Jerry said, “We haven’t released the information yet because we’re waiting on confirmation from the coroner and from the crime lab on ballistics, but yes, we believe it’s the same person. Though technically by the FBI definition this is a serial murderer, we haven’t ruled it as such.”
“Is that why the FBI is involved?”
“No, Mrs. James. We asked for the FBI’s assistance because of their experience in these type of crimes and their resources.”
Jerry seemed irritated by the question. Was that because of his animosity toward the FBI?
“Do you really not have any leads? Steven was killed over three weeks ago.”
“We’re following up on every thread that we have,” Jerry said, “which is why we’re here now. Based on our analysis, we believe that the killer may have stalked your husband during the days or weeks leading up to his murder. Did he say anything to you about anyone making him feel uncomfortable? Anyone he may have had words with?”
“Steven was a calm, serious professional. He was also quiet. I wouldn’t call him introverted, but he was often wrapped up in his own thoughts so he didn’t always pay attention to what was going on around him. Absentminded, to a degree—though when it came to his job, he never forgot anything. More … reserved, you would say.”
That confirmed the notes Jerry had from his meeting with Steven James’s boss and co-workers earlier in the month. Meticulous in his work. Never raised his voice or became visibly angry.
“So exactly what are you saying? That he never said anything to you?”
“That he wouldn’t have noticed.”
“What about you?” Lucy asked. “Did you ever get the sense that you were being followed—either alone or when you were with your husband?”
She sipped her coffee, frowned. “I think I would have noticed. I honestly can’t think of anything or anyone who seemed out of place.”
“Did anyone other than you or Mr. James’s employer know that he was out of town on business?”
“Our neighbors. Friends—I went out with a few women that Wednesday night. I think I may have mentioned that?”
“Yes,” Jerry said. “I have their names. We believe that the killer may have specifically targeted your husband and knew when he was returning from his trip.”
“I don’t see how that would be possible. That’s not the kind of information that I would post on social media, and Steven didn’t have social media accounts.”
“But several people could have known he was expected home late Friday night.”
She frowned. “I suppose. But they’d be friends, I can’t imagine someone we know killing Steven.”
“We have to pursue every possibility until we can rule it out,” Jerry said.
“But if the media is right and this is the work of a serial killer, it could just be that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, right?”
Did she believe that or did she want to believe it? Lucy wondered.
“At this point, anything is possible, but we need to go through the lives of all three victims,” Jerry said. “I know it’s uncomfortable, but it’s important.”
“Anything I can do to help,” she said.
“Your husband and his employer were named in a lawsuit four years ago. It was thrown out by the judge. The plaintiff was George Andres. Does that name mean anything to you?”
“Andres?” She seemed surprised to hear it. “I’m not sure. Four years ago? I vaguely remember the case, but don’t know that I remember his name. Steven didn’t talk much about it, he was irritated because of the time and energy he had to spend to prove that he hadn’t done anything wrong. I think it had something to do with an internal audit of the plaintiff’s company. I don’t remember any details.”
“We can get them from his employer. Do you know if your husband felt threatened at any time?”
“He didn’t say anything to me. I know they were pleased that they had the case thrown out and the plaintiff had to pay filing fees. Steven is, as you can imagine, frugal. Oh—I don’t know if it was that case, but there was a time about then that Steven came home upset because his boss had been verbally attacked. William—William Peterson—is the founder of Allied and in his seventies. He’s still on the board but doesn’t take clients. He was named in some lawsuit and was required to give a deposition, and the plaintiff was there and screamed at him. I only remember this because William had a health scare shortly before this, and Steven was concerned about his health. He thought of William more as a father or favorite uncle than an employer.”
Jerry made a note. Then said, “Your daughter Abigail was at a volleyball camp when your husband was murdered. How is she handling everything? It’s only been three weeks.”
“It’s been difficult, as you can imagine. Especially since she was gone for six weeks this summer for summer camp. She hardly saw her father at all before he was killed, and I know it deeply bothers her. They are—they were—very close. But she’s going to school, her grades are adequate, and volleyball seems to give her a focus that is helping her grief.”
Teri spoke so matter-of-factly that Lucy wondered if she was seeing a counselor to help deal with this tragedy.
“Does she go to Olmos High?” Lucy asked. It was the local public high school. Sean was undecided about where to send Jesse next year. Olmos had a terrific reputation and good test scores, but Sean thought a private school might have better security and some had more advanced classes. Lucy reminded Sean that Jesse wasn’t him, and that just because Sean was bored in school didn’t mean Jesse would be.
Mrs. James shook her head. “Victory Academy.”
Lucy had heard of it—an expensive private school not too far away. Sean had already rejected it because even though it was a good school academically and virtually every graduate went on to college, he thought it was overpriced.
“Why spend as much for high school as for college?”
“Abby might have some information—” Jerry began, but Mrs. James was already shaking her head.
“She was gone. She left early Friday morning. And she’d only returned from camp two weeks before school started. I don’t want her to have to think about this any more than she already does.”
