Page 101 of Darkwater Lane

“Okay, so Fourth of July. We have a date. How does that help?”

“He also said a woman used to visit the grave regularly before then. But after the Fourth of July, she never came again.”

“Were they able to describe her?”

I snort. “No. The caretaker only ever saw her from afar, and the guy in the office couldn’t remember her well enough to describe her. But it was Rowan, I’m sure of it. I already reached out to Taylor. Now that we have a general timeframe, I asked her to look into where Rowan was and what she was doing during that time. Once I have that, I’ll call Mike and let him know. He’ll make sure the other agents listen and don’t ignore what I have to say. If they can’t figure out how Rowan robbed that grave, we will. And when we do, we’ll finally clear you once and for all.”

“You think it will be that easy?” he asks.

Nothing is ever easy, not when it comes to our lives. But maybe this time we’ll catch a break. “A girl can dream,” I tell him.

At the airport, I return the rental car and just clear security when I get a text from Taylor.

Taylor

Looked into Rowan’s whereabouts during the timeframe you asked about:

There’s a link, and I click on it. It takes me to a news article about a cybersecurity convention in Wichita over the Fourth of July weekend. Rowan was one of the scheduled speakers.

I gasp out loud and reread the article twice, unable to believe my eyes. Rowan was in Wichita—less than two hours away from the cemetery—when Melvin’s grave was robbed. I shake my head in disbelief. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry with relief.

I immediately call Mike. “I have your killer,” I tell him.

“Gwen, hi, good to hear from you.”

“Mike, I know who the serial killer is. I know who’s trying to set Sam up.” I must be talking a little too animatedly because I getsome strange looks from people as I make my way through the terminal to my gate.

“Okay, I’ll bite.”

“Rowan Applegate.”

He’s silent a moment. “I don’t think so, Gwen.”

“Look, I know female serial killers are rare, but it has to be her. Hear me out: she’s a hacker, so she could have easily gotten ahold of Sam’s flight schedule. She was near Knoxville when Leo Varrus was killed. She was in Stillhouse Lake when the Belldenes’ compound exploded, and when that woman’s body was found in the lake. And get this, I just visited the cemetery where Melvin was buried and I got a timeframe for when the grave was likely robbed. It lines up with when Rowan was nearby on a work trip. It can’t be a coincidence, Mike. It’s her, I know it is.”

“Rowan isn’t behind those murders.”

“But how can you say that? If you just look at?—”

“Rowan is dead.”

I blink. There’s no way I heard that correctly. “What?”

“She was murdered, Gwen.”

My steps slow to a stop. I’m in the middle of the terminal, harried travelers flowing around me like water. “How?”

“We’re still waiting on the details, but they found her body floating in?—”

“Stillhouse Lake,” I finish, somehow knowing that’s what he was about to say. She was the one they were asking about this morning. A shiver passes through me as an ache spreads through my gut.

“Yes,” he says.

A man in a business suit nearly clips my shoulder and curses under his breath. I continue walking slowly toward my gate. “That doesn’t mean she wasn’t the one responsible for everything else,” I argue. “She still could have killed all those stalkers. She could have been the one to murder Leonard Varrus.” I’m grasping at straws.

“They found a bone, Gwen. Presumably, one of Melvin’s. It was in her throat.”

“Oh, God,” I say under my breath. Rowan may have been my enemy, but she was also a mom. She had two kids, practically the same ages as mine.

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