Page 52 of Relentless
“Not true,” Ethan said.
She shot him a look. “Sabina?” she pressed, looking for her sister to weigh in.
Sabina’s hesitation told her everything she needed to know. “I hate that Kara’s right, but she’s right. And you know it, Ethan,” she said. “That’s not to say we wouldn’tevercapture the killer if he doesn’t strike again. But the chances are much lower.”
Ethan’s jaw clenched, and he looked away. After a beat, he spoke. “Since we can’t dictate the actions of a killer, it’s neither here nor there. He—assuming it’s not Astrid—will either find a way to finish the job or he’ll let it lie. Either way, we’ll do what we need to in order to bring him to justice.”
“He’s right,” Chad agreed. “We’ll keep investigating on our end and continue tracking their movements. We also have a few leads that Gina is helping us look into.”
Sabina filled her in on Gina’s efforts, then they said goodbye and Kara hit the End button. She took a sip of her coffee and let her gaze drift toward the window, staring off at nothing in particular.
“You don’t think it could be Astrid?” she asked, thinking of Ethan’s assumption that the killer was a man.
Ethan remained silent, then finally he answered. “Honestly? I don’t know. These murders took cunning, not necessarily strength. Or at least not physical strength. At this point, I think it could be any of the four of them.”
And the more suspects they had, the longer it would take to identify the killer. And the longer it took to identify the killer, the greater the chance he—or she—would kill again.
CHAPTERNINETEEN
“It was a girl!”Evelyn said. “I swear to it,” she added with a laugh.
Ethan caught Warren’s eye. Maybe encouraging Kara and Evelyn to have a couple glasses of wine while they compared notes about the South Sudan assignment hadn’t been his best idea. Kara was holding her own, but Evelyn was a lightweight.
“It was not!” Kara countered. “It was definitely a boy. A young one.”
“Well, we agree on that. Shewas young,” Evelyn countered. The two were discussing the pickpocket who’d mugged Peter. Or, more precisely, the gender of the thief.
“Did this young person actually steal anything?” Ethan asked.
Warren raised a beer in salute to his efforts to try to bring the conversation around to a useful topic.
“His wallet,” Kara answered.
“Sort of,” Evelyn added.
Ethan cast Warren a look then dropped his attention back to Evelyn. “What do you mean?”
The question was directed to the older woman, but Kara answered. “Peter chasedhimand got it back.”
Evelyn frowned then leaned back on the couch and crossed an arm over her stomach. “It was all a bit odd really,” she said.
Ethan’s ears pricked up. “Yeah?”
She nodded. “When we first came around the corner and saw Peter, I thought he was reaching into his pocket to give the child something. We’re well cautioned about giving those who beg any money, but we all occasionally do it. It’s hard not to. That’s what I thought was going on.” Evelyn fell silent, perhaps sifting through her memories of that brief time.
Ethan glanced at Kara, who was frowning. “You know, you’re right, Evelyn. I hadn’t really thought about it because what happened next was so dramatic. I think it overshadowed what we first saw.”
“And by ‘what happened next,’ you’re referring to Peter yelling ‘Thief!,’ the subsequent struggle between the two, then Peter taking off after the pickpocket?” Ethan asked. Both Evelyn and Kara nodded. They agreed on the sequence of events, just not the gender of the suspect.
“Maybe you could work with a sketch artist,” Warren suggested.
Both women drew back in surprise at that. “It was just a child,” Evelyn said.
Warren slid Ethan a look. “I think we all know that children aren’t always as innocent as they seem. And sometimes, even when they are, they can easily be manipulated,” Warren replied. Chad had done a background check on the man, and he knew what he was talking about. He’d done twenty years in the army and most of those with Special Forces.
“Do you honestly think that a child could be the reason behind all this? That a child could make Peter our killer?” Kara asked. Confusion, more than disbelief, lacing her tone. That was fine with him, though. He wasn’t convinced the mugging and the murders were related either.
“It’s just a lead,” Ethan said. “That child is the only part of your time together that sticks out as something unusual or curious.”
