Katarina gave an impatient jerk of her head. “No, not there. I’m talking before that. He told me about some piss poor place he and his mom lived in before the rich stepdad came along.”
Ellie sat up straight. “Do you know where?”
“No, don’t you?” When the detective shook her head, Katarina had to bite back a snarled why the hell not and replace it with a less combative, “Well, I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”
She grabbed her napkin to give her itchy fingers something to do. It was better than lunging across the table and denting the expensive wood with the detective’s pretty red head.
This teamwork shit sucked.
Katarina was thankful when Jillian distracted her from shredding the napkin into tiny white fragments. “Maybe we should discuss what else we know about Kingsley. Like, is it safe to say that he has a preference for choosing female victims?”
Jillian glanced at Katarina for confirmation. She nodded. “Definitely. He liked really pretty men, and he doesn’t have any problems hurting men if they get in the way, but I think his real satisfaction comes from torturing and killing women.”
“I’d agree with that.” Ellie toyed with her glass. “After reading transcripts from his Letitia Wiggins’s trial and talking to some former employees, I think it’s a safe guess that he might have been a victim of abuse at one point, at a female’s hands. Wiggins allegedly molested him while he was a student at the Far Ridge Boy’s Academy. According to the witness I interviewed, pretty much everyone on campus at the time knew about it.”
Both Ellie and Jillian turned to Katarina, as if the psychotic asshole who’d raised her had opened up about the experience over ice cream one night. “If she did, he never told me, but that doesn’t mean anything. We didn’t exactly have one of those TV relationships where the people are always sharing their innermost secrets and sobbing on each other’s shoulders. He raised me to be just like him, strong and deadly. He would have seen all of that touchy-feely shit as counterproductive, a weakness.”
Katarina broke off when she caught Jillian’s softening expression. Great, now the roommate looked about two seconds away from asking if Katarina needed a hug. She curled her lip. “I don’t need your pity. What I need is someone to find my daughter.”
An awkward silence descended while Katarina sank into her chair with hot cheeks, frustrated over her loss of control. Why was she acting like she gave a single damn what these women thought when she didn’t? She wasn’t here to impress them or join a knitting group. So what if they pitied her? Instead of letting that get to her, she should figure out how to twist that sympathy to her advantage.
“Sorry,” she mumbled, trying not to choke on the word.
“That’s okay.” Jillian’s reply was stiff.
Good. Better that than the sad puppy eyes from before.
Ellie cleared her throat. “Did he mention Letitia at all to you?”
“Yeah. Not so much by name, more about how he’d had this great mentor at the academy who helped him reach his potential, and that’s the role he planned to fill for me, and so on. God, he really did like to hear himself talk sometimes.”
“He never got married, right?”
Katarina snorted at Jillian’s question. “Him? No. As far as I know, he never came close. Never even dated women. I figured he either hated them too much to try, or he’d had his heart broken so badly once, he never recovered.” She picked her thumbnail and shrugged. “Probably for the best. Good chance he’d have whacked anyone he dated once he got tired of them.”
Jillian flinched. “I wonder if this Letitia woman is the reason why.”
“I was wondering the same thing. A spouse would have been useful as a cover, but he never bothered.” Ellie twisted her hair and gazed at Katarina like she expected her to pull the information out of some long buried place.
“Like I said before, dunno. Could be, though. Fits with my theory, that’s for sure.”
Ellie nodded. “Okay, let’s go with that theory for now. Anything else we know about him?”
Lots of shit. None of it good, and most irrelevant. Little she was willing to share. Katarina suppressed a shudder by taking a sip of water.
“You mean, apart from the fact that he’s evil?”
Jillian’s smart-ass reply almost made the water shoot back out Katarina’s nose. She choked and smacked her chest. Once she stopped gasping for air, she glared at the blonde. “First, you’re Attila the Hun, then the sad mom from some shitty cable movie, and now you’re a comedian. Give me a warning next time before you switch personalities. I’d like to skip another stint in the hospital over aspirating my drink.”
She coughed once more while Jillian shot Ellie a puzzled look. “Sad mom from a shitty cable movie? What’s that supposed to mean?”
Katarina rolled her eyes. Jillian whispered louder than a two-year-old in a movie theater.
“I wouldn’t sweat it. Katarina’s not known for her sunny disposition, even at the best of times. Besides, it’s late, and we’re all probably feeling a little punchy by now.” Despite the reassurance, Ellie’s lips were twitching, and the roommate scowled before throwing her hands in the air.
“Okay, fine, I admit it. I’m a mother hen sometimes. So, sue me already.” Jillian folded her arms and stuck her lower lip out, but a second later, both she and Ellie were snickering.
“And yet I’m the one they locked up in the psych hospital.”
That only made them snicker harder. Their antics made Katarina want to chuck her plate at their heads. Had they forgotten so soon? This wasn’t playtime. Bethany’s life depended on them. If this was how the investigation was run, no wonder the police hadn’t found her daughter yet.
Beneath the impatience, envy swelled, and Katarina gripped
