A powerful anger churned in Lila’s gut, kicking to get out. Lila stopped at the bottom of the steps, her eyes fixed on her mother, who tapped the edge of the plate with a nervous finger.

“I used to make these for your father,” Charlotte said. “To be honest, I’ve never been a fan of lemon bars. I don’t know why I still make them. So…if you want one.”

The sadness in her mother’s eyes hobbled Lila’s anger. Lila wanted to have it out with Charlotte, but the woman seemed so small and weak, a wounded deer barely able to look into the eyes of the wolf. Lila couldn’t do it. So she left, saying nothing.

Chapter 38

Niki and Matty met with Detective Tony Voss in an interview room of the Homicide unit to go over the Chloe Ludlow case. He had been the lead investigator when it went cold.

Voss placed his box of evidence on the table. “You think your boy might be good for Ludlow?”

“There’s a pattern,” Matty said. “White female, fully clothed, no defensive wounds, no ligature marks, but evidence of a sexual assault. COD is drowning, river water in the lungs and GHB in their systems—how are we doing so far?”

“Batting a thousand,” Voss said.

“Our boy’s a photographer,” Niki said. “Ring any bells?”

“A big one. Ludlow was an aspiring model, last seen getting into an older black SUV outside of her apartment. She told her roommate the guy was a photographer who offered to do some headshots on the cheap.”

“Did the roommate have a name for the photographer?” Niki asked.

“No. And we checked Chloe’s phone records, but the number she’d called was a burner. Cell towers had it moving all around the metro, so we figured he kept the phone off and only returned her calls while driving, so we couldn’t trace it to a house.”

“What about the SUV? Anything more specific than black?”

“Not according to my notes. I got the feeling the roommate didn’t like Chloe all that much. We didn’t rule her out as a suspect, but the photographer made more sense.”

“What’s her name—the roommate?”

Tony dug through the file and pulled out a report. “Alice Kempker. A kindergarten teacher at the time. They became roommates when Ludlow answered an ad, and by the time she went missing, the two were at each other’s throats. Kempker stayed at her boyfriend’s house that night, so it’s possible Chloe came home after the photo shoot. Her body wasn’t found right away.”

“Did you get any surveillance footage of the SUV?”

“No cameras at the apartment. We looked around the neighborhood, but didn’t find anything. Does your guy drive a black SUV?”

“An ’eighty-six Bronco—black,” Niki said. “But we haven’t been able to locate it.”

“Are we talkin’ serial killer?” Tony asked.

“We have four possible victims,” Niki said. She thought about saying five, adding Lila’s name to the list, but the connection remained far too remote. “Same MO and all with a nexus to a photographer named Gavin Spencer.”