“Are you not afraid?” Daniel asked softly.

“I’m terrified. I’m afraid I’ll end up like Gemma or Claudia or Janet. Or Lisa.” Sadness swept over her face. “And I’m afraid for my family. Both Garth and Rob have enough ammunition to ensure the other’s silence. That terrifies me most of all.”

“You’ve taken a risk coming here,” Daniel said. “Why?”

Her lips trembled and she firmed them sternly. “Because Lisa and I were friends. I used to borrow Gemma’s nail polish during lunch. Claudia helped me pick out my prom dress. They were part of my childhood and now they’re all gone and part of my life is gone with them. I want whoever did this to pay.” She rose. “That’s all I have to say.”

Alex stood at the end of the hall outside Leigh’s outer office, next to a window where she could get decent cell phone reception. And a little privacy. Her toe tapped and she realized she was nervous as the phone rang on the other end.

“Hello?” a female voice answered, and Alex wanted to sigh. She’d been hoping Richard would answer. Instead she was talking to Amber, Richard’s wife.

“Hi, this is Alex. Is Richard available?”

“No.” The word came too quickly. “He’s not here. He’s at work.”

“I called the hospital. They said he was at home. Please. It’s important.”

Amber hesitated. “All right. I’ll get him.”

A minute later she heard Richard’s voice, quiet and awkwardly formal. “Alex. This is a surprise. What can I do for you?”

“I’m in Dutton.”

“I heard. I… saw the reports on the news. Are you all right?”

“I am. Bailey sent me a letter. I think it came to the house. Can you check?”

“Hold on.” She heard him moving things around. “Here it is. It’s got a key in it. I can feel it through the envelope.”

Alex drew a breath. “Look, I know this sounds totally crazy, but I want you to only handle it by the corner and open it with a letter opener. It may become evidence.”

“Okay.” She heard him rummage in a drawer. Then, “You want me to peek inside?”

“Carefully, yeah. And if there’s a letter, read it to me.”

“There is. You ready?”

No. “Yes. Read it, please.”

“Dear Alex, I know this letter will come as a shock to you after all these years. I don’t have a lot of time. Please take this key and put it someplace safe. If something happens to me, I want you to take care of Hope. She’s my beautiful daughter and my second chance. I’ve been clean and sober for five years now, all because of her. And you. You were the only person who believed in me when I hit rock bottom. You were the only one who cared enough to try to get me help. But I want you to know I got help and Hope is healthy and normal. A million times in the last five years I’ve wanted to call you, but I know I burned my bridges that last time and I couldn’t face you again. I hope you’ll forgive me and if not, then please take care of Hope anyway. You’re the only family I have left and the only one I trust with my daughter.

“Hide the key. Don’t let anyone know you have it. If I need it, I’ll call you.” Richard cleared his throat. “It’s signed, Love, your sister, Bailey, with a little cartoon of a sheep.”

Alex swallowed hard. “A lamb,” she whispered.

“What?”

“Nothing. I’m going to need to ask the police what they want you to do with the key. If they ask, can you FedEx it to me tonight?”

“Of course. Alex, are you in any danger?”

“I had a narrow miss a few days ago, but, um… I’m in good hands down here.” Her voice had changed, softening as she said the last words.

“What’s his name?”

She smiled. “Daniel.”

“Good. You’ve been alone too long,” he said gruffly. “Even when you were with me.”

Tears unexpected sprang to her eyes, burning her throat. “Tell Amber if I call again it’s just to get the letter, okay?”

“Alex, are you crying?”

She swallowed hard. “I seem to be doing that a lot lately.”

“You never cried. Not once. I used to wish you would.”

“You wanted me to cry?”

“I wanted you to let go,” he said so quietly she almost didn’t hear it. “I thought if you cried, you might be able…”

Alex’s heart clenched so hard it hurt. “To love you?”

“Yeah.” The one word came out sad. “I guess so. Good luck, Alex. Have a good life.”

“You, too.” She cleared her throat and wiped her eyes. “I’ll call you about the letter.”

Atlanta, Thursday, February 1, 6:00 p.m.

When Leigh had escorted Kate Davis from the building, Daniel turned to the group. “Six down, one to go?”

Luke looked up from his laptop. “Jared O’Brien is the right age. He graduated the same year Simon did, from the private school.”

“So far we have Garth and Jared who went to the private school,” Luke said, “Wade, Rhett, and Randy who went to the public, and Simon who attended both.”

“If O’Brien was a drunk, he could have been a liability,” Chase said. “Let’s get a profile on him, as discreetly as possible. Until then, we don’t approach anyone in his family. I don’t want to tip anyone off. We still need to find the other living man, so find me connections. See if anybody else has withdrawn a hundred grand from their kids’ college fund recently.”

“She said he had affairs,” Ed said suddenly. “Kate Davis. She said that her sister-in-law said she could ignore Garth’s affairs, but not endangering her children. Didn’t Bailey’s friend say she thought she was seeing a married man?”

“Bailey could have been waiting for Garth that night,” Luke agreed. “I can see Mansfield beating her up long before I see Garth Davis doing it.”

“If Garth Davis and Bailey were having an affair, I’d expect to find his prints somewhere in that house,” Chase said. “If he came in to attack her, it’s less likely. It would be nice to know which is guilty of assault versus garden-variety infidelity.”

“We took prints from the bathroom and the kitchen,” Ed said. “But none of them came up in AFIS.”

“Neither Garth nor Randy have a record, so I wouldn’t expect their fingerprints to be in AFIS,” Chase said. “But both are city employees, so they have to have prints on file somewhere.”

“I’ll check, or we could just ask Hope, right, Daniel? Yo. Daniel.” Ed snapped his fingers.

Daniel was still thinking of Kate Davis’s final words. “Whoever killed these four women is attacking a place in time. Kate said her childhood was gone.”

“So?” Chase asked.

“I don’t know. It just nags at me. I wish there was someone I could trust to tell me how things really were then.” He stilled. “Maybe there is. I saw my old English teacher my first day back in town. He said something about only fools thinking they could keep secrets in a small town. He told me not to be a fool. I was so busy thinking about bodies and Woolf and the paper, I didn’t listen. I think I’ll pay him a visit tomorrow.”

“Discreetly,” Chase warned.

“Excuse me.” They all turned to find Alex standing at the door. “I saw Leigh walk Kate Davis out, so I thought it was okay to come back.”

She’d been crying. Before Daniel knew it, he was on his feet, his hands on her shoulders. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I just talked to my ex. He has Bailey’s key. What do you want him to do with it? He says he can FedEx it if you want.”

“We want,” Chase said from the table. “Leigh can give you the address.”

She nodded and slipped from Daniel’s hands. “I’ll call and tell him.”

He watched her go, feeling unsettled and unhappy about it. Focus, Vartanian. He sat back down and made himself think. “Wade had a key,” he said.

“What was it to?” Chase asked.

“I assume it was to wherever they’d hidden the pictures,” Daniel said. “But Simon had the pictures, in my father’s house. That’s how my father found them. What if Simon also had a key?”

“Was a key found with Simon’s things when he died?” Luke asked.

“Not the first time, but my father might have found it first. If Simon took it with him, maybe it’s with all the things they found in his house in Philadelphia. I’ll call Vito Ciccotelli and find out.”