“Bobby?” This time Remi recognized the name. A sound of shock was wrenched from her throat. It had to be a mistake.
Ash’s brows drew together at her childhood name for Robert. “Bobby?”
“We went to the same private high school. We all called him Bobby.”
A wry amusement twisted his lips. “I suppose I should have guessed.”
She ignored his words. The fact that she had a large trust fund had rarely come between them, but Remi had sensed that Ash preferred to forget she’d grown up in a mansion and attended schools that cost more than his parents earned in a year.
“I can’t believe he would be a suspect,” she said.
“Why not?”
“It might be a cliché, but he doesn’t seem the type.”
His jaw tightened. As if he was annoyed by her words. “There is no ‘type’ for a serial killer. It’s impossible to predict what might make someone snap.”
“You’re right. It’s just . . .” She allowed her words to trail away with a shake of her head.
She’d known Bobby Hutton her entire life. He was three years older than her, with the sort of boy-next-door good looks that inspired instant trust in people. That was what made him such a good lawyer. Beneath the façade, however, he was a shallow, egotistical man who was consumed with ambition.
A jerk, yes. But she’d never heard any whispers he was violent toward women.
“How well did you know him?” Ash demanded.
She shrugged. “We dated for a short time.”
“You dated.” His voice was flat. “Why didn’t your dad tell me?”
Remi sent him a puzzled glance. Was he aggravated by the thought she’d dated Bobby or because her father hadn’t told him?
“We only went out a few times during my freshman year of college,” she told him. “It wasn’t like we had a meaningful relationship.”
His expression remained hard. “Why did you break up?”
She heaved a sigh. “I told you, we were never a couple. We had three or four dates and I quickly realized that his interest wasn’t in me.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
A faint color stained her cheeks at his dry tone. He was right. Bobby had been as eager as any other guy to get her in bed. Still, he’d chosen her for her connections, not her body.
“Bobby has always been ambitious,” she insisted. “I think he calculated that my trust fund, combined with my father’s connection to the Chicago Police Department, would benefit his climb up the political ladder.”
“Hmm.” He didn’t look convinced.
Realizing he wasn’t in the mood to listen to her arguments, she turned the conversation to more important matters. “Why did you suspect him?”
His eyes narrowed, but he followed her lead. “The last victim, Tiffany Holloway, made several calls to his private cell phone,” he said.
Tiffany Holloway was the one victim her father and Ash had discussed in her presence. By then, she’d been spending the majority of her free time either at Ash’s apartment or hanging around the precinct. She knew the seventeen-year-old girl had been found in her parents’ living room with her throat slit. There’d been no sign of a forced entry and the cops had assumed she’d known her assailant.
The thought that she’d been calling Bobby’s private number made her stomach clench with unease. “Did he tell you why?”
“He said she was a waitress at his favorite restaurant and he’d shared his private number with her because she wanted his help to get an internship at the DA’s office.”
Internship? Remi shook her head. She could accept that any young person would be eager to land an internship in the DA’s office. It would look great on a college application. But she couldn’t imagine Bobby going out of his way to help anyone, especially a teenager. Not unless there was something in it for himself.
“Did you believe him?”
Ash released a sharp laugh. “No, but he had an airtight alibi the night Tiffany was murdered.”
“What do you mean by airtight?”
“He was at your house.”
She blinked. “My house?”
“Your parents’ estate,” he said with a shrug. “Hutton was meeting with your mother to discuss some charity event they were planning together.”
Ah. That made sense. Bobby was always eager to promote his supposed dedication to the less fortunate, and her mother had a genuine talent for creating sensational charity events. The two had often worked together.
She’d always been sure to make plans to be away from the house when she knew he was coming over. His ego was big enough to assume she was hoping to spend time with him if she happened to be around . . .
Remi’s thoughts were abruptly disrupted as a memory wiggled to the surface. “Wait,” she breathed. “I remember that evening.”
Ash grimaced. “Like I said, airtight.”
Remi’s gaze lowered as she skimmed over the notes in the file. Her heart twisted as she easily recognized her dad’s handwriting. She would chide him that it looked like chicken scratches and he would tell her that his mind worked too fast for his pencil to keep up.
“November twenty-first,” she murmured, lifting her head to meet his curious gaze. “It was a Friday, right?”
He raised his brows in surprise. “Yes.”
“My mother didn’t meet with Bobby that night.”
He stared at her. Was he having trouble processing what she was telling him? Probably. He’d spent years convinced that Bobby had spent the night with her mother.
“Were you there?” he finally demanded.
She shook her head. When her mother had told her that Bobby was coming for dinner, Remi had agreed to join a friend and a few other classmates to cram for a history exam.
“I was supposed to go to a study group, but I felt sick when I got to the library and turned around and drove back home,” she told him.
He tapped his fingers on his knee, silently reorganizing his assumption of what had occurred the night of the murder. He gave a dissatisfied shake of his head. “Did your mother say why Hutton canceled the meeting?”
“She wasn’t there when I got home,” Remi said. She’d been too relieved when she pulled into the driveway to discover the house dark and silent to consider why the dinner had been canceled. She was feeling like crap and in no mood to deal with Bobby. Or her mother. “I took some cold medicine and crawled into bed.”
“Maybe they met somewhere else,” he suggested.
“Maybe, but why would he say they met at the house if they were somewhere else?”
He considered the question, at last giving a sharp shake of his head. “You’re sure it was the same night?”
She shuffled back through her memories. It’d been over five years ago, and she hadn’t had any reason to think about the night since then. Still, she was confident she wasn’t mistaken.
“Yeah. I was feeling rotten when Dad got the call the next morning about Tiffany Holloway,” she said. “He wanted to take me to the doctor, but I told him to go to work.”
Ash continued to tap his fingers against his knee. He was troubled by something. “Surely your dad asked your mother about the meeting?”