“Agent Kincaid has worked with young witnesses,” Jerry said. The statement was true, but Lucy didn’t know how Jerry knew that. “She will be extremely sensitive to her emotional state. We need to cover all the bases, and maybe Steven said something to Abby, or showed concern about her security if he thought he was being followed.”
“I see. Well, could we arrange a time here? So I can prepare her?”
“Of course. When does she come home from school?”
“She has practice until six.”
“Why don’t we come back tomorrow evening?” Jerry suggested. “After dinner?”
“She has a game tomorrow, and I don’t want her thinking about it all day. Wednesday would be better. I’ll talk to her tomorrow night, and then seven thirty Wednesday evening would be fine.”
Jerry made a note. “Thank you, Mrs. James.”
* * *
After soccer practice, Jesse followed Brian off the field. Brian had had a bad practice. He was probably the single best player on the team—he was fast and had the best footwork of anyone Jesse had played with. But today he screwed up basic drills, and when the coach was talking he wasn’t paying attention and they all had to run an extra lap. It wasn’t just Brian—but Brian was the leader of the team. So when he didn’t pay attention, no one else did. Some coaches kept the players longer; Coach Ron dismissed them early because they were pathetic, told them to get their head on straight before Wednesday. Somehow that was worse than extra drills. Jesse hated to disappoint his coach, but he was also preoccupied with Brian.
“Brian,” Jesse called out.
“Fuck,” Brian muttered.
“What’s going on?” He glanced around, made sure no one could hear them. Sean wasn’t here yet.
“You need to
leave me alone. I can’t believe you told Michael I was talking to a stranger. And then you guys hunt me down yesterday? This is my brother we’re talking about! What am I, a little kid?”
“You’re acting like it.”
“Fuck you.”
“What was with practice? You’re the golden boy. You didn’t even get the basics down.”
“I’m just tired. I don’t need a mother hen like your privileged white ass pissing around me.”
Jesse had no idea what to say. He had no idea Brian thought of him like that. “We’re friends, Brian.” He wanted to be mad, but he was more upset than anything.
“Friends don’t rat each other out. Friends don’t follow friends.”
“When they think their friend is screwing up, yeah they do.”
“Leave. Me. Alone. And don’t you say a word to Michael. I talked to him last night, everything is cool, okay? He has enough shit to deal with without your paranoid sissy-ass getting him wound up.”
“What’s wrong with Michael?” Was Michael going through something, too? And not telling Jesse? Did he think he wouldn’t understand?
Brian rolled his eyes. “You’re an idiot, Jesse. I don’t know why you come over all the time. You’re not one of us, you never will be. You should be grateful. You got a big house and a ton of money and parents and you want to slum it with the orphan boys? Really? Well boo-hoo you. Leave me the fuck alone. Don’t come over. Michael is just using you because he’s scared if he doesn’t hang with you that Sean won’t come over anymore, that he’ll forget about us. I told him it didn’t matter, he lives in a different world. I mean, as soon as you came around, Sean didn’t, you know? Because now he has a kid, he doesn’t need a bunch of orphans. And we don’t need him.”
Brian pushed Jesse and walked away. Jesse let him go. His eyes stung. He was mad and wanted to fight back, but he couldn’t. He had nothing to say. He didn’t know any of that stuff. And it made sense. Michael hated him at the beginning, and Jesse didn’t think he really liked him, but Jesse was trying, and Michael was just humoring him. It all made sense.
He stared after Brian, then froze. The same dark-brown muscle car from yesterday, one of those older sedans that was all souped up, stopped at the curb. Brian got into the passenger seat. Almost without thinking, Jesse pulled out his phone and zoomed in, taking a couple of pictures. There were two older teens in the car, and they looked mean. One of them looked like the kid Brian had talked to—the one Michael thought might be his brother. Now Jesse had pictures. But were things really cool between Brian and Michael? Or was Brian lying about that, too?
He knew he shouldn’t judge people by how they looked—his uncle Kane looked mean, too. But this was different. These guys looked mean and acted like they were all-that, in their muscle car with loud music and tattoos.
Why did Jesse even care? Brian didn’t.
He did care. He didn’t want Brian to get in trouble, and he didn’t want him to join a gang. It would break Sean’s heart, and it would hurt Michael.
But Brian was right about one thing. He wasn’t one of them.
He would send these photos to Michael and let him deal with Brian. Michael hadn’t wanted Jesse around in the first place, he’d made that clear, and Jesse had ignored his wishes.
No longer.
* * *
Lucy was getting ready for bed late Monday night. They’d had dinner together, but both Sean and Jesse were quiet. No one wanted to play a game—Jesse said he had homework and went to his room early, and Sean went to his office to write a proposal for a jewelry store chain to improve their security. Rogan-Caruso-Kincaid Protective Services, the family business Sean worked for, had been contacted by the chain when they found an internal breach that enabled a staff member to steal small pieces that weren’t initially missed. It was partly an inventory problem and partly a security problem.
Sean finally came up to the bedroom. “You look tired,” Lucy said.
