Identity

jealousy is cruel as the grave.

—SONG OF SOLOMON 8:6





Chapter Twenty-one



As she filled two tall glasses with ice, Morgan did a little dance. Out the kitchen window, beyond the patio, the Zen frog tossed water into the air. Now she could imagine her ladies smiling at it while they enjoyed their morning coffee or evening wine. Through the rest of the summer and into the fall before the air blew too cold.

Picturing it perfectly, she opened the refrigerator for the pitcher of lemonade, then paused when the doorbell rang. A delivery, she supposed as she went to answer. Still, the rules of her life had become the habit of her life.

She checked out the front window first.

And all the simple pleasure of the day drained away.

She opened the door to the two federal agents.

“You’d have called if you’d caught him because you’d want me to know right away. That’s not it.”

“No, Morgan, I’m sorry. That’s not it. Can we come in?” Beck asked her.

“Yes, of course.” She closed the door behind them. “Who was she?”

“Let’s sit down first.”

“Sorry, yes. I…” She looked back toward the kitchen. “I’m not alone. I have my…”

What? She couldn’t say “boyfriend”—he wasn’t a boy. Partner, no, she didn’t think of them as partners, not really. Lover was true, but not all.

“Out back. Miles—Miles Jameson. We’re involved.” That sounded reasonable and true. “He was helping me with a project. He knows about all of this.”

“Yes, we’ve spoken with him.” Morrison glanced back as she did. “Do you want to go out, include him in what we have to tell you?”

No, she thought. She wanted to sit in the sunshine with Miles and lemonade and watch the frog fountain.

But.

“He’ll need to know anyway. I work at the resort. His family owns the resort. And, as I said, we’re involved. I was just … getting lemonade. That sounds so normal.” She laughed, shoved a hand at her hair. “So summer Sunday afternoon. I’ll get two more glasses.”

She walked them back to the kitchen. She could see Miles had already wound the hose back on its reel. Now he stood there with his hands in his pockets, studying the frog fountain.

“Can I help you with that?”

“No,” she told Morrison. “I’ll get a tray. You should go out. I need a minute. I just need a minute.”

She worked on steadying herself as she got a tray. Now she saw Miles turn, saw his bemused, relaxed face tighten.

She filled two more glasses with ice, then carried everything outside.

They continued to stand, the three of them, while the sun struck light against the copper bowl, while the frog smiled his peaceful smile.

She couldn’t say why it meant so much when Miles crossed to her, took the tray. He said, “Sit down.”

Even though it sounded like an order, it steadied her a little more.

When she sat, he poured the lemonade into the glasses so the ice crackled. It sounded like machine-gun fire to her ear.

Howl laid his head on her knee.

“Who was she?” Morgan asked again.

Beck took the lead.

“Her name was Quinn Loper, age twenty-eight, single. She owned her own business in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. She fits his profile, top to bottom, though she was substantially more financially well-off than most of his victims. And in this case, he was also able to access her grandparents’ accounts. He didn’t harm them physically but skimmed a hundred thousand. He could have taken a great deal more.”

“He took their grandchild,” Miles countered.

Beck nodded at him. “Yes, and maybe that was enough this time.”

“He rented a beach house, a two-month rental, under the name Trevor Caine,” Morrison continued. “While he may not use that identity again, you should keep it in your records. He posed as a writer.”

They laid out the facts and evidence they’d gathered. Then Beck took over again.

“It’s our conclusion he rented a house rather than booking a hotel because it’s an area where beach rentals are common, and he’d attract less notice.”

Beck leaned over, laid a hand over Morgan’s. “Morgan, I know it might seem we’ve made no progress finding him, stopping him, but we were able to track him from New Orleans, and eventually, we found the agency where he rented the car he used to drive to South Carolina. He’d changed his appearance, but two of the staff there ID’d him, so we knew the name he used, the look he used. Using those, we tracked him to Myrtle Beach. We found the hotel where he’d stayed a couple of days.”

Morgan said nothing, just nodded.

“We alerted local law enforcement. We’d begun canvassing the rental agencies when the alert on Quinn Loper came in. We missed him by hours.”

“But she’s dead anyway. I’m sorry, I understand how much time and work you’re putting into this. But she’s dead anyway.”

“Yes, she is.”

The regret came through, enough that Morgan wished she hadn’t spoken the horrible truth.

“We weren’t in time. But he made mistakes. He stole her car, a high-end Mercedes convertible. And he didn’t disable the tracking system.”

“I’m not sure what that means. I’m not in the high-end car club.”

“It’s an embedded system. It means they tracked him—tracked the car.” Miles’s eyes narrowed. “But you don’t have him.”

“No, but we have the individual who bought the car, and who’s previously taken in trade or in sale other vehicles from Rozwell. We have this person in custody.”

“He knows where Rozwell is?”

Morrison took over. “He claims no, and we believe him. He claims he thought Rozwell was a car thief, that he knew nothing about the murders. We tend to believe him on that, especially since facing potential charges of accessory after the fact, multiple counts of murder, he’s cooperating.”

“We know the vehicle he took in trade,” Beck told them, “and the name he used for the registration. We have his description at that time, and which direction he took, when he took it. These are major mistakes, Morgan, a breakdown in his discipline. We have an APB out on the vehicle, on the name he’s using.”

“Is he coming here?”

“Our information is he brought up a map on his laptop while his new car was prepared for him. He mapped out a route west, likely as far as Kansas, so not here. Our conclusion is he’s not ready for you yet.”

Beck opened her briefcase, took out an evidence bag. “He put this on the victim.”

“My bracelet.” In the summer sunlight, her skin went cold. “The one he took when he killed Nina.”

“He wants you to know he’s thinking about you. To keep you on edge. But the fact is, Morgan, he’s on edge. He wouldn’t have made so many mistakes otherwise. He knows cars, he knows tech, but he forgot about the tracking system in the Mercedes.”

“We can put you in a safe house,” Morrison began.

“My mother and grandmother live here. What if he comes for me, and hurts them instead?”

The thought of it, the risk of it, turned the hard knot in her belly to ice.