Page 3 of Ruthless Riches
I shook my head and steeled my jaw. “No. I’m okay.”
“All right. I have a couple of questions for you,” he said, leaning forward again. “Do you have any idea who might want to hurt Alexis?”
I sighed and rubbed my temples. “I can think of two thousand people who’d love to see her dead, but they’re all in prison.”
“You’re referring to the Golden Circle trafficking ring and its clients?”
“Yes.”
He nodded slowly. “Like you said, they’re all in custody at the moment, and none of them have access to unmonitored communication, so it’s very unlikely that this was some sort of revenge attack ordered by one of them.”
“Yeah, that’s what I figured,” I muttered. My shoulders sagged, and I rubbed my aching forehead. “I’m guessing you don’t have any suspects in mind yet?”
“We’re exploring every option,” he replied. “You and Alexis have both experienced a lot of attention from the media and public over the last several days. A colleague of ours suggested that it could be some sort of twisted fan. Someone who wanted to get close to Alexis and saw this as a way to do it.”
“But I’d say the text message and the warning on the mirror suggests something different,” Fernandez added. “Something that’s been going on for a lot longer than the last week or two.”
I looked at her. “Do you know who Alexis really is?” I asked in a tentative tone. “Her birth name, I mean.”
“We know she’s Peter Covington’s daughter. Why?”
I shrugged listlessly. “I was texting Ruby earlier. She’s one of Alexis’s best friends,” I said. “She said she wondered if someone out there is still convinced that Peter was guilty of the 2009 murders and decided to target his children as a result. I thought you might think the same thing.”
She clasped her hands together. “We’re interested in knowing what you think, Nate. You’re extremely close to the situation. So when you think about tonight’s attack and who might be responsible for it, what’s the first thing that pops into your head? Do you agree with Ruby—that it might have something to do with her father?”
“No. I think it was the Butcher,” I said, skimming a hand over my jaw. “The copycat one, I mean. The same person who left those bodies in the quad tonight.”
Fernandez’s brows puckered. “Why do you think that?”
“Because of the messages. Stop digging. This is your final warning,” I replied. “Seems like he’s worried that Alexis might figure him out, and he’s trying to stop her from going any further.”
“If it was the copycat Butcher, why would he leave her alive?”
“I just told you. To warn her to stop digging.”
“Yes, but why? Why did she get a warning from the Butcher when the other victims were killed? What makes her so different?”
I nodded slowly, finally seeing her point. If the copycat Butcher had actually attacked Alexis, and he’d done so without killing her, then that meant he probably had a connection to her. A reason to keep her alive while his other victims met grisly ends.
“You think it was someone she knows,” I said.
“It seems likely, so we really need you to think for us right now. Who might want to hurt her?” Rader asked.
I lowered my gaze to the floor as I considered the question.
Alexis’s immediate family—her mom, stepdad, and Sascha—were out. They had no motive to hurt her. Her best friends at Blackthorne didn’t seem to have any motive, either. Then again, I didn’t know them very well. I knew Ruby was bubbly and loud, and I knew Laurel was whip-smart and sarcastic, but I didn’t know much beyond that.
I closed my eyes and thought back to the exact moment I heard Alexis scream from the bathroom. When I raced toward the sound, Ruby came out of a bathroom halfway down the hall and joined me outside the door at the end, crying and screaming as I attempted to break it down. There was no way she could’ve hurt Alexis, because she was right there with me.
But what about Laurel?
She was nowhere to be seen when the screaming started. Nowhere to be seen when I broke the door down, either. In fact, she didn’t show up at the scene for at least five minutes after I found Alexis on the floor.
She would’ve had time to attack Alexis, escape out the bathroom window, and sneak back into the house to pretend she’d been there all along. Also, when she joined me in the bathroom, she didn’t hesitate to crouch down in the sticky mess of blood on the tiles. Perhaps she did that on purpose as a cover story for herself, just in case there was already a bit of blood on her that she wanted to hide.
Or maybe she just wanted to help Alexis because she loved her. That was the simplest explanation. After all, they were friends. What reason could she possibly have to hurt her?
I slowly shook my head. “I really don’t know,” I said, twisting my hands until my knuckles cracked. “I can’t think of anyone who’d want to hurt her.”
