outside that hotel for us. If Perry hadn’t come…I turned and gave him a long look.
“Where’s the dumpster?” Slater asked.
Trovky told him. I knew Slater would send someone out to pick up the GPS.
“Okay.” Slater thought a moment. “Just curious—what was with the garage door at Ms. Weeks’ house? You slam it on purpose?”
Trovky lifted a shoulder. “I was leaving. The wind blew it out of my hands.”
Another vindication. I
Slater nodded. “What about Joanne Weeks? Did Baxter Jack-son want you to kill her too?”
Trovky glared at the wall. “I think I’m done now.”
“You want to take the rap for this whole thing?”
Trovky’s mouth worked. He stuck his fingers into his scalp and rubbed. “No.”
“Then keep talking.”
A long moment passed before Trovky spoke again. “Yeah, he wanted that Joanne lady dead too.”
The words blazed through my head. I closed my eyes, picturing Baxter Jackson in my house, pretending to set things right between us so he could worship at church. The sincerity he’d feigned in front of our pastor. How did people
Slater leaned forward, folded arms on the table. “Why did he want her dead?”
“I don’t know. I suppose so she couldn’t figure out what happened and talk to you guys.”
My whole body tingled. I could be dead right now. I was supposed to be
Perry put an arm around my shoulder and rubbed.
“How much was Baxter going to pay you for Melissa Harkoff’s murder?” Slater asked.
Trovky swung his head toward the wall, clearly brooding over his loss. “Ten thousand.”
“And for Joanne Weeks?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah what?”
“Another ten thousand.”
“Twenty thousand dollars all together.”
Trovky lowered his forehead into his palm. “Me and my girlfriend need that money, man.”
Dan and Slater exchanged a look.
“You get paid any up front?” Slater wanted to know.
“Half of it.”
“Ten thousand? Five for each hit?”
“Yeah.”
“Cash?”
“Yeah.”
“When was this?”
“Thursday.”
Slater tapped his bottom lip. “So you said Baxter called you tonight with a change of plans.”
Trovky winced and shifted his wounded leg. “These chairs are hard.”
“We’ll try to wrap up here quick as we can, but there are still a lot of things we need to go over. You need something to drink?”
“You got Coke?”
Dan left the room and returned with a can of Coke.
The DA kept a poker face as the questioning about Baxter’s schemes against Melissa’s blackmail continued. But I knew from the tilt of his body, his knuckles brushing the edge of the table, that his mind whirled. Blackmail was illegal. His star witness had just dulled considerably. Even if he did find Melissa, if she did lead him to Linda’s body, this was going to be one huge mess to sort out.
I closed my eyes and rubbed my forehead. Had all I’d lived through in the past thirty hours been for nothing?
“So now when’s this drop-off payment supposed to take place?” Slater asked Trovky.
“Ten o’clock Monday morning.”
Six hours from now.
“And you’re supposed to watch the site and take out Melissa when she comes to pick up the money?”
Trovky’s eyes pinged from Slater to Dan. “Yeah.”
“You know when she’s coming?”
“Nope. I was just supposed to wait till she showed up.”
“What about Joanne Weeks?”
The suspect shrugged. “He said we’d talk about that later.”
By the time the whole tale had unraveled, it was 5:00 a.m. My second full night without sleep.
Dan and Slater stepped out of the interrogation room for a moment, leaving a sullen Trovky inside. I met them in the hall as they conferred in low tones, Perry at my side. “You’re going to arrest Baxter now, right?”
Perry touched me on the shoulder. “Joanne—”
“We need more on him,” Dan said. “We want to be absolutely sure the charge of solicitation of murder sticks.”
“What about murdering his
Slater shrugged. “That comes next, once we’ve discovered the body. Hopefully one thing will lead to another. But we have to catch Melissa.”
“You will now. You can just watch the drop-off point for her, right?”
“That’s the plan.”
“So then you’ll have Baxter in custody, and Melissa will have to talk.” I looked from the officer to the DA, gripping my upper arms. I so wanted to believe everything was going to work out.
“Baxter won’t talk,” Slater said. “He’ll lawyer up the minute we start asking questions.”
“So you’ll just let him
Slater sizzled me with a look. The press of his mouth and hardness of his eyes betrayed his own tiredness. He’d been up all night questioning a witness, and he didn’t need some uppity woman telling him what to do. Dan put both hands on his hips. The overhead light played up the circles beneath his eyes. “Joanne, why don’t you go get some sleep? There’s nothing more you can do here.”
“
“We’ll handle this, okay?” Slater thrust his face at me. “Dan’s right. You should go home.”
My jaw tightened. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I don’t
“Whoa, both of you.” Dan held up his hands.
Perry squeezed my arm, nudging me away. I would not be moved.
“Okay, let’s just ease off.” The DA gestured toward the room where Perry and I had sat. “You want to stay here awhile longer, fine. Just…you’ve done all you can now, Joanne. It’s time to let us handle this thing.”
That was a little too hard. And I was a lot too tired.
I would not rest until I saw Baxter Jackson in handcuffs.
FIFTY-ONE
AUGUST 2004
With Baxter in Melissa’s room, time flipped into warp speed. The outside world didn’t matter. When Melissa happened to glance at her clock again it read 1:35 a.m.
Baxter followed her gaze and sighed. “I need to go.”
He slid from bed and started rooting around the floor for his clothes. Moonlight spilled through the window, illuminating the room in a pale haze. Baxter picked up Melissa’s pajamas and tossed them to her. She slipped them
