What Natalie was telling us was more substantial than she may have realized. It could have served as the trigger for Gavin to start killing. Ella was robbed of her chance at happiness. Gavin may have obsessed over this and decided to take fate into his own hands. He created the happy future these women wanted. As we’d theorized already, there was likely an event in Gavin’s past that served as a precursor, a pivotal moment responsible for altering his thinking. Based on Gavin’s loose lifestyle I was starting to doubt the likelihood that he was ever in a committed relationship himself, and I knew Nadia had a message in to Gavin’s sister, but it was worth asking.
“Was Gavin Bryant ever engaged?”
Natalie nodded, and my heart sped up.
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Chapter 48
I PROCESSED WHAT NATALIE HAD confirmed. Gavin Bryant had been engaged at some point. Whether this knowledge led anywhere remained to be seen. “When was this?” I asked.
“A long time ago, but he talked about her all the time.”
That needed better quantification. “All the time? As in once in a while or every time you were together?”
“I’d say here and there, but enough. Too much. What woman wants to hear about her man’s past lovers?”
“What was her name?”
“Sabrina Goodwin.”
“Thank you. Excuse me for a moment.” I stepped through the front doors and dialed Nadia. I glanced back to see Jack talking to Natalie, but I wasn’t sure what he was saying. I found it hard to believe he was offering consolation.
“Nadia?”
“Brandon, I’m working as fast as I can. Nothing substantive yet.”
“I’m not calling to follow up. Can you do a quick background on Sabrina Goodwin?”
“From where?”
“Try the Grand Forks area first.”
“Sure thing.” I heard the keys clicking away, and shortly after, I had my answer. If it hadn’t been for my tightened grip on my cell phone, I would have dropped it. The news was conclusive enough to warrant such a reaction. I managed to blurt out a thank-you—or I thought I had, at least—before I tapped on the glass to get Jack’s attention. I watched as he excused himself and shook Natalie’s hand.
Natalie glanced at me before burying her face in her hands.
“Is she going to be all right?” I asked when he came outside.
Jack waved off my concern. “She’ll be fine.”
“Okay. Sabrina Goodwin committed suicide by drug overdose at the age of nineteen. Notes on the file include comments from family members who said she’d been fighting depression.” Her untimely death had warranted an investigation and netted those results. Adrenaline was racing through me so fast I felt lightheaded. We had the son of a bitch, even if he was thousands of miles away.
Gavin Bryant had been engaged to a woman who had committed suicide. While the trigger for her depression wasn’t clear, as long as she was suffering from it, happiness would elude her. What she required was contentment from within, a powerful enough force to withstand any attack. Until such peace was established, Gavin’s love never would have healed her invisible wounds.
“It could have been enough to trigger Gavin. We’ll need to call the family of Sabrina Goodwin and find out what happened to her wedding dress and ring.” Jack lit a cigarette. “While you were on with Nadia, I asked Natalie about Cheryl Bradley. Gavin was booked for her event, but he never would have come into contact with her.”
“Well, she said she takes care of the planning end, but Gavin managed to meet that bridesmaid. What’s to say he didn’t meet Cheryl the same way?” I paused for a second and answered my own question. “Never mind. He met her at the wedding. Cheryl never got that far.”
Jack nodded. “We need to find out where Cheryl and Gavin met.”
“We’ll find it.”
Jack let out a plume of cigarette smoke. “Love the attitude, but it’s not always the case.”
Did I hear him right? Jack was all about reasonable predictions and never about assurances, but a positive outcome was preceded by optimistic thinking. My thoughts went back to Jack’s personal life. Maybe there was no better way than to come out with it.
“Is everything all right with you these days?”
He sucked on the cigarette again, his cheeks concaving with the force of his draw. It seemed like the minutes were piling up on one another as he indulged in his habit. I should have known better than to show concern. Personal conversations didn’t go well with Jack on any given day. Matters of the heart, even less so. I imagined his parents hadn’t shown much emotion and if little Jack had cried, they’d have told him to buck up and be a man. Of course, all this was conjecture on my part, but it would explain why he was emotionally distant. Although, I’m certain he saw a lot during his days with the Special Forces.
“I had a feeling I wasn’t hiding it very well.” Another quick puff.
Was this happening? He was going to open up to me? I tried not to get ahead of myself. I was afraid to speak in case I squashed this moment.
Jack continued. “Everything’s fine.” He dropped what was left of the cigarette and extinguished it with a twist of his shoe. He headed toward the rental car.
I trailed after him. “You can’t have it both ways. You’re not hiding it, but you’re fine? That doesn’t make sense.”
He stopped walking and leveled his eyes on me. “But it doesn’t have to, does it? It just is. Can you accept that?”
Caught in this eye lock, I wasn’t sure I had another option. I couldn’t force myself to speak. I couldn’t make myself nod.
“This is the job, kid. The rest is personal.”
