which had a tracker on Eli’s. She’d long suspected him of cheating on her. For the past year, she’d been compiling a file to give to her divorce lawyer.

A few days later, Eli wanted to talk. He never asked for a lawyer. But he had conditions. He only wanted to talk to me, and he wanted Lock to watch.

This man, who I thought was my friend, my ally, was a stranger to me. He sat across from me. For a moment, he wouldn’t look at me. Then, Eli changed. Slowly, he turned his neck and zeroed in on me like a bird of prey. Raw hatred filled his eyes. That was the moment I knew he was mine.

“Did it start with Fiona?” I asked. “Is that when you decided you would finally take what Lock had?”

“I never wanted what Lock had,” Eli said. “I felt sorry for her. I saw her with him. The way she hung on his every lie. Threw herself at him. Wore that red dress that made him so angry.” He turned and glared at the mirror he knew Lock sat behind. “Did you know she cried in the car when you went into that store to buy her a new one? If you weren’t rich, she wouldn’t have had anything to do with you. Because you’re sick. Broken. You’re the one who’s unworthy.”

“You followed him?” I asked. “How could you know about Fiona’s dress?”

“Yes!” he said, still staring at the mirror instead of me. “I followed her. When I caught her, it wasn’t hard to get her to tell me everything I wanted to know. You thought an NDA—a piece of paper—would keep her mouth shut. You thought a red ribbon on her wrist would keep her loyal to you. Bring him in here. I want to see his face.”