Jayden Roe Mystery 02-The Final Lie Lily Campbell (i read books txt) 📖

“Alright, I’ll play,” he swallowed a laugh as Dave grinned triumphantly.

Jay moved away and began to pace slowly. “Is this what you had to begin with? A name, career, and spouse?”

Dave’s lips twitched, and he nodded. “Yes.”

Jay paced the length of the room in silence twice before turning to Dave. “Okay then, here’s my guess. His significant other must have been Goldstein’s old lawyer. You didn’t drop that angle, so that’d be the link. I destroyed his career, now his lover wants my hide, which will also be the reason you said he was a debt collector.” Jay caught a subtle nod and continued. “The fact that you have him up there means that upon following those leads and establishing motive in your mind, you also found him to be present in Salisbury either at the time of the abduction or the fires.” Jay stopped and took in Dave’s expression carefully then smiled. “Ah, I see. You’ve linked him not to those incidents, but to someone else you are suspicious of. Is he working with Gary Peters?”

Dave’s eyes flickered, and then he gave a small laugh. “That was nearly spot on. And the information you didn’t guess is because there’s really no way you could have.”

Jay tilted his head to the side. “What did I miss?”

Dave nodded slowly. “You are right on his link to Goldstein, but the main reason he might hate you is because Frederick Kline committed suicide after your work dismantled his life.”

“I see. So now he’s teamed up with Gary, and you think that means they’re behind Stella’s disappearance.”

“Not entirely. He first met Gary when trying to collect debt from Mr. Haraby a year ago. Gary been working for Mr. Haraby for three years by that point. I guess they found some common ground.”

Jay raised an eyebrow. “You’ve gotten an impressive amount of research done already.”

“This is easy if you know how the internet works. The programs you have on here…” he gestured to his laptop and grinned, “… make it even easier.”

“Okay. Let me see if I can make another guess then. With Gary in Mr. Haraby’s employ for so long, he’d be primely placed to know about Stella’s continued correspondence with me. He’d also be able to easily discover her whereabouts and plans. A year ago, Gary teams up with Lloyd, then eight months later they’re both here, in Carthage.” Here, Jay paused and his eyes fell again on Dave, drawing out whatever he could from the man’s expression. “Given your tone of voice when this conversation began, I think you feel your suspicions have been proved correct. Going on that assumption, while I couldn’t possibly guess exactly what it was, I can say that around that time, something started happening here in Carthage. Something that was enough to make them both relocate and, more importantly, make you believe they have Stella.”

Jay also caught the glimmer of hunger in his eyes, making it clear that this was why Dave had left his old life firmly behind him. The ability Jay had just demonstrated was what he hoped to be able to do one day too. Jay smirked. “By that look, I’m guessing I was as close as anyone could be expected to get. Care to fill in the details?”

Dave laughed. “How long did it take you to get this good?”

“A couple of years, but I, like you, had an above average natural gift to start off with.”

Dave’s cheeks colored faintly at the praise, then he cleared his throat and gestured to his laptop. “I thought the same way you did and looked up incidents preceding their move to Carthage. As you suspected, I did so under the filter of incidents that could link in to Stella.”

Jay came closer again to look over Dave’s shoulder.

“The first body turned up eleven months ago. Female, early thirties, blond, cause of death was labeled as drowning, though a little hacking also showed me that she was tortured before death. Periods of slow starvation, bondage, that sort of thing. A month later, another one showed up, all stats the same. The next month another one, the same again. And on the pattern went until Gary turned up in town.” Dave turned to find Jay’s eyes glued to the women pictured there as missing persons. They all resembled Stella in some way. “I have no proof yet, but what seemed a shoo in to become a media sensation and hunt for a serial killer, simply vanished, just a week after their arrival.”

Jay said nothing and Dave leaned back in his chair. “I don’t know if they’re in league with the killer or just using his dumping ground as a safe base in case things go wrong with Stella, but it would take a lot to convince me that they aren’t involved at all.”

Jay finally pulled his eyes off the screen. Dave’s words made him feel terror right in his very bones. “There have been more? More victims matching these criteria of age, gender, and appearance?”

Dave nodded slowly, his face showing sympathy for what he could see plainly on Jay’s face. “They’ve been hushing it up. That’s why I’m digging into Lloyd at the moment. His previous line of work would have furnished him with the sorts of dubious contacts required to keep an entire town silent.”

Jay stumbled back a couple of steps and collapsed on the edge of his bed. Dave’s logic had not only been sound and his research fast, but his finds made this entire game suddenly so much more dangerous. If there was a genuine serial killer involved in this mess, then getting Stella out alive was going to be difficult.

He put his head in his hands and shut his eyes. Dave remained silent, but when he opened his eyes again, he