“We haven’t been tracking you,” Shelley cut in. “Cora, we’re here because yesterday afternoon, Lorna Troye went out on a hike on her own. Her body was discovered later in the day. I’m afraid that she, too, has been killed.”
There was a long pause, and Cora drew in a sharp, gasping breath after it had passed. Zoe realized that she had stopped breathing at the moment the news was delivered. Tears were in her eyes, now, and when she grabbed for a new tissue, it was to dab at them rather than at her nose. “What happened?” she asked, her voice shaky and broken.
“We have reason to believe that she was attacked and killed, just the same as Michelle was,” Shelley said. There was a grim set to her tone, and it left no doubt as to what was coming next.
“What…?” Cora asked dimly, looking between the two of them with what seemed to be a growing awareness of the situation. “You can’t think that I…?”
“At the present moment, Ms. Day, you are the one thing that links these two women together,” Shelley said firmly. “We are going to need you to think very hard, now, and cast your mind back to Friday. We need you to tell us where you were, and who can verify that.”
“I was at work,” Cora said, her eyes almost popping out of her head. “I was feeling under the weather already, but I thought I’d better go in. Only one day left to the weekend, and all that. So I went in.”
“And you were there all day?” Zoe pressed, opening her notebook. “We will need the name and address of your employer, so that we can verify this.”
“Yes, I left just after six,” Cora said. “I swear, I didn’t have anything to do with any of this. I—I didn’t even know Michelle, and Lorna was one of my best friends. I would never do anything to hurt…” Cora trailed off, her eyes falling down to her hands as a couple of fat tears rolled down her cheeks unchecked.
“You were saying that you only met Michelle once?” Zoe prompted.
“Yes, that’s right. A group of us went out a month ago and Michelle happened to be there. I recognized her from Facebook but we didn’t even talk. We just have mutual friends. I think we posed for a few pictures together in a group, but there were others there I didn’t know as well. That was after the whole game thing, so I didn’t go introduce myself to her. I stayed to one side, did the pictures, carried on talking to my friends.”
“And if we speak to the friends you were with that night?” Zoe asked, one eyebrow raised pointedly.
“They’ll tell you the same th-thing,” Cora said, her breath hitching as she began to sob. “I should have—I should have gone out yesterday with Lorna. Then she’d be fine. Oh, god. Why was I so lazy? She told me fresh air might be good for a cold and I ignored her—I should have gone with her…”
“We don’t know that, Ms. Day,” Shelley said, gathering herself and standing up. “There’s every possibility that, had you been there with her, you might have ended up dead as well. It’s not your fault.”
“We have everything we need for now,” Zoe said, standing up alongside her partner. “But we will leave you this card. If you think of anything that seems suspicious at all—someone new in Lorna’s life, any suspicion she might have had of being followed, anything that stands out in any way—please don’t hesitate to give us a call.”
“I can’t think of anything like that,” Cora said, sniffling through her tears as she reached out to take the card with a trembling hand. “There was nothing going on. Lorna was just a normal woman. Kind. Talented. Just a good friend.”
“Just in case you remember,” Zoe said again, then followed Shelley as they let themselves out of the apartment and the building, leaving Cora to succumb to noisy, snotty tears on the sofa.
“That was a dead end,” Shelley said, as they paused outside on the street. “No pun intended.”
“Mm.” Zoe put her sunglasses back on, glancing up and down the street. No inspiration appeared to be forthcoming. “Assuming the alibi checks out, which it probably will, we cannot keep her as a suspect.”
“Which leaves us with one big question.” Shelley sighed, leaning against the car door and immediately yelping and drawing her hand back from the hot metal.
“Who actually did do it?” Zoe filled in for her, giving her a wry smile as she tentatively went for the door handle herself.
CHAPTER NINE
He glanced at his reflection in a store window as he passed, smoothing down a tiny flyaway piece of hair and checking that everything else was in place. He looked good, which was, of course, by design. You didn’t simply get out of bed and roll across town to meet your girlfriend. You made an effort. If you didn’t respect yourself enough to make an effort, then why should she?
He resisted the urge to hum a happy tune as he walked down the street, strolling along by familiar sights on his route. He was in a good mood. A very good mood, in fact. That last one had been so good—so sweet. The way she had looked up at him, such fear in her eyes as he swung down the machete…
Ah! It was just like the first time, all over again. He had assumed that this would be much like any other experience—very difficult to recapture that joy and ecstasy and surprise of the first time. Of course, the element of surprise was dying away as rapidly as the women, but the joy—the ecstasy—yes, that had been there. She had been a good choice, that hiker. That blonde hair that pooled around her head as she lay on the ground, silently begging him not to kill her—delicious.
There was a flower store on his route, one that he had passed more than a few times. The air was fresh and the sun was out, and he was feeling good—why not stop in? He pulled off his sunglasses and stepped inside the cool interior, casting a glance over the various bouquets arranged in buckets by color and type.
“Can I help you?” a bored teenage attendant asked him, barely looking up from her phone for long enough to notice him.
He looked up and took her in. “Yes, actually,” he said. “I’m just picking out a bouquet. Which one do you suppose is the most romantic?”
The teenager flicked her eyes up to his, her expression smoothing out just a little as she looked at him properly for the first time. “Probably roses.”
“Roses?” He laughed. “We can do better than that, can’t we? Something a bit less obvious?”
She bit her lip momentarily, casting a doubtful eye over the display. “Um. Maybe this one. All the flowers are different shades of pink and red.”
He cocked his head, thinking it over. “Yes, that will do nicely,” he said. “How much are they?”
“Eight dollars and ninety-seven cents,” she said, reading off the label. She was obviously new—not experienced enough to have learned the prices yet.
He held out a crisp ten-dollar bill. “Keep the change,” he said, then winked and lowered his voice conspiratorially. “And don’t tell your boss.”
The teenager flushed slightly, putting his money in the till and drawing out a dollar. She slipped it into her pocket, watching him all the while with a slightly guilty look, but empowered by his permission.