CHAPTER 34

C arina was lying asleep in Kieran's bed, and she was still naked. Kieran, however, was sitting in her office, staring at the screen in front of her. It was just after three in the morning. After reviewing the footage together, they'd had dinner and watched a movie, both of them trying to push thoughts of the case and Carina being in trouble out of their mind, but things had kept coming up.

"Can Frank just email these files like that?" Kieran had asked.

"To speed up the possibility of getting a deal, yeah. The files would be verified by our experts, but we'd get them ourselves straight from the source, too," Carina had replied before she'd snuggled up in front of Kieran on the sofa.

Kevin had actually called Carina earlier to tell her to delete the files from her computer, so Carina had done that, but only after letting Kieran save them to her own hard drive. She'd filled out the form to receive them anyway and would likely get them at some point, so they didn't consider it breaking the rules.

"Do you think Kevin will offer her a deal?" Kieran had asked an hour later.

"I don't know. Maybe."

It had gone on like that, with Kieran asking a question every so often, until Carina had mentioned wanting to get some sleep. Sleep hadn't come right away, though, because when Carina had started to change into her sleep clothes, Kieran had been caught staring. That, it seemed, was all it took for them. Kieran's eyes on Carina's body. Carina reaching for her. Kieran coming undone in only a few minutes because Carina's touch just did things to her.

When they finally went to bed after midnight, Kieran had fallen asleep, too, but she'd woken up not long after, unable to shake something she couldn't explain to herself, let alone Carina, so she'd gotten out of bed and put on some clothes quietly before disappearing into her office. She pulled up the first video file and sat there with music playing in her headphones over the soundless footage. She watched it all at two times the speed, which was still pretty slow given how boring the video was, but she wanted to make sure she wouldn't miss anything leading up to or after she got to the part where she'd see her sister for the first time.

As expected, Marin arrived with her bag and got on the bus. The timing checked out that she got off at the main depot, but Kieran could also see parts of a major bus station outside the bus, where it stopped and Marin got off. That was the last she saw of her sister. She hadn't gone through the rest of the files frame by frame, so she decided to do that but move the video along a little faster. Finding that to be even more boring than she thought, she pulled up her email on her other monitor and saw something there from Frank that she'd missed. It had come in around dinnertime, and she'd been a little preoccupied after that. Kieran clicked on the email and found a file attached. Opening it, she returned to the message. Frank had sent her what he'd found on the guy who said Marin killed his girlfriend.

His name was Theodore Samuel, but he went by Theo, according to the statement he'd signed with his nickname. Theo was her age. He had short blonde hair that she could see because his driver's license picture was attached to the email. On it, he looked like he was trying to appear like he didn't care, but he clearly did, judging by the ridiculous amount of product he'd put in his hair for a photo that most people just expected to be bad. Aside from the photo that had opened automatically in the email, Frank had attached a summary of Theo's record that he'd obviously typed up himself, probably not wanting to send Kieran someone's actual record since she had no right to it, and it could get him in trouble. According to that, though, the guy had a few speeding tickets, several parking tickets, and a loitering charge that came with a fine but nothing else.

At the bottom of the email, Frank also mentioned that Marin had signed off on him sending this to Kieran to use her detective skills and help. It made Kieran smile, but she had to drop that smile and get back to work on the footage. She continued to review it, but there was something about Theo's photo that had her eyes drifting back to it over and over again.

"Shit," she said and returned to the first video file, the one that covered the murder window.

She fast-forwarded through the first hour until she saw Marin. Then, she watched her sister get dropped off at the depot. For the first time, though, Kieran paid real attention to the same bus stop where Marin had been picked up. She'd watched it before, but too fast, and now, she paid attention to the number twelve bus arriving back at that stop. In the corner of the screen, Kieran saw a man approaching the bus stop. He walked through the frame along the sidewalk as the bus door opened, and she hit pause.

"Shit," she said again.

She'd been right. It was him. While the footage was black-and-white and a little grainy, it was clear as day that Theodore Samuel was at the bus stop that night, and he looked disheveled. His T-shirt looked wrinkled. His pants appeared to have a tear in them at the knee, and there was something on them, too. She zoomed in on her computer, but that only made the image grainier, preventing her from seeing anything in real detail. From what Kieran could see, though, there were dark spots on his jeans around his knees and below. His shoes were dark, so she couldn't see if there was anything on them.