As good a front as Jack was trying to put on, he was failing miserably. The pain in his eyes was evident, but it was the hitch in his voice that gave him away.
“I know you’re telling me to leave it alone,” I said.
“With good reason.”
“Fine, but something is wrong. Everything isn’t fine.”
The hurt transformed to vengeance. “You’re not good at keeping business and personal separate, are you?”
How had this become about me? Yet there it was, the energy passing between us, the implication behind his words breathing to life. My stomach knotted and heaved. Somehow I managed to keep my breakfast down. “You know about—”
“About you and Paige? Yes, I do.”
“Why didn’t you say any—”
“Not my place.”
“You just said business and personal shouldn’t mix.”
He gave it a few seconds. “I did.”
With the two words, I understood. “You didn’t say anything because it was personal for us?”
“Bingo.”
“You weren’t upset we were seeing each other?”
“I didn’t like it one bit.”
“I don’t understand. Why didn’t you say anything?” I asked again. I swallowed my saliva, aware of it going down my throat as thick as paste. I couldn’t verbalize the real question: Why didn’t you fire me?
“I trusted the two of you to sort it out, and it seems you have.”
I was nodding like one of those bobblehead dolls. “We did.”
“But you notice how I let you manage the business and the personal without interfering?”
His point in all this had become clear. “Sorry.”
“All right, then.” He got behind the wheel and turned the key in the ignition.
As I got into the passenger seat, I wasn’t sure what I was feeling. So many things were rushing through me. For one, if Jack weren’t so balanced and understanding, I would have been out on my ass months ago. But he trusted me, and he trusted Paige, to handle it. He was simply asking for the same courtesy.
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Chapter 49
THE CALL TO SABRINA’S PARENTS didn’t yield the results I had hoped for. Her wedding dress had been thrown out years ago, and the ring was still in their possession. Of course, it couldn’t be that easy. What often seemed like a way to obtain answers resulted in slammed doors. Metaphorically, we were shut out in a long hallway with two options: proceed forward or turn around. Sometimes retracing steps was the way to go, and considering the aspects of this investigation, all the people we had spoken to, all the avenues we went down, it made sense to revisit some of them.
Jack announced that our next task was to join the hunt for Gavin’s car, and although I had wished he’d been joking, his expression had remained solid.
We met Paige and Zach in Lot C. They had already finished checking the other two lots with Powers and Barber, and the four of them were working collectively on the last one. Jack pulled our vehicle up alongside the one Zach was driving and both men put their windows down.
“No luck yet, boss,” Zach said. He was squinting. Paige had shades.
“We were more fortunate.” Jack filled them in on everything we had learned.
“We originally thought Gavin was connected with Cheryl through the wedding planning process, but that’s likely not the case. We know they knew each other because Angela confirmed they were sleeping together. We know Tara had a mystery man and had booked Dream Weddings, at which point, it is feasible Gavin’s and Tara’s paths crossed somehow,” Zach summarized.
“It is, but Gavin didn’t usually get involved until the actual event,” I said.
“And what about Nadia? How is she making out?” Jack’s question was directed at me.
“I’d say she’s still working on finding a common denominator.” I had forgotten to ask, but she had said she was working as fast as she could.
“I’ll clarify. Did Cheryl, Tara, and Penny all have profiles on the same online dating site?”
I wished I had the ability to turn invisible. “I don’t know. I didn’t think to ask. She didn’t offer.”
“Hmm.” Jack pressed a button on his cell and speed-dialed Nadia.
She answered.
“We need updates.”
“I know, I’m sorry, boss. I’ve been digging through files and browsing histories on the victims’ computers.”
“And how are you making out?”
“I was able to get past the log-in passwords for the computers. Nothing is standing out on their social media profiles, but I’ve confirmed all three women used the online dating service Ideal Partner.”
The tapping started in Jack’s jaw. “And why didn’t you call to tell us?”
“I wanted to have more to tell you. I haven’t gotten much further. There is a private chat option, but it doesn’t seem any of the women spoke to the same man.”
“And what about Gavin Bryant?”
“About Gavin—”
“Yes, does he have a profile on there?”
“Everyone goes by a handle. It’s to protect the user’s true identity. So until we have his computer or ask him directly, we can’t know.”
Jack’s mouth fell into a tight, thin line. At this point, we had circumstantial evidence but it wasn’t substantial enough to secure a warrant for his computer, no matter how damning. The three women didn’t seem to be connected to the same man on the dating site. Not to mention, the IRS would fight for first dibs on Gavin’s electronic files.
“There’s got to be something we’re missing,” Paige said.
“That’s obvious,” Jack said sardonically.
“Ah, Jack?” Nadia said.
“Go ahead.” This came from Jack.
“There’s another way to go about this. The site allows its members to secretly follow—or stalk—other members. If I had administrative privileges, I could see who was following the three victims. I could also search their database by billing name and see if Gavin Bryant shows up.”
“Get on it, Nadia.”
“Yes, sir.” Nadia disconnected.
