Page 67 of 2 Sisters Murder Investigations

“Jarrod did have a special football jersey for his team, the Torrance Titans. It was a beloved personal item, the kind of thing you’d expect a serial killer, hunting and stalking and choosing his victim, would take as a trophy. But you know what?”

“What?”

“The Maloofs still have it.”

Baby stared at him. The hairs on her arms were standing up. “What?”

“Jarrod hadtwojerseys,” Summerly said. “The one he wore during games and a newer, cleaner one he wore for team photos and stuff. The kid was superstitious. He always wore the same jersey for the actual game. It was stained and torn in places. He kept the nice one at home in a drawer and pulled it out only for photographs or videos or whatever.”

Baby’s throat felt tight.

“If you were going tofakea serial killer’s trophy box,” Baby said slowly, “and you saw the article in the paper about Jarrod Maloof being missing ... what item would you guess best represented him?”

“The football jersey,” Summerly said. “Football star — football jersey.”

Baby felt her thoughts ticking faster and faster.

“It’s the same with Dorothy,” Summerly said. “She was an eccentric. The muumuus she wore, the jewelry. Her house had all kinds of dingle-dangles and wind chimes and stuff. If you didn’t really know her but wanted to grab something of hers that you thought she loved, the oil-painting kit would be a good guess.”

“The hairbrush,” Baby said, her thoughts racing. “From Maria Sanchez. It was in all of her Instagram tutorials.”

Summerly and Baby stared at each other.

“The box is fake,” Summerly said.

“But who faked it? Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who would have had access to all those places connected to the missing people in the box?” Baby asked. “To their houses, their bedrooms, their drawers?”

CHAPTER77

A MAN I DIDN’Trecognize was pointing a gun at me. He was tall and had bony shoulders that made his T-shirt look like it was on a coat hanger. He had close-cropped dark hair, and his skinny arms were covered in track marks. My instincts rammed into each other, causing a skidding, screeching pileup of vastly different inclinations.

Something told me that I had seen this man before. Still, he seemed so dark and dangerous, it was like he had stepped out of another world, a shadow dweller arrived to end me. I had the stomach-churning sense that whoever had hired him to come after me had dug deep into the well of hatred and pulled out an unhinged man with nothing to lose. I knew I was about to be shot dead right there on the deserted highway. The man’s eyes told me so.

“Get in the car,” he said.

“Hell no,” I replied.

The man with the bony shoulders lowered the gun and shot me in the leg.

There was no hesitation. No warning look. He was sending me a message — he would tell me what to do once and once only, and if I didn’t comply, there would be pain.

The bullet had smashed into my shin, slipped past the bone, and left through the back of my calf. My leg was knocked out from under me. I didn’t have the breath or the time to scream before he marched over and grabbed a fistful of my hair.

“I know why you’re following me,” he growled. “And it ain’t happening. You should know that by now. You’ve been listening in on me for months. Years, probably. Through the Wi-Fi. Through the phones. I know everything. I know what you peopledo. And I’m not going to come home and join you. Mom and Dad and Uncle Ollie, they can all throw their lot in with the CIA if they want. But I’m not coming ba — ”

I’d raked the tire iron up from the asphalt with the tips of my fingers and now I swung it upward as hard as I could into the man’s crotch.

His words died on his lips. He collapsed inward like a folding chair and flopped to the ground. He dropped the gun. We both fumbled for it, sending it skidding across the loose gravel at the edge of the road and beneath my car. I saw in a flash that I would have to seriously incapacitate my attacker to buy enough time to get the gun from under the car or to get my own weapon from inside my car. Trouble was, he had a similar thought. I swung the tire iron again but missed, and I caught an elbow in the nose for my efforts.

I’d been hit in the nose by a man once before. A teenage client’s father had wanted to smack his son for getting arrested but smacked me instead when I stepped in to protect him. I felt then as I did now — like a giant wasp had wrapped its legs around my skull, jammed its massive stinger into the center of my face, and skewered my brain with its upcurved barb. I was momentarily blinded. I heard my attacker drop to his belly and slide under my car. When the explosions of color cleared and the road stopped spinning, I looked up and saw him staring down at me with the pistol pointed right at my face.

A big, dead tree made a halo around his head as he stood there. The dying leaves looked like dark curls. That’s the only reason it finally clicked and I recognized him.

My mouth fell open as shock consumed the terror inside me.

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