Page 74 of Investigate Away
She scrolled through the digital yearbook until she found Carol Armstrong. She found seven different images, all equally disturbing because of the uncanny similarities.
“Oh, my God.” Callie expanded one of the images with Carol and her roommate in an intimate embrace. Their arms wrapped around each other, Carol had her lips smacked on her roommate’s cheek. It could be seen as close friends, but Callie’s gut told her it was more than that.
Callie pulled up another picture and studied Carol’s features. She had long blond hair. Kara had short light-brown hair. They both had stunning blue eyes. Both had slender builds, though Kara was a tad bit more muscular. But what really freaked Callie out was the tattoo that dotted Carol’s midriff. It was in the exact location as a blotchy mark that Kara always said was a birthmark.
But maybe it was a tattoo that she tried to remove.
Callie forwarded the information on to Jag, along with her thoughts about Carol having a relationship with her roommate. She pulled up police reports from the murder, and not a single person mentioned a potential love affair.
So, why did Carol kill women who also looked like her and her stepmother? Wait. In Carol’s picture that her father had given them she had dark hair. And it wasn’t as long. Not to mention she wore less makeup and wasn’t as glitzy as the Carol at college.
No. Carol as a teenager was more like the Kara that Callie knew. Down-to-earth and very little maintenance. But Kara had a type. She liked her women to be girly-girls.
Ivy was a blond. With long hair, though she didn’t style it the way… Fuck. It didn’t matter because the killer styled some victims the way she wanted.
“Oh no,” Callie whispered. Ivy could be next.
But the other thing that bothered her was Carol’s stepmother, Tina. She looked young. Really young.
Callie tapped her cell, pulling up Jag’s number. “Pick up,” she whispered.
“Hey, babe,” he answered on the second ring. “Everything okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine. But no. Things are not okay. I think I have something,” she said.
“I just got your email, but I’m out of the office and hard to see much on my cell.”
“Just more evidence that points to Carol and Kara being the same person, but I have another hunch.”
“Lay it on me,” Jag said.
“Didn’t you think Tina looked young?”
“I’d say she was a trophy wife, why?”
“Would you say she could be close to Kara’s age, which is forty-two?” Callie said as she tried to swallow, but her pounding heart lurching up to her throat made it impossible.
“That would make her a really young mom.”
“But it’s possible,” Callie said. “What if Carol, Kara, or whoever the fuck we’re dealing with knew Tina first. Introduced her to her father and then boom, no more friend or lover, and Carol goes off the deep end and starts killing people who look like her stepmother.”
“That’s an interesting theory,” Jag said.
“I want to go talk with the stepmother.”
“No. No. No,” Jag said. “I don’t want you leaving my house, much less the island.”
She was about to say that Kara wasn’t even here, but if she was the killer, she certainly was close, and maybe watching.
Jag had a point. But she couldn’t sit idle.
“What if I could get Tina to come to me?”
“I could live with that, but how are you going to get her to come out to the island?”
“You forget, I used to be a manipulative reporter who was used to getting whatever I wanted.”
“Oh, dear Lord, I’m terrified,” he said with a laugh. “Do me a favor; let me know when and where so I can have someone watching, promise?”
