Page 49

“She’s sound asleep and happy to be home,” I said, letting him in. “Kind of a miracle she’s even still breathing.”

“You could have said that long before she hit her noggin,” Sampson noted. “That woman is a walking miracle.” The two of us sat at the kitchen table. “I wanted to come talk to you about some information I got this afternoon.”

“Tell me.”

Sampson described his return to the Bridge to Nowhere, his talk with Sean Brundage, and Hawk’s rapid exit from the homeless camp, destination unknown. I was depressed to hear him confirm that Corey McGovern had apparently been using her room at the Fall Flower Motel to turn tricks. I’d hoped we were wrong about her, but the evidence was there in the screenshots John had taken on the motel’s laptop in all their squalor and neon.

As clear as the image of Corey McGovern entering room 105 was one of Alejandro Rodriguez carrying a backpack up the stairs to his own room. Darkness fell soon after, and in the pictures that followed, a few garish floodlights from the roof of the motel threw shadows on the parking lot.

“No better picture of the first client?” I asked.

Sampson shook his head. “He was careful, like he knew where the cameras were. But check the back of the car he gets into in the next shot. It’s kind of tough to see because the license plate light is out, but look at the center of the trunk lid.”

I did, staring at the fuzzy image. I could just barely make out what looked like four interlocking circles. “Audi?”

“I think so.”

“Is he our bridge victim?”

“Could be. He’s wearing black from head to toe. Only thing missing is the clerical collar Boog says he saw.”

As I stared at the screenshot of the rear of the car, my mind veered off in multiple directions, trying to make sense of all the new information Sampson had learned.

Every direction it took looped back to Corey McGovern.

“Do you think her death is directly related to the guy in the Audi?” I asked.

“Both were shot and lit on fire,” Sampson said. “So it’s a fair bet. Go to the next screenshot. Second client.”

The time stamp on the next shot showed the second visitor arriving. He was tall and kind of goofy-looking, with a wild mop of curly sand-colored hair.

“That is Choir Boy, sure as I am sitting here,” Sampson said. “Pic of him leaving about forty minutes later is even better.”

I flipped to that screenshot and saw Choir Boy’s pudgy face clearly, no sunglasses, no cap. “Now we just need a last name for Aldous here.”

I swiped to the next screenshot, another one showing Choir Boy exiting McGovern’s room at twenty of ten.

“There’s more. Next few stills throw the whole thing up in the air,” Sampson told me.

In the next screenshot, which was time-stamped at eleven ten, I saw Hawk standing at the open door of Corey McGovern’s room. He was grinning and holding up a bottle of wine.

“Rodriguez never mentioned seeing McGovern at the motel on the night of the thunderstorms,” I said.

“No, he did not. But he’s in there for an hour. Plus there’s this.” Sampson reached over and swiped to the next screenshot. Taken at ten past midnight, it showed Hawk kissing Corey at the door. She had a towel wrapped around herself, and he was gripping her bottom through it.

“And yet Rodriguez swore that the relationship between them was just a brother-sister kind of thing,” I said. More photos showed Hawk leaving the Fall Flower Motel parking lot in the rain at fifteen minutes after midnight and not returning until broad daylight eight hours later.

“Where was he for eight hours?” I wondered aloud.

“Exactly,” Sampson said. “Certainly gives him opportunity. And if client number one with the Audi is also the vic, it gives Hawk plenty of time to track him down, shoot him, and set his car on fire below the ghost ramp.”

45

BEFORE I COULD REPLY, Bree came into the kitchen where Sampson and I were talking. She was carrying her laptop.

“I think I found something that might help you guys,” she said. “A coincidence, but sometimes you have to take a gift when it’s given.”

Sampson frowned. “Explain.”