Kieran zoomed back out, her heart racing now, and pressed play. When Theo disappeared from the screen, she fast-forwarded again. The number twelve bus came back around to the stop, but he was long gone. Kieran found the old footage she had of the ninety-two bus, thinking that Marin mentioned that bus first and said the stop was closer to Nick's house. Pulling it up, she bit her lower lip and held on to it. She pressed play and watched. Leaving it at two times the speed meant Kieran had to watch a lot of people get on and off a bus for it being after eight o'clock. She'd taken buses before, although not all that often, and she supposed she expected them to be more for people going to and from work during the week, but she checked herself immediately because not everyone worked a standard nine-to-five Monday through Friday.

It took about thirty minutes before she had to press her space bar to pause the video. She watched, rubbed her eyes, and then replayed the section again.

"Asshole," she said to herself and shook her head.

She pulled off her headphones because she couldn't believe it. She'd been right, and for some reason, knowing that required her to stop the music she'd been playing.

"Are you in here watching porn?"

Startled, Kieran jumped and yelled, "Motherfucker!"

Carina laughed and said, "So, black-and-white porn? Interesting kink."

Kieran's heart had already been racing, but now, it was beating wildly, so she leaned back in her chair, placing her hand over her chest as if that would help calm it down.

"Sorry, I scared you," Carina said as she walked over, leaned down, and kissed Kieran on the cheek. "Are you watching the footage again?" She moved behind Kieran and wrapped her arms around her, leaning down to place her chin on the top of Kieran's head.

"Did I wake you?"

"I rolled over, and you weren't there. I came looking for you." She kissed Kieran's head before putting her chin back down. "You couldn't watch this in the daytime, after hours of sleep?"

"I found something," Kieran shared.

"Yeah? What?"

"Theo Samuel."

"You found Theo Samuel's statement? I didn't send that to you. Did Frank?"

"No, I mean, I found him ." She pointed to the screen and Theo, frozen in time. "Frank sent me his DMV photo, so I know what he looks like now. I've got a summary of his record, too, but I haven't spent much effort on that because he's in the bus footage, Carina."

"He is?" Carina stood up and moved to Kieran's side. "What the hell?"

"It gets better," Kieran told her. "This is the ninety-two bus footage." She pointed to the monitor. "He's there first. I think he went there looking for Marin, and when he didn't find her there, he moved to the twelve bus stop."

"You have him there, too?"

"Yes," she said, pulling up that footage. "Look." She zoomed in again. "Not clear here, and I doubt they can do much with the footage because it's so old, but look." Kieran pointed. "It might be supposition to you, but those are dark spots on his jeans."

"You think they're blood?" Carina looked at her.

"I don't know. I do think it's worth asking for his alibi the night of Nick May's murder, though."

"Hold on." Carina moved away from the desk and held her hand to her chin in thought. "Why would Theo Samuel kill Nick May? He didn't even know him. He hasn't seen Marin since she aged out of the system almost twenty years ago."

"So you say. But we don't know that."

"Marin would've told you."

"If she'd seen him , yes. But not if he'd seen her , and she had no idea that he was there."

"Come on. Stalking? You're jumping to stalking?"

"I'm not jumping; I'm postulating with my lawyer girlfriend."

"You can't just casually use the word ‘girlfriend' to refer to me for the first time when we're talking about a case."

"Carina, focus," Kieran said with a smile.

"To focus, I need coffee," Carina replied and left the office without another word.

Kieran wasn't sure if she was coming back, so she waited.

"Kieran! Kitchen!"

Kieran jumped up and followed Carina to the kitchen, where she watched her sleepy girlfriend make them both coffee while she spoke.

"Okay. So, we're just talking here, you and me."

"Yes," Kieran confirmed and sat in a chair at her kitchen table.

"Then, let's assume a few things."

"Go for it."

"Okay. Theo knew Marin when she was, what, sixteen? Seventeen?"

"Sure."

"Let's assume Marin is telling the truth about him coming onto her and not taking no for an answer because I think that's far more likely than her coming onto him. Is that anti-feminist to say that? I don't know. Anyway," Carina rambled and opened Kieran's fridge as if she'd done it every day for a year and it was nothing to be this domestic. "I believe her. She pushes him away. He burns himself because he wants attention or to have her punished. She gets a record."