“We also need to find out the secondary DNA results for the blood on Penny’s wedding dress. If we can tie the other contributor to someone connected with Gavin, we’ll have it made,” I said.
“We could also find his car,” Jack said.
“We’re almost through the haystack. If he parked it at the airport, it’s in this lot. Powers and Barber are still looking.” Zach pointed a few rows over. I saw their department car through the windows of the parked vehicles.
“There’s also the matter of the earrings. I’d be surprised if the ones put on Cheryl don’t match the second DNA profile from the dress Penny was put in.”
I let the three of them carry on with the conversation. I observed and realized how we truly were at the mercy of forensics. It had revolutionized the way we caught the “bad guys,” but in other areas slowed things down. What would have been enough to act on in the past didn’t fly anymore. Now everything required hard evidence of DNA and prints. At this point, we were short on both.
Zach’s phone rang. He consulted the ID. “It’s Powers.” A second later, Zach was smiling, but I’d already gotten the message. It was given away by the fact that Barber had gotten out of their sedan and was jogging toward us screaming, “We found it!”
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Chapter 50
CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATORS SWARMED GAVIN’S CAR. They arrived about thirty minutes after we called, which was impressive, but it did nothing to improve Jack’s mood.
At this point, it was midafternoon and the sun wasn’t cooling off yet. The four of us were gathered in the lot watching the Crime Scene Unit do its thing. I longed for shade but stayed with the others, wanting to be there the second any results came back.
A female investigator came toward us, her stride swaying her ponytail left to right, right to left. We’d met her when the CSU arrived on site. Her name was Lila Cobb, and she managed the team.
I wanted to blurt out what we were all no doubt thinking, Tell us you have something. But I kept my mouth shut. My desire stemmed from two things: one, I wanted this guy behind bars, and two, I wanted out of the direct sunlight.
“We’ve covered the entire car. For us to be any more thorough, we’d need to take out the seats.” Lila must have sensed, like I did, that Jack was about to request that very thing. “I assure you that would be our next step if we were towing the vehicle back to the lab.”
“What do you mean would and if?” Jack asked.
“We don’t feel there’s enough here to justify doing that.”
“So you’ve found nothing?” Jack’s pulse tapped in his cheek.
“Not entirely true. We pulled a lot of prints. A flask in his glove box. It has about an ounce of whiskey in it. We also found a few long strands of brown hair on the passenger seat.”
“That’s the same color as Penny Griffin’s.” Lila and my teammates looked at me.
“It’s also the same color as seventy-five percent of female Americans. Besides, Gavin could have had a male passenger with long brown hair.” Zach smiled, obviously pleased to point this out.
Lila slowly took her gaze from me. “We would need to run some tests. The one strand has a skin tag so it should provide us with DNA.”
“What about the fingerprints?”
“As you know, technology allows us to scan on-site. None of the prints were in the system.”
That wasn’t a good sign. “Penny had a record.”
Lila nodded. “She did, and her prints are on file. I’m sorry, gentleman…uh, and lady”—she tossed in a glance to Paige—“but forensically speaking Penny Griffin wasn’t in this car.”
I didn’t want to accept it. Sharon McBride had spotted this car outside of Penny’s apartment building. My stomach sank as the possibilities multiplied. All we knew was that the car Sharon h
ad seen was older and dark green. It’s possible it wasn’t Gavin’s vehicle at all. Then I recalled where Sharon had seen the man. “What about the trunk? Is there any evidence there?”
Lila shook her head and addressed Jack. “Do you want us to bring the car in?”
Jack didn’t respond. He didn’t nod or shake his head. He lit his cigarette and took a drag. He had that look in his eyes. He was feeling backed into a corner. With Gavin off our radar, the suspect list had returned to zero. Maybe Nadia would uncover a lead once she had administrative rights with the dating site.
I hated reaching plateaus in investigations—the point where it turns from pursuing leads and targets to a waiting game for something to connect, to pop.
Lila was still waiting on an answer to her question.
“Bring it in,” Zach answered on Jack’s behalf.
Lila’s inquiry was likely rhetorical by Jack’s standards. Why wouldn’t they bring the car in? We would want the results on the DNA evidence from the hair. Prints Penny may have left behind could be smudged and unable to be pulled. Although, a gut feeling told me we had been pursuing the wrong person.
I imagined how Gavin Bryant’s life was going. One minute sipping a margarita and the next being hauled off by the Department of International Affairs. I didn’t envy the man. If I assumed he was innocent of the murders, I almost—almost—felt empathy for him. The reason I didn’t was because I paid taxes on every cent I earned and Gavin should have to do the same. Not to mention all the money he stole by claiming welfare. As the saying goes, You make your bed and you have to lie in it.
Lila excused herself and returned to her staff. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but based on the whirls of her arms and the facial reactions she was receiving, she was telling them they weren’t finished. She then put a cell phone to her ear, probably calling in a tow truck.
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