“On my way.”

After he disconnected, Amarok was tempted to call Lewis to see if Emmett’s phone records had come through. He started to scroll for the number, but then he set his phone aside. The way things had gone at Virtanen’s apartment, he needed to give Lewis some space. Calling wouldn’t help. Lewis probably wouldn’t answer and, even if he did, pressing him now might only guarantee that Lewis wouldn’t work with him even after he cooled off.

This was when being in Minnesota instead of Alaska was difficult, Amarok decided. He wanted to be the one racing over to see what Edna Southwick knew. Once Phil had the address associated with the receipt, it might be possible to find Evelyn.

Amarok shoved a hand through his hair as he walked over to the window. Would she still be alive? And, if she was, would they be able to save her before Bishop subjected her to one of the lobotomies for which he was infamous?

If Bishop was already there in Alaska with her, if he’d arrived and joined Emmett, that didn’t seem likely. A frontal lobotomy took just ten minutes.

Anchorage, AK—Tuesday, 5:15 p.m. AKDT

Ada watched anxiously as the police officers she’d summoned spoke to the same man she’d met at the door an hour or so earlier. They’d been reluctant to listen to her when she called in, had tried to convince her that her mother was probably off on a vacation and would be back in a few days. But she’d been so adamant that something strange was going on with her mother’s new tenant, they’d agreed to swing by the chicken ranch and talk to him.

Although Ada couldn’t quite hear what was being said, she didn’t care to go any closer. Something about the short, soft man with the thick glasses and the paralysis on the left side of his face gave her the heebie-jeebies. One officer actually had had the nerve to ask if she was afraid of him simply because he’d suffered a stroke or something and looked a little different.

She’d found the suggestion offensive. Why would that bother her? But she supposed they met all types and had to ask. Mr. Edmonson didn’t appear threatening, and she’d admitted that to them.

Still, he had a disconcerting stare. The way he looked at her for so long without blinking made her uncomfortable.

Something was … off. That was the bottom line. After she’d left the first time she’d tried talking herself out of it, but she couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling he gave her, even though he hadn’t really done anything wrong, nothing she could point to. It could be that she’d simply been watching too many true-crime shows and was imagining it all.

She wrung her hands, hoping she hadn’t dragged the police out here for nothing. But the encounter ended too soon for her to believe otherwise.

She was waiting for them to return to where she’d parked and speak to her before they left when she caught sight of Mr. Edmonson just before he closed the door. He was glaring at her with such malevolence it stole her breath.