"Yes," Kieran said, content to just let Carina externally process what she'd already processed internally.

"Okay. If my chronology is right, he's pissed because he didn't get the girl he wanted, but there's this other girl who is interested, and he starts dating her."

"Maybe even to make Marin jealous," Kieran added.

"Maybe," Carina said. "But are we saying he killed that poor girl or that she was killed randomly but not by Marin?"

"Let's assume there are no coincidences here," Kieran replied. "Either because something happened, and he killed her, or he killed her on purpose to screw Marin over."

"If he'd done that, though, he would've done more to get her arrested for it."

"True," Kieran said. "So, he didn't do it?"

"No, he did. Let's say that he did for now." Carina poured half-and-half into both cups and placed it back in the fridge. "Let's say it was a rage thing, though. The girl said or did something to piss him off, and–"

"Okay, but we couldn't prove any of that."

"We wouldn't need to in order to just question him or bring it to Kevin to have him question Theo. Let's say she said something to him."

"Okay," Kieran agreed. "He got angry."

"I wonder if we can find anyone who could tell us if he carried a knife on him."

"She was homeless – well, living in a shelter sometimes – what if she did," Kieran suggested. "What if she did for self-defense?"

"Shit." Carina poured the coffee. "Okay. Yeah, I can sell that. So, he stabs her, but why doesn't he blame Marin if he's still angry with her?"

"If he killed her, he wouldn't want the crime to come back on him, right?"

"Yeah, but that logic doesn't hold up because he did insert himself into the Nick May investigation," Carina said.

"He was young then," Kieran countered. "It was his first crime that we know of. Or, at least, it was probably his first murder."

"So, he would have been scared."

"Yeah. Now, though, he's older. He probably thinks he can get away with everything."

"But Nick and Cory in Miami? Why would he kill them?"

"Why not?" Kieran asked back. "If he is as bad as we're making him out to be… Marin slighted him. He might still hold that over her. He might also be obsessed with her regardless of the rejection. I mean, he's at the bus stop, looking for her. Two bus stops."

"Okay. So, he's been stalking her this whole time." Carina placed the coffee cups on the table and sat down. "That's close to two decades. He didn't act? Marin didn't know?"

"If he's any good, she might not. Even if she saw him, maybe she wouldn't recognize him. In his DMV photo, he's blonde, but it looked like a dye job to me. Maybe he had darker hair as a kid or something. We can look that up later, though."

"Are we really suggesting that Theo Samuel has been stalking your sister for close to twenty years?"

"Yes," Kieran said.

"And that he murdered three people because of her in one way or another?"

"Yes," she repeated.

"But why?" Carina asked.

"It doesn't have to make sense to us. If he wanted her and someone else had her, he did something about it. He killed Nick and went searching for her. Maybe he planned to finally confront her; kidnap her, even. Maybe he planned to tell her that he'd rescued her from Nick's abuse. I don't know."

"And later, with Cory?"

"Probably the same thing."

"Then, why not keep getting away with it? Why give Kevin a statement?"

"Maybe he needs to be involved somehow now. He probably wants her locked up because that means she can't be with anyone else. And if he testifies, he'll get to see her and be part of putting her away. Hell, he might even try to visit her in prison if she gets convicted."

"Well, he sounds pretty fucked up, but this is just us talking, Kieran. We'd have to be able to prove this. And I'm not sure a grainy image of him with dark spots at a bus stop does that. For the same reason it's an alibi for Marin, it's an alibi for him."

"And in the same way it's not a complete alibi for Marin, it's not a complete alibi for him."

Carina nodded and said, "We still need more. If you want to give this to Frank to use at trial, you need more."

"I don't just want to give this to Frank to use at trial, Carina. I want to give this to Kevin because I don't think there should be a trial."

"It's going to be hard to convince him with what you have."

"Then, I'm going to need this coffee and then some because I'm going full-on detective here."

"You know we have a friend who's an actual detective, right? I can call her once it's normal for people to be awake."

Kieran nodded and took a sip of her coffee. Her whole body tingled. Not only was she excited, jumpy, and anxious because she now had something to help her sister with, but she'd just had the best kind of time with her girlfriend. Despite the topic, she really loved talking to Carina like this and the back-and-forth of it, with Carina's brain and her own working together.

"I know what we can do with our time while we wait," she replied.