Page 21 of Go Under

“No. We’ve lived in Wilmington all our lives. Well, my parents live in Florida now, and my brother and younger sister have moved to Idaho, but no one’s ever been to Philadelphia.” She blinked. “I actually think I’ve never been to Philadelphia.”

Kate and Marcus shared a look. “Your sister never mentioned a court clerk? Maybe a boyfriend who was in law enforcement or a court employee?”

Carol laughed, a full-bodied sound too loud and abrupt to be forced. Several nurses looked disapprovingly toward the room and Kate and Marcus shared another look.

“I’m sorry,” Carol apologized, getting herself under control. “No. Donna never had a boyfriend. Not once. I’m not sure she was ever interested in romance. As for the court employee, the answer is also no. I’m sorry. I can see you’re disappointed, but Donna never went to Philadelphia, never met a court clerk, and never knew a Gerald Mace.”

Marcus leaned back and processed that. Kate didn’t find it that hard to process. Their killer had murdered two people who had no connection to each other. So, they must have had a connection to their victim, just at separate times and in separate roles.

“What about Daniel Avery?” Kate asked.

She watched Carol’s face closely when she said the name. Once again, Carol showed no sign of recognition. She gave Kate an apologetic smile and said, “I’m sorry, no. That doesn’t ring a bell either.”

“He was convicted of murder in 1991. Almost certainly, that conviction was wrongful. He died in prison before they could make it right.”

“How horrible,” Carol said. “That poor man.”

Her sympathy seemed genuine but vague. Exactly the kind of sympathy you’d feel reading about at thirty-five-year-old murder trial and the thirty-year-old discovery that the wrong man was sent to prison.

“We think someone killed your sister because of something related to Daniel Avery’s conviction,” Marcus said bluntly.

“Well, I can’t think what that connection might be,” Carol said. “We’ve never met a Daniel Avery.”

“Maybe your sister met him independently?”

Carol shook her head. “My sister never left her house aside from traveling to work. She was a teacher for many years before retiring. I believe she even had her groceries delivered. I’ve met the other teachers at her school, and none of them were named Daniel Avery. Could it be a case of mistaken identity? Maybe the killer thought she was someone else?”

Kate fought to conceal her disappointment. With no connection between the victims and none between Donna and the Daniel Avery murder, it was very possible that they were going to leave Wilmington with less than they arrived with.

“Would you say your sister was a liar?” Marcus asked.

Carol chuckled. “My dear agent, if my sister had a fault, it was that she didn’t know when to stop telling the truth.” Her upper lip curled bitterly. “She didn’t need to make anything up to hurt you. She could find the darkest part of your soul and lay it bare. Truth was her weapon, not deception.”

And that was that. A dead end. Not one thing to help them understand why their killer had murdered Donna Frick.

They didn’t waste their time further. Marcus got to his feet and handed Carol a business card. “If you think of anything else, please give me a call.”

Carol took the card. Her expression was already sliding back to the shell shocked neutral she wore earlier. She offered no farewell as Kate and Marcus left the room. She just sat there, staring vacantly at the wall, trying to come to terms with the changes in her life.

Meanwhile, Kate and Marcus were back to square zero.

CHAPTER TEN

Be still and know that I am God.

Elijah Cox had lost sight of this simple commandment. God had punished him for his impatience by giving him a thorn in the flesh. He had denied Cox the fulfillment of His plan because the plan Cox attempted to fulfill wasn’t God’s plan but his own plan.

Now God taught him patience again.

Light streamed through the small window in the upper left of the basement in which Cox rested. When Obadiah returned, he would switch on the lights and provide Cox with a more even light and later, when he’d changed Cox’s dressings and checked his vitals, with a simple meal of porridge. Perhaps tonight, he would make eggs and see if Cox’s ravaged digestive system had recovered enough to eat some simple proteins.

For the thousandth time since his failure in Baltimore, Cox replayed the events in St. Anselm’s Cathedral. Kate had arrived with her partner, as Cox had expected, but—also as Cox had expected—without the support of her tactical team. The two of them had immediately begun searching for him, but they didn’t know about the maintenance crawlspace for the cathedral’s pipe organ. He’d waited for just the right moment, when Kate was separated from her partner. Then he had trapped Marcus, leaving Kate all to himself.

That was the problem. That right there. He’d left Kate to himself.

But Kate didn’t belong to Elijah Cox. Kate belonged to God. Cox had focused only on his gratification, the final culmination of his task, the delivery of the scapegoat into the wilderness.

He’d lost sight of his calling.