Frankie relaxed, nodded, and said, “Thank you for that.”
“I want you to stay damn close to Cayce tonight,” he said, “and your girlfriend.”
Immediately alarmed, the younger man’s face clouded. “Why?”
“Because we have two dead models and a third who was in the industry, and I’ve always felt this was targeted at Cayce. Maybe her artwork. I don’t know. But don’t let them out of your sight.”
But Frankie was already moving by the time Richard finished speaking, headed back toward Cayce. Richard walked up beside her too and whispered into her ear, saying, “I’ll be back later. Do not leave here, and stay surrounded by people you trust.”
She nodded mutely. He leaned over, kissed her hard, and was gone. He had too many people he had to talk to, and he needed to find them fast. As he headed outside, his phone rang. “Tell me you found one of them.”
“Derek is bringing in his partner,” Andy said.
“I’ll meet you at the station,” he said. “Any word on Kenneth?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Not yet.”
Richard raced to the police station. As he pulled in and walked through, Andy hailed him.
“Over here.”
Richard walked into the small interrogation room and sat down. With a look over at Derek, he said, “Thanks for coming in.” He shook the boyfriend’s hand and said, “We need to know what you know about Kenneth.”
At that, the other man’s lip curled.
“The truth,” Richard said. “Not jealous suppositions.”
Surprised, Benjamin looked quickly at Derek, then back at Richard. “Well, you don’t have to put it that way.”
“Yes, I do,” he said. “Three models are dead,” he said, “and we need to find Kenneth to see if he’s involved.”
At that, Benjamin gasped, covering his mouth with his hand.
“No theatrics,” Richard demanded. “Just tell me what you know.”
“Well, I don’t know anything,” he said.
“You said that you saw him,” Derek said. “Either you did or you didn’t.”
Benjamin flushed. “I just knew it would bug you.”
“So, this is me asking, so you better tell the truth,” Richard said. “Did you or did you not see Kenneth?”
He frowned and said, “Well, I thought it looked like Kenneth, but I can’t be sure.”
“What does Kenneth look like?”
“Oh, I took a picture,” he said, as he pulled out his latest model iPhone and hurriedly flicked through his photos. When he found the image he wanted, he held it up.
Derek snatched it from his hands, looked at it with squinted eyes, and said, “That could be Kenneth.”
Benjamin looked at him and said, “What the hell?”
“What?” Derek asked.
“How could you possibly recognize him from that?” Benjamin asked.
“You did,” Derek said.
“Yeah, but that was my fear talking.”
Derek immediately squeezed the other man’s fingers and said, “And I keep telling you, you don’t need to worry.”
“I know that,” Benjamin said. “And I need to give you the trust that you deserve, but it’s damn hard when that’s the reason my last relationship broke up.”
“Which is even a better reason not to be dragging it forward.”
Richard looked at them, grabbed Benjamin’s phone, and said, “Are you two done?”
Derek flushed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “We typically don’t air our dirty laundry.”
“If it includes Kenneth,” Richard said, “I want to know every damn piece of it. So we’ll be sitting here until we drag out every bit you know.” He handed the phone over to Andy. “Email that to George, please.”
With that done, Andy got up and left the room.
“Where’s he going?” Derek asked.
“To get that photo enhanced and to see if we can get something that we can go on, so we can talk to people.”
“Well, if he’ll be anywhere, he’ll be at the big centers,” he said. “He’s all about art.”
“Meaning, he’ll likely to be at Cayce’s big showing tonight?”
Derek looked at him in surprise and said, “That’s exactly where he would be.”
“Do you know how he feels about Cayce?”
“A love-hate relationship.”
“Why the hate?”
“Cayce saved Elena, called out the abuse of Elena, so Cayce’s responsible for Kenneth’s stepfather going to trial, only he ran away, never to be found again, which then led to the breakdown of Kenneth’s stepmother.”
“Didn’t the stepfather attack and sexually abuse Elena?”
“Yes. He did, and Cayce made sure Elena got help in the hospital,” Derek said. “It was pretty ugly at the time. And, yes, the stepfather absolutely deserved to go to jail but disappeared somehow. But it caused Kenneth’s stepmom a lot of problems and some very conflicted emotions. Remember now, they were preteens or teenagers at the time, so definitely a love-hate relationship.”
“And yet, how did Kenneth end up dating Naomi?”
Derek nodded. “That’s way back when he was still going out with women,” he said. “After they broke up, he and I hooked up. But it was years later.”
“And how long were you with him?”
“Six to nine months probably,” he said. “I honestly can’t remember.”
A sniffle came from the boyfriend.
Richard glared at Benjamin. “Keep it together.”
The boyfriend just nodded.
As Richard continued to ask every question that he could—upside, downside, and every other angle—he wasn’t getting any new information. “Outside of tonight’s show, do you have any idea where else Kenneth might go, or where he would stay?”
“No,” Benjamin said.
“He owned an apartment at one time,” Derek said.
Richard froze, picked up his pen and notebook, and asked, “Where?”
Derek looked around the small windowless room, as if orienting himself. “I have no idea what the address is,” he said, “but it’s not very far from here.”
“We did a local title search already, and he doesn’t own any Seattle property.”
“No,” he said. “Not him. I think it’s in the stepfather’s name,” Derek said.
“Okay. We’ll have to run that up on him too,” Richard said.
“I can tell you,” Derek spoke out, “that Kenneth will be too unstable to go to trial.”
At that, Richard sat back and said, “Now that would make the most sense yet.”
“How does that make any sense?” Benjamin asked, in a querulous voice.
“Because whoever is killing these people is obviously mentally unstable,” he said.
