Page 87 of Connor's Claim
Being able to use my skills to support the place would be the cherry on the cake.
“I’ll think about it,” I promised. “Just like I’ll think about yelling at my father. And finding some way to expose Piers Roache and the councillors.”
Genevieve raised her coffee in a salute.
“Wait, what did the councillors do?” Cassie asked.
Summoning my strength, I filled them in on that nugget while we sipped our iced coffee, ice cubes clinking, and my mind putting together a plan. Telling off my father, as Cassie put it, scared me so much, but at the same time, it had to be done.I didn’t know how I’d get the words out, but the prospect was thrilling and terrifying in equal parts.
“In the spirit of getting shite done, regarding that newspaper article link ye sent,” Cassie said. “Are we down to commence the first meeting of the Skeleton Girls Detective Agency?” At our encouragement, she continued. “I was talking to…someone yesterday and had the idea of making a crime wall, like in detective movies. Ye know, with a big map, clues, and bits of string linking the sites, and bios of information on the victims? I was thinking about it all night while mixing drinks.”
“Oh my God, yes. We should create one.” I peeked around at the living room walls. Connor’s knife display took up the only clear wall space. Beyond that, it was all brick or steel with nowhere to push a pin into.
“Arran has a printer and a stationery cupboard we can raid,” Genevieve said. “I’ve got a couple of hours before I need to go talk about my sex life in public. This sounds like such fun.”
Cassie stood, setting her empty glass on the counter. “We can use my room downstairs. The walls are basically cardboard. Let’s do this thing!”
Energised and caffeinated, we got to work. Genevieve printed a map of Deadwater, and we helped ourselves to Sharpies, string, and pins, then holed up in the bedroom Cassie had appropriated downstairs. In the room next door, two people were having sex in front of a camera, and it showed how far I’d come in accepting the warehouse’s strange world that it didn’t even faze me.
In happy coordination, we got the map up on the wall and marked off the places where Cherry, Natasha, and Amelia’s bodies had been discovered. Then we trawled Cassie’s notebook and the news sites for all the facts we could uncover about the three women.
The dates they died. Who they were. A heart drawn at the bottom of each of their sheets, just to show we cared.
Lastly, we wrote up the suspects list, focusing on the main individuals and not the less obvious ones like Alisha, which definitely wouldn’t have been fair to write up here. From cruising social media, I’d confirmed Piers was one city south of Deadwater on the night Natasha died, so it was feasible for him to have seen my father and gone on to murder someone for his own gratification. But for Cherry’s death, he was in Paris.
Just like Councillor Slaughter had an alibi one night. As did my father.
No single man on the list could’ve killed all three women. Not by himself.
Sitting side by side on the bed, the three of us stared up at what we’d created.
Cassie accepted the last cookie from the plate I’d brought downstairs. She pointed it at the wall. “That is a thing of beauty.”
I nodded, following the city streets and the lines of white string that led from one murder scene to the next, trying but failing to see any pattern we hadn’t already established. “It really is. Except… It doesn’t tell us anything new.”
Rested back on her elbows, Genevieve squinted. “Is it awful that I’m predicting where the next body will be found?”
Cassie choked on a crumb. “I was just doing exactly that.”
I sighed, because I’d done the same thing. “The terrible part is how sure we all think it is another woman is going to die.”
A sober silence fell over us.
“It won’t be any of us,” Cassie announced. “Promise me that the two of ye won’t leave the warehouse alone.”
I reached for her hand and Genevieve’s, too. Squeezed their fingers in a show of friendship I hoped I’d found with them. “It won’t be us. I wish it didn’t have to be anyone at all.”
Cassie’s hand tightened around mine, a shy little cat’s paw but not letting go. “Then let’s fill in these gaps. Do everything we can to find this fucker.”
If only any of us knew how.
How did any woman stop a man in his tracks in the same way he could us? Then an idea came to me, not to catch a killer, but to make Connor listen to me.
It was so perfect, I’d no choice but to put it into play.
Chapter 28
Connor