If there was someone checked in this room, well, Miranda would gnaw her cast off with her own teeth. There wasn’t a sign of anyone even having stayed there. Unless Sturvin was beyond fastidious.
Although the bed showed obvious signs where someone had laid, that was no indication of how long someone had been in that bed. She knew that. She checked the drawers in the cabinet quickly. Nothing.
The bathroom looked undisturbed, except for a wet towel hanging over the bar. Miranda checked it carefully, not wanting to disturb any evidence if any existed.
The towel was damp. Damp enough to have been used just that morning.
Miranda knew hotel rooms, knew when something felt off.
She grabbed her own cell phone and texted Dani quickly. The computer analyst had gotten her the information in the first place. Within seconds Dani’s face appeared through video chat. “What’s up, Doc?”
Her friends had started calling her Doc in the last month. Since her return from Masterson County. Her degree was so new that the ink was barely dry on the certificate, but Miranda was proud of it. She’d worked hard for that degree. She’d earned it. While working for the FBI.
It hadn’t been easy, and it hadn’t been fast. But she’d done it.
She now held a doctorate in social psychology, with a specialization in small towns.
She’d work for the FBI for a handful more years, maybe five, possibly ten. Then she would retire, to work on the research projects that had been burning within her for a long while.
Miranda was fascinated with how small towns worked. That, more than the FBI, was her true passion. Her heart project. The culmination of years of hard work. She’d go home. Where she belonged. “It says his phone is here somewhere.”
“I know. I’m the one who messaged that information, remember?” Dani had a snarky humor that Miranda had always enjoyed.
“Well, can you tell me where?” Miranda turned her phone, panned it around the room so that Dani could see. Dani and whoever else was there with her. “Because I have nothing. It’s possible the man was here this morning. But it’s also possible he left last night and drove home in time to commit the murder. I have pretty much…nothing. He could have easily left here last night.” Which would put him well within range of the Sturvin home with plenty enough time to kill his wife and Mrs. Lindsay. “Going to say this is inconclusive.”
“No, it’s elementary, Doc. Look around. I bet you his phone is there somewhere.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because I’m far cleverer than you are? Look around. His phone is there. It’s binging towers in your vicinity. Has been all night. By the way, Jac just texted—they found the body of Deborah Miller just over the Missouri border less than an hour ago. Murdered. Watch yourself out there.”
Miranda disconnected and then looked at her new best buddy. “Well, how do you feel about playing search? There’s a phone in this room somewhere. Or, at least, Dani says so. I love proving her wrong, so let’s get to it.”
He looked at her and gave a quick smile. She shivered. The man was hot as hell. But his smile, cold. This was a very scary man.
“Well, let’s get started. We have a phone to find.”
66
Jac was holding herself together, but Max sensed that it was just barely. The sun had come and went. Search teams, led by Lytel and Hanan were out, combing the area around where Debbie Miller’s body had been found. Max doubted they would find anything.
Nat was buzzing around, coordinating search teams consisting of local LEOs and Lytel’s auxiliaries.
For such a small woman, she commanded respect—once she started giving orders.
Quiet, but more than capable of leading.
Much like her older sister.
They were taking the body back to PAVAD via helicopter within the next hour.
Max intended that he and Jac would be on the same flight.
They needed something to tie a suspect to Debbie, to get them something to say definitively that it was Paul Sturvin.
News from Indianapolis said the man possibly could have made it back to St. Louis in time to kill his wife. Which meant the odds were good that it was him.
Approximately twenty percent of female murder victims were killed by their intimate partners. The number of women killed by men they knew was fifteen times higher than that of women killed by strangers. Those weren’t numbers Max could discount.
Especially considering the facts of the case.
“What are you thinking?”
Max turned. Jac was there, watching the searchers, just as he was.
“The facts as we know them. Rachel knew her killer. The girls were already with Debbie. She was alone in the house, but she knew her aunt was on her way. Maybe she unlocked the door.”
“That fits. Dani said the only prints on the door locks were Rachel’s.”
“She had already unlocked the door. Paul came home and pushed it open.”
“Wouldn’t his fingerprints have been there?”
“Not if he wore gloves when he came in. He had a pair of black gloves on when he arrived at Emery’s party. I remember him taking them off very carefully.”
“So he comes in. She sees him, confronts him about something. Maybe…he was supposed to be working. And they needed the money. They argued. He killed her.”
“We never found the murder weapon,” Max said. “But let’s assume he bludgeoned her to death right there. Crime of passion, right at that moment. Nothing premeditated.”
“But Debbie was in the house. Either while it was happening or immediately after. Maybe Rachel had heard him come in and went to meet him, thinking it was Debbie and the girls.”
“But she never made it down the stairs.”
“Just like Debbie and Edith never made it away from him. But how do we tie what we know happened to it being Paul Sturvin who did it? And if it’s not him, then who was it?”
“I don’t know. But I
