“Before now.” She frowned. “Except we have no evidence that Mitchell Burns is in San Diego.”

In the car, Carina called the officers she had tailing Kyle Burns.

“Where’s Burns?”

“He went home with a waitress from the Shack.”

Carina tensed. “Did she look like she was in any distress?”

“No, but we’re sitting outside her apartment now.”

“Stay there. Watch his car. Don’t let him leave. I’m on my way.”

Then she called for backup.

When they arrived, Carina talked to the officers sitting outside the woman’s apartment.

“Where’s the suspect?”

“Still inside.”

“Do we have an ID on the woman?”

He nodded, flipped open his notepad. “Maggie Peterson, twenty-two, senior at the university and has worked for the Sand Shack for the last year.”

“Good stuff.”

“I went to talk to the manager. She lives with her younger sister, Leah Peterson, nineteen.”

“Do you know if she’s home?”

“No confirmation either way.”

Carina told her backup that there was one, possibly two potential hostages inside the apartment. “We’ll try to do this the easy way. Knock on the door and ask Kyle Burns to come down to the station for questioning.” She turned to Nick. “We should have done it earlier.”

“We didn’t have enough earlier. We need a warrant.”

“I know,” said Carina. “I’m going to try to convince him to come down and answer questions. We might be able to get his DNA that way.” There was a trick often used by law enforcement. If a suspect took a drink from the police and left the drinking container behind, they could collect it as evidence and have it DNA tested. Same principle if the suspect smoked and tossed his cigarette butt on the street. Evidence.

But if Burns didn’t voluntarily come down to the station they had no reason to hold him. They had no DNA to compare to the DNA found on Becca. And without evidence, they couldn’t get his DNA.

She looked at Nick. “Ready?”

Nick should have said no. They had been going all day and his knees were on the verge of giving out. But he’d popped extra ibuprofen and no longer felt the intense pain.

“Ready,” he said.

Maggie Peterson lived on the second floor of the four-story apartment structure. Carina directed two officers to stay with Burns’s car, and two to stake out the back and front entrance of the building. Carina rapped on the door.

No answer.

She knocked again. “Maggie Peterson? Detective Carina Kincaid with the San Diego Police Department. I need to talk to you again.”

She heard something in the back of the apartment, then nothing. She was considering ramming the door when she heard the rattle of the security chain sliding open.

“What’s wrong?” the woman asked. She was dressed in a robe.

“We’re looking for Kyle Burns.”

“Kyle? Why?”

“We know he’s here. We’d like to talk to him.”

The bedroom door opened and Kyle Burns walked out, buttoning his shirt, his face a hard mask. “I can’t believe you followed me here.”

“We have some more questions for you, Mr. Burns.”

“It’s nearly midnight. This can’t wait?”

“No, it really can’t.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Carina tamped down her own anger. It wouldn’t do her any good dealing with Burns. “Maybe you’d like to come down to the police station with us.”

“Are you arresting me?”

“No.”

“Then ask your questions here.” Kyle reached over and took Maggie’s hand.

Carina had hoped that Burns wouldn’t want to answer questions around his girlfriend, that he’d voluntarily come to the police station.

“Tell us about your father,” Nick said.

“Hell, no. I’m not talking about him. He’s long gone.”

Just the mention of Mitch Burns set Kyle off.

“It sounds like you don’t like him much.”

“Are you insane? Who would like him? The man was a bastard.”

“What was it like growing up with him? Did you know he was a rapist when you were younger?”

“What are you, a shrink?”

Kyle’s rage was building. Carina wondered if someone who had so little control over their temper could plan and execute such a meticulous crime.

The killer is immature. Carina remembered Dillon’s profile, and lack of temper control was a sign of immaturity. She just needed to play it all the way through. Make him lose his temper and tell her the truth.

“Would you like to talk to a psychiatrist?” she asked.

He didn’t say anything. He stared straight ahead, not looking at Nick or Carina.

Nick took over. “I understand exactly how you feel, Kyle,” he said.

“Bullshit,” Kyle muttered without looking at him.

“You hate your father for what he did. To your family, to you, to those women. And when you were just a kid, you couldn’t do anything about it. The anger and humiliation.”

Kyle didn’t talk.

“You probably wanted to kill him, didn’t you?” Nick said softly.

Something in Kyle’s eyes flickered.

Carina watched Kyle closely as Nick continued the questioning.

“The trial humiliated you, but your father was in prison. Away. Your mother lied, right? You told us earlier that she’d lied to give him an alibi. Yet you still had to live with her. That must have been Hell.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Kyle said, looking at his hands.

“You wanted to protect your little brother, didn’t you? He was just a little guy, what, five years old? He didn’t know what was going on, and you didn’t want him to find out. So you took everything on your shoulders, tried to protect him.”

“You don’t know anything,” Kyle said.

“I know that you were angry when your father went to prison and were still angry when he got out of prison.”

“He should have been put away for life.”

“You’re right.” Nick paused, then asked, “Has he contacted you since he disappeared that night?”

Kyle shook his head.

“What about your mother? Your brother?”

“No! You don’t get it. He’s never coming back!”

“Why?” Nick quietly asked.

“He’s just not,” said Kyle.

Maggie spoke up for the first time, putting her arms around Kyle. “Why all these questions? Just because you can’t find out who killed Angie you’re coming after Kyle?” She stood straight and looked Carina in the eye. “Kyle was with me all last weekend, from when our shift ended at eleven Saturday night until we went to classes Monday morning at eight.”

Burns wasn’t talking anymore, so they left the apartment. Carina said to Nick, “Do you think she’s lying.”

“Maybe,” Nick said.

“Her alibi for Burns is too convenient.”

“I agree, but that doesn’t mean she’s lying. We never asked Kyle Burns for an alibi before.”

“Kyle’s reaction to his father is plain weird. Something’s going on there.” She glanced at her watch. “It’s after midnight. No way we can do anything more tonight.”

“Stop beating yourself up. We’ve done all we can.”

“Have we?” Carina rubbed her eyes and suppressed a yawn. “We’re close, but our hands are tied. No evidence, no arrest.”

“Do you want me to drive back?” Nick asked.

“Actually, that’d be great.”