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“No. The waitress wouldn’t recognize me. Am I free to go now?”
“No!” I told Domanska. “It’s him. You can’t let him leave. Keep asking him questions.”
It didn’t happen.
“You’re free to go,” the detective told him slowly. “But like I said, I’m going to need your new address and your contact information. I may have more questions for you.”
I lagged behind Domanska by a few seconds. When the door to the conference room shut and the sound of her footsteps disappeared down the hallway, he lifted his middle finger.
“Incompetent bitch wolf,” he murmured.
* * *
I felt like I was floating away as I followed Detective Domanska back to her car.
We had found him. But nothing had happened.
The detective turned the key in the ignition and picked up her cell phone.
Keep going, Bubbelah. I pictured Grandma Rosie standing across the floury countertop and the bread dough. The wrinkles around the detective’s eyes disappeared as I pictured the smile lines in Grandma Rosie’s.
Domanska’s voice drifted through the memory with me, like background music, getting softer.
“. . . but something about him . . .”
The sun-soaked kitchen disappeared as I snapped back into the car. Domanska was driving now, her phone on speaker in its cradle. “Maybe I’m wrong, but I got the feeling that he was expecting someone to show up and ask him those questions. He wasn’t nearly as surprised as someone in his shoes should’ve been. And he’s a dead ringer for that photo.”
The person on the other end of the line cleared their throat. “Want me to circle back with the woman who called in the tip? It was anonymous, but we have her number.”
“Yes, call her back. Push hard. Then find this James Carson guy online. See if you can find a good photo so we can send a lineup to that waitress. If she identifies him, that’s enough to get a warrant to search his car.”
Domanska paused. Finally she said, “He’s leaving the state in two weeks. We need to lock this down before then. I don’t want to deal with extradition.”
My heart—or whatever still held me together—soared. It was impossible to know how much I had contributed to Domanska’s hunch. But I decided to believe that this gut feeling she had was partly my doing.
Grandma Rosie would still be waiting for me in two weeks.
I could stay in limbo a little longer.
Because I really wanted to see this bastard go down.
26. BRECIA
Kuna, Idaho
6 months before
I didn’t find out that the police had questioned him about Meghan’s murder until we were settled into a sprawling 70s rambler in Kuna, Idaho, that he’d managed to rent for cash under the name “James Carlson.”
April and I had just gotten back from a “Mommy Meetup” group she’d found on Facebook. I didn’t love the idea of leaving Emma and Kimmie home alone—even tucked into their beds. But I couldn’t stand to be near him anymore. There wasn’t anything I could do to help the girls anyway.
So I followed April to a trendy restaurant in Nampa and listened halfheartedly to the small talk about “gifted and talented” preschoolers, leggings with pockets, and organic snacks. April smiled the whole time and chimed in when she could. But when we got back to the car, she swiped at a tear that escaped down her cheek. She was starting over. Again.
So was he. I just didn’t want to know anything about it.
He was hardly ever home anymore, which was a significant change from the days we spent together in his basement computer room in Colorado.
When April pulled into the garage and turned off the car, we could already hear him through the wall.
