Page 131 of D for Dead

‘Whoa… wait up a minute.’

Wagner and his two deputies looked at Jake curious, while Rivers seemed oblivious.

How the hell did this guy make the cut with the FBI?

‘The old Cunningham house?’

‘Yeah, George and Mary Cunningham’s place. What about it?’ Wagner asked.

Rivers’ eyes narrowed. Jake could see he had cottoned on.

‘The Cunningham’s. They wouldn’t have happened to have a son?’

‘Yeah, odd kid.’ Rawlins was shaking his head. ‘Bit of a loner. Trent or Clay, it’s something like that.’

‘Troy.’

‘Yeah, that’s the one.’

Jake glanced at Rivers. ‘Things just got interesting.’

* * *

Two things were certain. Ryan Caparelli had never left Oregon, and one of the murder victims had been killed in his apartment. His cell phone had been found. It hadn’t been used in over a week and the battery was dead, but they had been able to triangulate the signal to the last used point and after a brief search it was located lying in undergrowth near a farmer’s field on the outskirts of town. Either Caparelli had lost it or he was no longer around to need it.

Or maybe he wanted it to appear that way. At this stage it was too early to come to conclusions.

Further clues came when the phone was charged. The last call had been to Heidi Pearce; the last text message to Ben Caparelli, Ryan’s brother, thanking him for wishing him a safe trip. It was the message stored in draft that caught Rebecca and Hickok’s attention.

Destined for Amy, it read, ‘Don’t want to alarm you, but I saw Dav’.

It hadn’t been finished; had never been sent.

Was ‘Dav’ David Gavin?

The message had been typed on the morning Ryan Caparelli was supposed to depart on his flight to Paris. Four hours later he had lost or dropped his phone in the location where it had been found.

Rebecca and Hickok spent Sunday afternoon trying to retrace his steps. It was just the two of them working the Caparelli lead, with Jake and Rivers conveniently dispatched to Melford to follow-up on the still missing Tucker Johnson.

Rebecca had gone from confused to contrite following Friday night’s incident. She had plucked up courage to contact Alan the previous evening, but he was refusing to take her calls; added to that she had received a further dressing down from her mother before her family had left town, while Wendy and her father had looked on in disapproval, nodding in agreement at every word said. Jess – her only ally – had rolled her eyes, having heard it all before.

It was perhaps a good thing she hadn’t been able to reach Alan. She’d left him a voicemail apologising, but while she was truly sorry for what he had witnessed, she had come to realise one thing.

She wasn’t in love with him. And that was a concern given he was thinking about marriage. While she wanted to make things right for him, she wasn’t sure she wanted to make things right with him.

Her family had returned to Swallow Falls earlier that morning, her mother trying to force her into making promises that she would work hard to win Alan back, and the second she had gone Rebecca had headed straight into work, preferring to throw herself back into the case than deal with the aftermath of her love life.

Of course that meant facing Hickok, but him she could deal with, even if he had pulled his sly little stunt of getting rid of Jake and Rivers so they were alone.

They traced Caparelli’s footsteps, questioning his friends and neighbours, careful not to pass on too much information to Amy and Heidi at this early stage. The news one of her best friends might in some way be involved in the murders would probably push Amy over the edge. She didn’t need to know until they were sure.

Caparelli belonged to a city gym and the receptionist was able to confirm he had attended his usual early morning session on the day he was supposed to depart for Paris. She pulled up the security camera tape for them to watch and, as they sat in the back office alone, the lights dimmed, Rebecca was conscious of Hickok having one eye on the footage and one eye on her.

‘Quit staring at me and watch the tape,’ she snapped, irked, as she wound the cassette forward.

‘Have you dumped Alan yet?’

‘No.’