“Loose ends? Eliminate them all and whatever secrets they shared.”
“I don’t think so. When I spoke to Megan Madison, she was alive and well. She lives close enough to Missoula and Helena. Maybe she is more involved in all this. All groups, no matter how egalitarian, end up with members who carry more weight than others.”
“Killing is Madison’s way of winning Elijah’s approval?” Bryce’s voice was tight.
“Possibly.”
“Both Thompson and Elijah knew all these women. They had the means to travel and track down each woman,” Bryce said.
“I’d like to talk to Thompson,” she said. “I’d like him to tell me what he knows, and then I can confront Elijah.”
“That’s my job, Ann.”
“I might be able to get more out of each man. Elijah has a connection to me, and Thompson wants an exclusive interview with me. I’ll use both their desires to my advantage.”
“No, you’re too close to the case, Ann. And until I know which of these two men might be behind the murders, I want you staying clear of them both.”
“I can’t do that, Bryce.” Ann’s fear for her son’s safety grew by the minute. “These killings feel as if they’re getting closer to me and my son. I can’t hide from the danger, so I might as well run toward it.”
An hour later, when Ann stepped inside the police conference room alone, it was just her and Paul Thompson. Thompson had lost the subtle smirk from their last meeting in the coffee shop. His shoulders rolled forward very slightly as he tapped an index finger on the table.
“Can I get you something to drink?” she asked. “There’s a fresh pot of coffee. It’s marginal at best, but I’ve tasted worse.”
He shook his head slowly. “No, thanks. Bryce McCabe offered a cup as he was tightening the vise on my balls.”
“That’s a bit extreme.” She chose the seat to his right and angled it directly toward him, knowing the positioning suggested they were on the same side.
“He was nice about it,” Thompson said. “But there was no missing his meaning. I can fight murder charges, run up a shit ton of debt, or I can help.”
“See this from Bryce’s perspective,” she said. “He has a murder to solve, and there are three other pending unsolved murders that are connected. Four dead women, Thompson.”
He leaned toward her, his fist tightening. “I didn’t kill those women.”
“But you have the rare perspective of meeting and talking to them all. If you and I can work together, we might be able to see a pattern.”
“The pattern is simple. It’s Elijah Weston. These women were all fixated on him.”
“What’s your theory on the killer? Why would anyone want to single out the Fireflies?”
He shoved out a breath and sat back in his chair, reminding her of Nate when he was frustrated. “Like I said, Elijah Weston is cleaning up loose ends. I bet he parked that car in front of my motel room.”
It would be easy to believe him and confirm her biases about Elijah. But it was the truth that mattered, not justifying personal fears. “What drew you to this story?”
Thompson looked around the room, searching up and down the four walls. “Are they listening?”
She leaned back in her chair. “Do you mean Gideon and Bryce?”
“Yeah. The dynamic duo.”
She allowed a smile. “No. It’s just you and me.” She crossed her legs, taking extra care to look relaxed. “How did you hear about Elijah?”
“The troubles in Missoula actually made national news. You, if anybody, should know that. It was a popular topic in Nashville for a few weeks. My girlfriend and I talked about it a lot.”
“We had our share of reporters.” When a simple answer was full of extraneous information, she became suspicious that the response could be deceptive.
He cocked his head. “A bit of an understatement.”
“Perhaps.”
When she did not expand on her experiences, he shrugged. “Lucky for you the news cycle is fast and furious, and reporters move on to the next watering hole quickly.”
“And yet here you are. I’ve briefly read over the cases you covered in your podcasts. They’re all decades old.”
“In some respects, it’s easier if the cases are older. As time passes, reality feels more like fiction. Still titillating, but less dangerous. Distance and time make people more likely to talk. There’s less fear of the guilty, because they’re either too old, in jail for another crime, or dead.”
“But the passage of time creates its own challenges. Police files get lost, witnesses die, and memories slip out of focus. This story is still fresh.”
“It will appeal to my audience.”
“So, you heard about this case strictly through the media?” Ann asked.
“Not exactly.”
“What’s that mean?”
“I did read about it. Thought it was interesting, but then I met a woman in Nashville. Her name is Judy Monroe. We started dating, and she confessed to me she was one of the Fireflies. The more she talked about writing Elijah in prison, the more curious I became about the story. Through the Freedom of Information Act, I obtained the list of the Fireflies from the prison.”
“I’ve seen that list. The one you gave me was very detailed.”
Pride flickered in his gaze. “Judy helped me. She had already set up a social media account. I made it my mission to find them and reach out to them all.”
She recalled Judy’s name and remembered her picture on Thompson’s fact sheet had been blurred. “Were there Fireflies you approached who refused to talk to you?”
“Sure. There were about five or six, like Megan Madison, that didn’t want to be interviewed. They were either embarrassed that they’d fallen for an incarcerated man, or, like I said, they lost interest in Elijah because he’d been released. Some women like knowing their man is in a box.”
“Megan Madison doesn’t seem the type to write a man behind bars.”
“Her husband, Cooper, put her in the hospital about five years ago. She told me he joined AA and things are better now. But you’re a shrink. You know when an abuser crosses that line it’s easier to cross it again. Elijah must have been some kind of safe haven for her.”
“That’s very true.”
“Did your husband ever hit you?” Thompson asked.
The sudden reversal of the script took her aback. As her defenses rose, she reminded herself she had to give a little to get more. “No. He never once hit me.”
“What about your son?”
“Never. He adored Nate. He wanted to be a better father than his father had been to him.” She was willing to give a bit of herself to keep him talking. “Clarke struggled to distance himself from the past, and he appeared to be winning.”
“Appeared to be winning?”
She ignored the biting tone. “What is Judy Monroe like? What was her attraction to Elijah?”
“Judy has her share of control issues,” he said.
“Tell me about her,” Ann said.
“Fairly ordinary. She comes from a small town in West Virginia. Attractive. She’s good with computers and math and for the most part is self-taught. For a short while she worked as my personal assistant.”