Page 77 of Run for Her Life
“Isn’t this convenient for him?” Zoe whispered as they were being ushered out of the house. “I’ll get Lisa to check his alibi.”
“The two people who could have testified against him are dead,” Aiden agreed.
“Does he fit the profile?”
“From what I’ve seen of how much his mother belittles and controls him, yes. Maternal dominance leading to compensatory violence.”
Zoe could imagine how this all worked out for David—a motive combined with a method that was justified in his broken mind. He had lost a sister to a fire that started because he hadn’t paid attention. And then a heaviness settled inside her.
She glanced at David over her shoulder. He knew her mother, he knew Rachelbeforeshe was Rachel.
Her phone rang. It was Ethan. “Hey, how’s it going?”
“Agent Storm, Lisa’s busy working with the rangers looking for Amy, so I can’t reach her, but remember the break-in at Annabelle Stevens’s?”
A flicker. “Oh, yes, jeez, so much has happened since then I just assumed nothing came of it.”
“We got a hit on CODIS. Ed Morgan.”
“Ed Morgan?” Her eyes flashed to Aiden. “The detective who investigated the massacre.”
FORTY-EIGHT
Zoe could taste salt in the back of her throat as she stepped out of the car.
The beach stretched long and narrow, hemmed in by jagged driftwood and dark, windswept pines that loomed just beyond the sand. Water slapped against the shore, churning up foam and seaweed. There was no sun, just flat, filtered daylight.
“Ugh, I don’t even know what time it is.” She scrunched up her nose at the sky, stepping out. “What’s wrong with this state? Why is it always so dark?”
Aiden was next to her, his eyes closed and head tipped up, like he was savoring the wind through his hair and flicking over his skin. Zoe rarely saw him like this—relaxed, in the moment, and not busy dissecting anyone.
A smile spilled over the corners of his lips. “Quit staring, Storm.”
“Shut up.” She frowned. “So Ed is here?”
“Ethan said that Ed comes for a jog here.”
“How did he find out?”
“Friend of a friend of a deputy knows Ed. Perks of a small town.”
The wind came in restless bursts, cold and damp, whipping Zoe’s hair into her face and sending her body slightly wayward from the force. Sand pricked her eyes. She was rubbing it off when Aiden’s warm hand came to her face, gently brushing her hair away. She froze, her skin buzzing, and everything inside her became hot. When she opened her eyes, he was so focused on untangling her hair that she wondered what he had been like with his late wife, how he’d mourned her, how she’d died.
Just as quickly, he withdrew his hand and cleared his throat, looking around. “Luckily, the beach is practically empty. Oh! There he is!”
In the distance, Zoe saw Ed jogging toward them—in perfect shape, sweat coating his skin.
“Well, Ethan sent us his background check.” Aiden said, reading from his phone. “Former Army. Served in a recon unit out of Fort Lewis. Marksman certification, high placement in advanced rifle courses. He was one of those guys who could hit a moving target at six hundred yards without blinking.”
“Sounds like someone who would do just as well with darts. Could he beSpector? Any criminal history?”
“Got a dishonorable discharge in 2009. Something about disobeying orders. Two years later, he shoots a man outside a bar in Spokane. Claimed self-defense. Jury didn’t buy it, but they gave him a light sentence—two years. Probably because of the PTSD angle.”
“He was involved in the original massacre investigation.” Zoe connected the dots, her eyes glued to Ed, who was doing laps in the distance. “That’s how he and Jackie must have known each other. She was obsessed with it, probably reached out to him. And then when she and Annabelle planned the theft, Annabelle didn’t know that her partner in crime was an obsessed psychopath who planned to hunt her down.”
“His history is textbook: early conditioning in precision, control, high-stakes decision-making. All funneled into a military identity that collapsed when he was discharged under dishonorable terms.” Aiden studied him. “Given his PTSD, Jackie’s actions triggered him. And so he could have hunted her down.”
“And enjoyed it so much that he took Amy, whom he would have known about through Jackie.”
