J.D. Barker - The Fifth to Die - A gripping, page-turner of a crime thriller

When he came back again, Lili would lock her eyes on him and not turn away, maybe say something about his wound. Maybe that would make him go away sooner.

Lili knew plenty of boys like this.

The confident ones had no problem glaring at her. Some made sure she knew they were watching. The shy boys, though — they may look, but the moment she felt their eyes on her, the moment she looked over at them, they would turn away and lose themselves in something else, pretending she wasn’t there at all. Her friend Gabby thought of it as some kind of game, always calling out the shy boys and making them feel all embarrassed whenever she caught one.

There was one boy in their class, Zackary Mayville, notoriously shy. Gabby got partnered with him during science class last week, and just to mess with him, she unfastened two of the buttons on her blouse, just enough so her bra was visible when she bent down over their workbench. He turned bright red every time, looking but trying not to get caught looking, and Gabby managed to get through the entire hour with a straight face. Lili hadn’t, though. She couldn’t stop laughing and nearly didn’t get the assignment done. She had to —

Lili heard footsteps on the stairs. The man appeared.

He had changed clothes. Now he wore black jeans, a dark red sweater, and the same black knit cap from earlier. When he reached the bottom of the steps, he sat, and this time he did stare at her.

Only minutes earlier, Lili had told herself that she would stare back, that she would watch him with an intensity in her eyes, unflinching, unnerving. She would rattle him. She didn’t, though. Instead, she looked away. She focused her gaze on the concrete floor and watched him from the corner of her eye.

He sat there for a long time, at least twenty minutes, his breath coming in short, wheeze-filled gasps. When he finally spoke, his voice was low. “I’m sorry if I alarmed you. Sometimes it hurts.”

Lili wanted to ask him what he meant, but she didn’t. Instead, she remained silent.

“Sometimes,” he went on, “I feel like someone’s got their fingers around my eyeball and they’re squeezing with all their might, not enough to pop it, but almost. I have meds, but they make it hard to think, to focus, and I need to concentrate right now. I need my wits about me.”

Lili wanted to ask him about it, find out what was wrong, but kept her thoughts to herself. She wouldn’t speak to him.

He reached up and scratched at his cap, then stood. “It’s time to do it again.”

20

Clair

Day 2 • 11:49 a.m.

Kloz gave his chair a push with his right foot and sent it spinning. “No shit? Sam couldn’t stop being a cop? Not exactly a news flash.”

Nash sat on the edge of the conference table, Sophie and Clair at the opposite end. “He should have told us.”

“It’s not like we could have covered for him,” Clair said. “Sounds like the captain didn’t even give you a chance.”

Nash pointed across the hall. “It’s those ass clowns over there.”

Kloz gave his chair another spin. “This has conspiracy written all over it.”

“What do you mean?” Nash asked.

“Someone higher up is covering their ass. We should be working directly with the feds on this. Instead, they scooped up the investigation and cut us out. In what world does that make sense? I’ll tell you — in a world where someone higher up wants to distance this department from the case.”

“Who? Dalton?”

“Maybe higher. The mayor was friends with Talbot. He took a lot of flak when that all went down. Then you got the press saying Sam let Bishop go . . .”

Clair threw a pen at him. “Sam didn’t let anyone go. He saved that girl.”

Kloz caught the pen and put it in his pocket. “We know that, but it’s a juicier story if he lets him go. The mayor’s bestie is a criminal, the lead detective lets the serial killer walk . . . it makes perfect sense for the feds to come in and lock everyone else out.”

Clair turned to Nash. “Do you think he’s in contact with Bishop?”

“Sam?”

“Yeah.”

Nash shrugged. “Dunno.”

“Would he do that?” Sophie asked. “Talk to that man on his own?”

Nash shrugged again. “He’s been playing things close to the vest since Heather died.”

“Who’s Heather?” Sophie asked.

Clair tilted her head. “You didn’t hear?”

Sophie shook her head.

“Sam’s wife was killed in a convenience store robbery a few weeks before all this went down with Bishop. He probably shouldn’t have been working, but he had been on 4MK since the beginning, so when we thought he died we had to bring him back in. 4MK was his case. They caught the guy who killed her, and then he escaped police custody. Bishop killed Talbot, Porter saved Emory, then he spent a little time in the hospital recuperating. When he got home, he found a box on his bed. Inside there was a note from Bishop and an ear belonging to the man who killed his wife. Bishop got him,” Clair explained.

“What did the note say?”

“Bishop asked Sam to help find his mother,” Nash told her.

“His mother? What does she have to do with this?”

Clair rolled her eyes. “We don’t have time for this right now. I’ll fill you in when we’re back in the car. We need to keep moving, figure out how to proceed without Sam.” She turned back to Nash. “What happened at the Reynoldses’ house?”

Nash loaded up the photos on his phone and slid it across the table to Clair and Sophie.

Kloz leaned in to get a better look. “The same guy who killed Ella Reynolds did this?”

“I don’t believe in coincidences,” Nash replied.

“But why?”

“That’s the million-dollar question.”

Sophie swiped back through the images. “That doesn’t make sense. If the unsub is targeting the Reynolds family, why would he take Lili Davies? They don’t know each other. There’s no connection.”

“There must be a connection, we just haven’t figured it out yet. What do we know about the father?” Clair asked.

Nash stood and went to the whiteboard. He wrote FLOYD REYNOLDS and underlined it, then wrote WIFE: LEEANN REYNOLDS under it. “He worked for UniMed America Healthcare, has for the past twelve years. Sold blanket insurance and health-care policies. According to his wife, he brings home about two hundred thousand a year before bonuses, and they have no debt aside from an American Express card they pay off every month.”

Klozowski whistled. “That’s some nice scratch. I’m clearly in the wrong line of work.”

“We have UniMed,” Sophie pointed out.

“They’re the number three provider in the state,” Nash told them before writing SIZE II WORK BOOT PRINT FOUND on the board under UNSUB.

“Where?” Sophie asked.

“On the back of the driver’s seat in the Reynoldses’ car. A Lexus LS. Looked like the unsub tried to wipe it away but must have been in a hurry. Sam thinks he put his foot there for leverage when he strangled the father.”

Kloz’s eyes turned toward the ceiling. “Size eleven would put him around seventy-one point five inches, about six feet tall.”

“How do you know that?” Sophie asked.

“The average person is six and a half times taller than their shoe size. Any smaller or larger and their feet are out of proportion with their body, which means they’d have trouble walking, standing, balancing,” Kloz replied.

“Huh.”

“Hang with me, and I’ll school you on all kinds of trivia.”

“No, thank you,” Sophie told him.

Clair said, “I’m not sure I buy the no-debt thing. Maybe they don’t have traditional debt, but what about something not so traditional, like gambling or something he may not have shared with the wife? If you owe the wrong person money, I can see them making an example out of Reynolds’s daughter.”