Page 81 of Jack

“It’s not in the comments. It’s on the show.” He reached over to move the cursor toward the end of the podcast, where Penelope played the various voice comments. They listened for a moment, and then the voice he’d heard before came on.

A medium tenor, the voice sounded in his late twenties, maybe early thirties. “You got it all wrong. And if you don’t figure it out right, Sarah won’t be the only one to die.”

He paused it.

“That’s not a death threat,” she said. “He could be talking about anything.”

“I thought so too, at first. Just a listener’s concern that if she gets it wrong, a killer could run free. But the more I hear it, the more I feel like it’s a threat. Listen to the way he says it—” He replayed the recording. “That’s not a concern. That’s a threat.”

She leaned back in her chair, let go of her leg, folded her arms over her chest and gave him a look. “Now who has the overactive imagination?”

Oh. Right. He’d said that to her. “Listen, at the time, I thought she might be pulling a publicity stunt.”

“And now?”

“Now we have a guy in a coma and a scream on voicemail.” He, too, leaned back in his chair. “Maybe we need to take a closer look at the case she was working on.”

“The murder of Sarah Livingston? Sure. I haven’t listened to all the podcasts, though, so?—”

“I have. Or most of them.” He got up, grabbed her empty mug. “More coffee?”

She nodded.

“Okay, so here’s what I know,” he said as he poured. “Sarah Livingston was a just-starting-out real-estate agent who was found dead in her apartment from an apparent break-in. Except, all her valuables were untouched, and there was no sign of a forced entry. Investigators initially pointed to her former boyfriend, a real-estate developer named Holden Walsh. His car was seen in the parking lot that night. The only other suspects were a friend Sarah called that night and her neighbor, who had a key to her apartment. Nothing led to either of them or further implicated Walsh, and the case died.”

He had fixed her coffee and returned to the table, set it in front of her.

“Penelope picked up the case and started to look into Walsh. Apparently, he had some shady financial records and a history of violence. Penelope’s initial thought was that Sarah had something on him that he didn’t want to get out, that he entered her apartment with a spare key and silenced her.”

“So, it’s Walsh.”

“Or not, because Penelope confirmed his alibi. And she found evidence that pointed away from him.” He pulled out a chair, sitting in it backward, bracing his arms on the back. “First, there was a masked man seen on footage near Sarah’s apartment around the time of the murder.”

“Like Zorro?” Harper took a sip of her coffee, looking at him over the rim.

He smiled. “I don’t know. I was thinking more like a hosiery guy, but let’s go with Zorro.”

“So, Zorro. Who else?”

“Her neighbor Tommy. Turns out he’s an ex-con with a rap sheet that includes burglary. They were seen fighting a couple weeks earlier.”

“Over what?”

“Her cat. It got out and she blamed him. Penelope got the information from Kyle, Sarah’s longtime friend from college. Sarah’s phone records suggest they might have been becoming more than friends after she broke up with Walsh.”

“Do we think Kyle’s a suspect?”

“According to Penelope, he had a domestic-violence complaint against him back in college, but it was dismissed. She did some sleuthing and found it was from a former girlfriend who accused him of losing his temper in a jealous rage.”

“You think he could have done that to Sarah?”

“Records show that Walsh visited her apartment only two days before the break-in and murder, so . . . maybe?”

“Four suspects. And according to Penelope’s podcast, she was going to implicate one of them in her next show.” Harper opened up the schedule. “Which drops tomorrow night.”

She clicked on the icon and then stilled.

“What?”