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“It’s only another forty-five minutes. Besides, I have to meet Sam tomorrow morning. If I stay over, I’ll have to get up super early to get home and change my clothes. I’m better off just going now. But I do appreciate the offer.”
“As long as you’re sure you’re not too tired to drive.”
“I’m not. I’ll be fine.”
“Well, if you think of anything else you want to talk about or if something else comes up on this case, give me a call.”
“I will.”
A
“Carly? Sure.”
“What was she like?”
A
“How long were they married before she was killed?”
“I don’t know exactly, but I’d guess maybe five or six years.” A
Fiona could not look A
A
“Carly and Sam knew each other slightly in college-he was three years older, and she was in the same sorority as his sister, Andrea. After he graduated, he went into the service. She went to graduate school. They met up again at his sister’s wedding.”
“Did you like her?”
“I liked her okay.” A
Fiona couldn’t keep herself from asking, “Like what?”
A
“A serial killer broke into their house and murdered her.”
“Uh-uh.” A
The two women stared at each other, Fiona not sure what A
“Fiona, her husband was an FBI agent who specialized in understanding the behavior of serial killers. That night, he was out of town, at the funeral of one of the victims of the killer he was tracking. She knew what’s out there, she’d been hearing about it for years. So the front door is unlocked at nine o’clock at night? Or you open your door to a stranger at that hour? That doesn’t strike you as reckless?”
“How do you know the killer was there at nine?”
“One of the neighbors saw a strange car park at the end of the street, and a few minutes later saw a man walking up the DelVecchio’s driveway.”
“They didn’t call the police?”
“Why would they? There hadn’t been any sign of anything being wrong. There’d been no screams for help, no call to the police.”
“No description?”
“Only that he was tall and well built. The neighbor later said she’d thought it was Sam, but at the time, it had been too dark to really see him.”
“Sam said Donald Holland killed her.”
“Don Holland admitted to having killed a lot of women, but steadfastly denied having killed Carly DelVecchio.”
“Do you believe him? That he didn’t kill her?”
“John does. I think it’s a possibility. One Sam will not entertain, by the way.”
“Curious,” Fiona mused. “You’d think he’d want to find the truth.”
“He thinks he already has.”
“But you think it’s possible that this stranger the neighbor saw wasn’t Don Holland?”
A
“What if it wasn’t a stranger that night?” Fiona said thoughtfully. “What if it was someone she knew?”
“Well, if it wasn’t Holland, I suppose that would fit.”
“Maybe she did have her door locked. Maybe she didn’t open it to a stranger.”
“Well, that’s never been considered. They dusted the house for prints and found Holland’s. The MO was the same as Holland’s other victims. It looked like a duck, it walked like a duck…”
“But maybe it wasn’t a duck at all.”
“Are you interested in Sam, Fiona? As something other than a colleague?”
“I was just curious about it all, you know.” Fiona tried to shrug it off, then laughed at her feeble effort. “Okay, yes, I am interested in Sam.”
“He’s a great guy. I’d love to see him start to have a real life again.”
“I guess what I really want to know is, has he been dating at all since Carly died?”
“Not that I know of, but then again, I don’t know that he’d go out of his way to tell me. He was obsessed with bringing Holland to justice, obsessed with making sure her killer received the maximum sentence, which of course he would, having admitted to so many murders. Then, once the dust had settled, Sam quit the Bureau and took off on this trip to all different parts of the world. From what we could tell, he mostly roamed, like a nomad, from one place to another. What he did while he was wandering, and with whom…?” A
“Quite nicely, yes. Thank you.”
“Well, good luck.” A
“Wow. Who’da thought cool, analytic, precise A
“Would be the one to fall in love at first sight?” A
“Thanks.” Fiona waved as she drove away from the curb, thinking that it would take more than luck for Sam to notice her.
All the way home, she thought about A
Could Fiona be more different than Carly?
Short and cute? Fiona was tall and leggy and hadn’t been called cute since she was ten years old.
Blond and bubbly? Fiona was dark-haired and was positive that no one had ever described her as bubbly. Simmer was more her speed.
Liked to play practical jokes, for God’s sake?
Fiona had had enough played on her as a child that she cringed at that sort of humor. She knew that on the best day of her life, she’d never have been considered perky, nor was she impulsive. She was-had always been-serious and deliberate.
The cheerleader type? Hardly. Fiona hadn’t had many friends in college. She’d made a habit of spending more time alone in her room or at the library than she’d really needed. She’d requested a single room her freshman year and after that lived alone off-campus, which practically eliminated her social life, which was fine with her. The fewer people she had contact with, the fewer times she’d have to answer the question, “Say, aren’t you the girl who…?” That too was fine. As long as people saw her only as the person she had been, she’d never be anyone else.