He fell back on the bed. Bandit came over and licked his hand, earned himself a scratch behind the ears, then went to his dog bed in the corner.
“Jesse lied to me today.”
“What about?”
“Does that matter?”
“Yes and no.”
He looked at her with a frown.
She said, “Well, if you asked if he was interested in a girl you saw him looking at and he denied it, that’s one thing.”
“It’s not about a girl.” He didn’t say more, and Lucy sat on the edge of the bed.
“Have you asked him?”
“What do I say? I know you’re lying to me about something, what?”
“Now I’m confused.”
Sean sat up. “I picked him up from soccer. He was preoccupied. I asked, how was practice. He said fine.”
“Okay. Maybe he was reprimanded by the coach. Maybe he had a bad practice and didn’t want to talk about it.”
“I asked him why he was on the far field when he knows I pick him up at the main entrance. I got there and no one was there. I was a little freaked. He then said practice sucked and they got done early and he was just walking around to blow off steam and why did I care?”
“O-kay,” she said, not quite understanding what Sean was getting at.
“That’s exactly what I did to Duke. When I was up to something, I always turned it around back on Duke. Because he would get so angry, talk about my attitude and lecture me, and forget that he almost caught me doing something that was against the rules.”
“Jesse is a good kid. You were too—”
“Not really. I mean, I didn’t join a gang or shoot up heroin, but I did a lot of illegal shit before I was eighteen.”
“You don’t think Jesse is doing anything illegal?”
“I don’t know. But he was evasive and I know all the tricks. And then he was texting Michael but made sure I couldn’t see his phone. I almost grabbed it out of his hand to see what he was doing, but I froze.” He stared at the ceiling. “I want to trust him. I do trust him. But I guess—I knew if I caught him in a lie, or doing something he knows he shouldn’t, I would have to punish him, and at that moment I didn’t have it in me. I know I need to be a dad—I need to set boundaries and expect certain behavior—but after everything he’s been through this summer, how I failed him—”
“Stop.”
“Luce, you don’t understand.”
“You have never failed him, and I never want to hear you say that again, okay?”
She made him look at her. “Jesse is a good kid, and if you think he’s lying or being evasive, then you need to trust your instincts. He’s thirteen. He needs boundaries and expectations. You are not your father, you are not Duke. More important, Jesse is not you. You are going to build up all the possible things Jesse could be doing—but whatever it is, it’s probably not the worst thing you can think of. So you need to talk to him, just be honest. That you expect answers. I remember there were some things I just couldn’t talk about with my mother. But I had brothers and sisters who were brothers and sisters, not guardians, not a second parent. You’ll have to feel him out, and see if the secret is something you can live without knowing, or if it is potentially trouble.”
“I don’t know how to do that.”
“You do. Maybe just sharing something from your childhood would help him see that whatever it is he’s going through, he’s not alone.” Lucy paused. “He’s worried about you, and maybe he doesn’t think you can handle whatever’s bothering him.”
“He shouldn’t worry about me. I need to be stronger for him.”
“You need to be you, Sean. You are exactly what that boy needs. We’re all figuring this out as we go along. Jesse has a lot of anger inside—mostly about Carson Spade.”
“So do I.”
“But you’re not letting it out. You don’t want Jesse to see it because you don’t want him to take it the wrong way. But maybe you both need to talk about it. Let him know exactly how you’re feeling, so he wants to share with
you how he’s feeling.”
“Do you think it has something to do with the boys’ home?”
Sean evidently wasn’t listening to her.
“With Michael?” Sean continued. “They’ve been talking all the time, and Michael has been through hell and back. It’s not that I don’t want Michael talking about it, but if he needs to talk to someone, it should be me. Or Father Mateo. Kane would come up for any one of those boys if they needed him.”
“He would. But Jesse is a Rogan, just like you, just like Kane. He may not have been raised as a Rogan, but some things you’re born with. Michael has been through hell, but he’s also a teenager, just like Jesse. Jesse doesn’t have a lot of peers as friends. From moving from Orange County, to going into witness protection, to moving to Sacramento, then moving here—all within the last eighteen months—he hasn’t kept any of his friends from his childhood. He needs peers. And maybe he connects better with Michael and the boys than kids in his own school right now. And the soccer team—he loves the team.”
“True.”
“That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t talk to him. Just don’t go into it thinking that it’s all bad, okay? Go in with your eyes and ears open.”
“You’re so smart, what did I ever do to deserve you?”
“I have no idea,” she teased and kissed him.
“I love you.” He smiled. “Are you tired?”
She wrapped her arms around his neck. “What did you have in mind?”
“It’s a beautiful night. Want to go for a swim?”
“I can never say no to the pool.”
He kissed her nose and pulled her out of bed. “I know.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Tuesday Morning
Joey Adkins was the IT manager for a major company in downtown San Antonio. His record was clean: not even a parking ticket. They knew he had a permanent handicap placard for his vehicle; when they met him they knew why. He was in a wheelchair. It was highly unlikely—unless he had been faking his handicap for years—that he had killed anyone in the manner that Standish, James, and Garcia had been killed.
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