Page 214 of Broken
“Empty.”
“Do you think she moved out?” she asked.
“No idea. Let’s clear the place.”
They went through the first floor. No Leslie. Despite a few dishes in the sink, there were no signs of recent activity. The large, finished basement sat empty, the storage closets bare.
Up on the third floor, they cleared the master bedroom. Like the rest of the home, it looked unlived in.
Jacqueline checked the made bed. “There are sheets and a blanket under here.”
In the bathroom were two toothbrushes and two bath towels.
“Leslie acted like she hardly knew Maul,” Jacqueline murmured. “They barely talked to each other.”
“Either he trained her well, or she was protecting him,” Prescott replied.
The shower walls and glass door were still wet. One of the bath towels was damp. In the bedroom, Jacqueline opened the large walk-in closet.
Rows and rows of women’s designer clothing hung neatly on hangers.
“Wow, this must’ve cost a fortune,” she said. “Look at all these gowns. Half of these have the tags on them. This is a seventy-five-hundred-dollar dress.”
“As the future Mrs. Armstrong, you’ll need gowns.”
“For what?”
“Charity and industry events.” He pulled down a large box from the closet shelf. “You want to check this while I search the dresser?”
He set it on the bedroom floor before he started opening dresser drawers and rummaging through them.
She eased down, opened the box. Inside sat a neatly folded white shirt, beneath that a pair of black dress pants. She moved them out of the way. A jewelry box sat on top of what looked like a scrapbook or photo album. After opening the jewelry box, she stared at the small, sealed plastic bags. There had to be dozens of them, each containing a single piece of jewelry.
She pulled out a bag and stared at the necklace.
Why does Leslie keep her jewelry in sealed plastic bags?
Jacqueline examined a pair of silver hoop earrings. Then, a bag with a ring. Dread sent shivers through her.
“Ohgod.”
This wasn’t Leslie’s jewelry. These were keepsakes from Maul’s killing sprees. She searched the bags until she found the necklace. The silver pendant had tarnished, but the Greek letters of her sorority were engraved on one side. With her heart thumping hard and fast, she turned the small bag over. Engraved on the other side was the message from Jacqueline.
Janey,
Friends Forever. Sisters Always.
In the Bonds, Jack
Fury and heartbreak, and a decade of loss, exploded out of her in a wail.
In seconds, Prescott was by her side, his gaze searching her face. She held up the small baggie. “This was Janey’s necklace. A gift from me.”
He regarded the jewelry, protected in tiny, plastic bags. Souvenirs to remind Maul of his heinous victories.
A growl ripped out of him. “I would kill him again, if I could.”
She opened the book. Inside were neatly arranged newspaper clippings of all the women who’d gone missing or had been murdered by the Campus Killer. There was a list of names. Two columns that filled an entire notebook-lined piece of paper.
