“What did she say?”

“She claims she doesn’t know what I’m talking about, doesn’t know any of the women from the list I mentioned. Lots of denial, lots of outrage. And some lies sprinkled through. Whether or not she’s directly responsible for the threats to you, for the murders, she knows something.”

“What’s next?”

“What I’d like is to get my hands on her travel data over the past few years. See if I can put her anywhere near the murders. That adds a lot of weight to the pile.”

“Can you do that?”

“I’m private so I can’t tap-dance my way to a warrant there. I’m not confident I could get one if I was still on the job.” She checked the time. “I have to get home now. I’ve got a family thing in a couple of hours, but with your permission, I’d like to lay out what I have for my uncle. He is still on the job.”

“Whatever you think can help. Whatever.”

“Then I’ll pick his brain on it. I still have friends and contacts on the force. My uncle has plenty. I’ll tell you my instincts say she’s connected, and she’s shaken. I’ll write all this up for you, give you my observations and my impressions.”

“I looked her up on her company’s website. I wasn’t going to, but I just needed to see her. She looks so …”

“Ordinary?” Rachael supplied.

“Yes. Just a pleasant-looking professional woman. I couldn’t find any photos of her brother, except a few from rehashes of the Georgetown story, and those were when he was a kid. He just looked like a kid dressed up for picture day at school.”

“He’s not a kid anymore. Neither of them is. If either or both of them are behind this, I’m going to find out.”

Because something about her put me off, Rachael thought. Something about her pinged on the radar.

“I’m glad you’re on my side.”

“You can count on that. Let me brainstorm some with my uncle. I’ll get back to you.”

Something was going to break, Rachael told herself as she pulled out of the lot. She’d seen, and she felt, waves of anger, fear, guilt from Nikki.

And those waves were going to break.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Everything hurt. She couldn’t think through the pain, and her body shook from the shock.

Terrible dream, Nikki thought. Wake up. Wake up.

As she pushed through the ragged, tearing layers, she tasted blood in her mouth.

Could you taste anything in a dream?

But it was copper, and nasty, made her want to cough and spit. But her face, oh God, her face throbbed and banged. Her head pounded, inside and out, as she struggled to open her eyes and come awake.

She found herself on the floor, lying on the cold tile, and the light too bright. It made her eyes ache and tear.

She tried to sit up, to push herself up, but her right arm was stuck. With her vision still blurry, doubling, she stared at the cuff around her wrist.

Frightened, she saw the chain welded to the cuff, the chain welded to a thick bolt scarring the tile wall.

The powder room under the stairs, her pretty powder room where she kept pretty guest towels for guests who never came.

In a panic, she tried to yank her arm free, but the cuff only cut into her wrist and gave her more pain.

So she screamed, despite the explosion it caused in her head, she screamed.

She heard the footsteps, tried to cower back. Because she remembered now. Dear God, she remembered.

JJ walked to the door. He carried one of her file boxes, which he set on the floor.

He crouched, grinned at her. “Woo, might’ve broken that snooty nose of yours, Nik. You’re sure going to have a pair of shiners.”

“You hit me. You hit me.”

“Not as hard as I could’ve. You should thank me.”

“What are you doing? What are you doing?”

He smiled at her, just the way she remembered. Lips spread wide, eyes cold as winter.

“Not killing you. You can thank me later. If you’d let that nosy bitch in here, I would’ve done you both. But you stood up, Nik, so we’ll do it this way.”

“What have you done, JJ?”

He wagged a finger in the air. “You know. If you didn’t before, you know now. Just like you know you can scream till your lungs bleed and nobody’s going to hear you. Inside room, Sis. Nice thick plaster walls, no window. So.”

He rooted in the box, took out a bottle of Advil, a bottle of water. He shoved them both toward her. “I’d take four if I were you.”

“You killed those women. The ones the detective talked about.”

“They deserved it. They all do, and I’ll get to them all. I’ve been taking my time there, but I see I have to move things along. Damn lucky break I was here when that bitch came by to grill you. I was just going to hit you up for some more money, a nice hot shower, a couple good meals. Got a big bonus out of it.”

“Why? Why? Why?” Her swollen eyes began to leak again. “He cheated, he—”

“You shut the fuck up about him! They spread their legs for him, didn’t they?” He pounded a fist on the little vanity. “How many times do I have to tell you they’re to blame for it? A man takes what’s offered, it’s his nature. They’re the reason he’s dead, why we grew up shamed. They’ve got no place on this earth, and you should know that! Especially that whelp her whore of a mother didn’t kill in the womb. She murdered our father. She’s the reason.”

She’d heard it all before, countless times, and knew there would be no reasoning with him. Especially since a part of her, a terrible part that shamed her, agreed with him.

With trembling hands she opened the bottle of water, the bottle of pills. She had to ease the pain and think.

“You’ve been sending her poems? The Rizzo girl?”

“I always had a knack for them, didn’t I? Dad always said so. Mom, too, but Dad knew that shit. He was proud of me. More of me than you.”

He sat on the floor in the doorway, looked over her head. “He loved me. Mom, she ragged on me more than half the time, but he loved me. ‘Get off his back,’ he’d tell her. ‘The boy’s got spunk. Boys will be boys,’ he’d say.”

He would, Nikki thought, he’d say those things even when they found out JJ stole something from a store, or started a fight, or snuck out at night.

“She was just trying to keep you out of trouble.”

“She was weak. ‘Pop another pill, Catherine.’ He’d say that, too, when she started up the nagging. And she didn’t give him what he needed or he wouldn’t have gotten it from the whores and sluts, would he?”

“I know she was weak,” Nikki said carefully. “She took pills. And I took care of you, JJ. I tried to take care of you, you know that. I made sure you had something to eat after nobody’d work for us anymore. I helped you with your homework, and washed your clothes.”

“Expected me to toe the line. Expected me to scrub floors and wash dishes.”

“I couldn’t do it all by myself.” She tried to smile at him, but God, it hurt. “I needed your help.”

“Went off to college, didn’t you? Left me.”