Page 40 of The Drowned Woman
“How did she die?” she asked when he remained silent.
“She was at a friend’s house—they had a LSAT study group. Cherise was brilliant but struggled with tests. She was always a bit up and down, had been on anti-depressants since high school, but thought they messed with her focus, so, unknown to me or her doctors, she’d stopped them. Her friend said she hadn’t done well on the practice tests for law school, was upset—and resentful of me for already being guaranteed a full ride for grad school. At least, that’s what everyone believed—” He stopped, a small choking sound emerging. “I shouldn’t have, though. I should have never believed, should have fought, should have—”
“Luka, you were just a kid.”
“Still… She never came home that night. A passing motorist saw her car partially submerged in the river. All the windows were down and she left a poem behind, weighted down on the river bank. A message to me, to the world.”
“A poem?”
“One of my favorites, I’d just done a paper on it. So elegant, so poignant, I’d thought at the time. Three lines, twelve words total. But the title says it all.”
“What was it?”
“Langston Hughes. ‘Suicide’s Note.’” He shrugged, less an expression of uncertainty than of frustration. “I should have known—”
“The killer’s just playing mind games,” Leah protested as the doors opened on the empty lobby. “Don’t believe anything he says.”
“No. He’s telling the truth.” Luka slid his phone free and thumbed the screen, then held it to her. It was a photo of an engagement ring, taken at an angle to reveal the inscription:Cherise, my beloved. Forever, Luka.
“It’s hers,” Luka said, his voice gravelly with emotion. “They never found it on her body, thought maybe she’d thrown it in the river. But now I know. He took it. There’s no other explanation. He killed Cherise.”
Twenty-Three
Luka stalked through the empty lobby, ignoring the fact that he was crossing the space where Trudy Orly’s body had lain a mere eight hours ago. Leah kept pace with him and while he was glad for her company, he also wished she wasn’t here to witness the tsunami of emotion swamping him.
Guilt, grief, fury, confusion all collided, screaming that he do something, anything, shrieking that the past seventeen years of his life had been a lie. Energy shuddered through every nerve—he couldn’t have stopped and stood still if he’d wanted to. He paced, first crossing then circling the lobby, his footsteps ringing through the vast expanse of the atrium, moving faster and faster until finally Leah simply stood and watched, letting him go.
Then it hit him. This was what the killer wanted. Chaos.
Luka halted so abruptly one foot skidded along the newly cleaned marble. The clarity that had eluded him since the case started was now stunning. Above him he heard the two patrol officers working, but they sounded very far away.
Leah joined him. “Are you okay?”
Luka swallowed, searching for his voice, and settled for nodding.
“If you need to talk—”
“No.” The word sounded clear, like the old Luka, as if nothing had changed. But everything had changed. Everything.Focus, he told himself.Prioritize. Family first.“Leah, can Nate stay at your place tonight?”
“Of course.”
“Thanks.” And Pops? Any way this played out it would devastate the old man—not only the implicit threat to Luka, but also the truth of Cherise’s murder. Pops had adored her. Best to let him stick with his routines, remain in his home. Far easier for Luka to be the one to leave. He’d ask Ahearn to arrange for patrols to swing by the farm. Then he faced Leah. How could he be so stupid, letting her get involved in this? “You need to go back to Good Sam. This wasn’t the right case for a civilian to be involved with.”
“You’re kicking me off the case? Why? Did I do something wrong? I mean, you wouldn’t even know about the killer if I hadn’t gone the extra mile to spend time with Risa.”
He started for the doors and she followed. “It’s nothing you did. But think. If this guy is responsible for Cherise’s death, then he’s been killing and getting away with it for seventeen years. He’s had that ring in his back pocket to use for all that time.”
“Right. He’s a serial killer—” She sounded almost flippant, and a rush of disappointment flooded over him. After what Leah went through last month, he thought she, of all people, would understand how serious this was.
“You’ve been watching too many movies. Real-life serial killers, the ones who make a career of it, who don’t get caught early on—it’s because they’re smart and careful. They don’t go around leaving clues and letters and taunting the police—especially not after BTK was caught—not unless it’s part of their plan, a way to force an error from the police or…” He trailed off, still fighting to follow the tangled threads of the tapestry unfolding in his mind. The picture was sprawling, so much larger than he’d ever imagined. How much of it was truth and how much misdirection? Could all three cases—Cherise, Trudy, and Risa’s stalker—really be the work of one man, undetected for seventeen years?
“If Cliff is Risa’s stalker, then did he kill Trudy and Cherise?” Leah’s question echoed Luka’s thoughts. “He didn’t strike me as very cunning.”
“We’re getting a full background,” Luka said absently. He agreed with her—his initial instincts when he’d met the building manager were of a socially awkward man with a limited skill set. But maybe they’d seen only what the killer wanted them to see. “But Cliff had the opportunity and the means to kill Trudy.” It didn’t feel right, but the facts in hand trumped Luka’s instincts. Until he discovered new facts that gave him a reason to doubt Cliff’s guilt. Either way, they had to find the man and question him. Soon.
“Why involve Risa? Why give her clues to follow? Why the letters? And why kill Trudy?”
“He has a plan.” No, that wasn’t quite right. “Hehada plan. Involving Risa. But something changed. Trudy did something, saw something, said something that threatened him. He didn’t kill her because he wanted to or because his damn dice told him to, he did it because he had to kill her, to silence her, immediately. Somehow, she posed a threat to him. Maybe something in the photos deleted from her phone.” Except that they’d found nothing unusual in any of the deleted photos. What might have made them worth killing for?
