Thorne rubbed the back of his neck. ‘That is . . . I don’t know. It was bad enough knowing I had one creepy guy in my house while I was unconscious, but two? I’m wondering if it was Tavilla himself. That freaks me out.’
Me too, Gwyn thought. That Thorne had been that vulnerable . . . They could have done anything to him. She found herself being grateful that they’d ‘only’ drugged him. She swallowed hard. It could have been so much worse.
Alec shot him a sympathetic look. ‘Sorry, man. I tried to get more definition, but I couldn’t. I can send the file to the cops and see if they can.’
Thorne nodded slowly. ‘Yes, please.’
‘Send it to Joseph,’ JD said. ‘The FBI has better equipment than Hyatt’s team at BPD.’
Alec nodded. ‘You want to send it, JD?’
‘That would be best. Let’s email it to my Gmail account. Open me a browser window.’ Alec did as he was asked, then handed his laptop to JD, who tapped a few keys and handed the laptop back. ‘This way nobody can subpoena you later.’
Gwyn leaned back, able to better see Lucy with Thorne leaning forward as he was. ‘JD’s becoming one of us.’
Lucy grinned and blew JD a kiss. ‘And it’s sexy as hell, isn’t it?’
Gwyn shuddered. ‘Ew. No.’ JD was like a brother to her, just as Thorne was to Lucy.
Thorne shook his head at them. ‘Ladies, focus.’ He squinted at the photos. ‘I see Patricia, the two Circus Freaks guys who tried to deal out of Sheidalin, Ramirez and his wife, and Darian Hinman. All victims. But who are the two people beneath Hinman?’
A woman and a man. Both were connected to a woman in nurse’s scrubs who connected to Bernice Brown, the woman who’d been impersonated by whoever had lured Thorne out on Saturday night. Bernice Brown was also connected to Thorne and back to the mysterious female working for Tavilla.
Gwyn had a bad feeling about those two people, underscored when Frederick started to speak, then hesitated. ‘Not your fault, Thorne,’ he said. ‘Remember that.’
Thorne slumped back into the loveseat. ‘They’re dead too,’ he said flatly. ‘Who were they?’
‘A professor on sabbatical with her husband. Their trailer was parked in the space that Sally Brewster’ – he pointed to the nurse – ‘described to the man who called her asking her for Bernice Brown’s location. Sally thought the space was unoccupied.’
‘Oh no,’ Gwyn breathed.
Frederick nodded. ‘Sally’s son is a cop. He had a bad feeling about the man pumping his mother for information, then someone using that same number to get information from Julie.’
‘Ramirez’s throwaway cell number,’ Thorne said grimly.
‘Well, yes, but I didn’t tell him that,’ Frederick said. ‘He was convinced enough of the danger to take a leave of absence to watch out for his mother.’
Thorne leaned back, closing his eyes. ‘At least she’s safe then. Has anyone told Joseph the connection between those poor people and my case?’
‘I did,’ Clay said.
Thorne sat up abruptly. ‘Have we checked on Bernice Brown?’
‘Yes,’ Frederick said calmly. ‘I talked to Bernice and her cousin this afternoon. I told them about the couple who died, though they’d already heard about it. Bernice is pretty rattled. So is Sally. She feels like she condemned them to be murdered.’
‘No,’ Thorne bit out. ‘It was Tavilla, snipping ends. He’s damn good at that.’
Gwyn and Lucy shared another glance. Thorne looked at them. ‘What?’
‘You’re not blaming yourself,’ Gwyn said. ‘That’s an improvement.’
‘It totally is,’ Lucy said. ‘I’ll go next. It’s not much, but I got a copy of the preliminary autopsy report for Patricia Segal. Cause of death was the stab wounds. She had excessive levels of GHB in her blood and a blood alcohol of .35.’ She sighed. ‘And there was evidence that she had been sexually assaulted.’
‘Oh no,’ Gwyn murmured. Lucy shot her a stricken I’m sorry look but Gwyn waved it away, hoping no one had noticed Lucy’s reaction, because it was far too telling. ‘Did the rapist leave anything behind?’ she asked, conscious of how still Thorne had become beside her.
‘A hair,’ Lucy said sadly, and Gwyn knew the sadness was for her, not for Patricia Segal. Although it should have been for both of them, because no woman deserved that. Ever. Lucy squared her shoulders. ‘Her body was released today. The funeral will be Friday. There will be a closed-coffin visitation with the family on Thursday evening.’
There was a moment of silence and Gwyn felt like everyone was staring at her. She didn’t like it. ‘We need a plan for Patricia’s visitation and funeral. One of us needs to be there in case her killer shows up. We need to capture the faces of attendees.’
‘I’m keeping a list of action steps,’ Alec said. ‘I’ll add that one.’
‘Thanks, Alec.’ Stevie stood up and walked to the bulletin board. ‘I’ve got to feed Mason soon, so I’m going next. Paige and I interviewed half a dozen of the women on Patricia’s fund-raising committee today. We were trying to get more info on her husband, and on the young man she was sleeping with.’
‘Patricia liked doling out information in small parcels,’ Paige said with a grimace. ‘She told one woman his hair color, another his eye color, another the size of his . . . well, you know.’
Everyone grimaced at that. ‘Did she tell any of them his age?’ Gwyn asked sharply.
‘Just that he was over the age of consent,’ Stevie said. ‘Which in Maryland is sixteen.’
‘The friend she told that to was pretty appalled,’ Paige added. ‘She said she pressed her for assurances that he was over twenty-one, but Patricia just giggled and said he made her feel younger. That she’d enjoy it until he went away to college in the fall.’
‘Did she tell any of them his name?’ Thorne asked, his face stony.
Because he’d represented young men who’d committed crimes, only to find that the source of their behavioral issues was being sexually assaulted by someone they should have been able to trust. Both male and female, their abusers had been pastors, priests, rabbis, teachers, scoutmasters, and many times the parent of a friend.
‘No,’ Stevie said. ‘But she did tell one friend that he had muscles from playing lacrosse, and another that he had a scholarship. On a hunch that he went to the same high school as her son, we got a copy of the lacrosse team’s most recent photo and did some cross-checking for seniors who’d received scholarships. We used the hair and eye colors she’d revealed and narrowed it down to these two.’ She held up a high school yearbook and pointed to two of the boys.
Paige picked up the story. ‘Then we found their coach. He’s teaching summer school at the high school. We told him we’d gotten a report of one of his players potentially being the victim of a predator who was an older woman. We thought he’d be all “isn’t that cool, wish I’d been that kid”. Like, you know, that song “Hot for Teacher”.’
‘That attitude pisses me off so much,’ Lucy hissed.
Thorne’s hands had clenched into fists.
‘Well, you wouldn’t have been pissed off,’ Paige said, ‘because the coach was as appalled as we were. And very helpful. He told us that one of the players had a steady girlfriend and he doubted it was him.’
‘But this one,’ Stevie said, pointing at the page, ‘Tristan Armistead, had been acting strangely during the entire second half of the year. Secretive, not showing up to team events. His grades suffered, as did his performance on the lacrosse field. He nearly lost his scholarship.’
‘And,’ Paige added, ‘he’d been friends with Patricia’s son, but then it was like they’d had a falling-out. The coach said that Patricia’s son had come to him for advice because he was bewildered. He had no idea what he’d done wrong.’
‘And then,’ Stevie finished dramatically, ‘the coach went really still and asked if the older woman was Patricia Segal.’
‘Did you tell him that it was?’ JD demanded.