“Is there something else you know?” John asks quietly. “Anything you remembered, or figured out?”
I shake my head. “No.”
“Could this be about a woman? An ex-girlfriend?”
“But why? And why now? Above all, what would Ross have to do with it?”
“You’re convinced it’s him, huh?”
“That motherfucker.” Keeping my temper is a struggle. “You don’t believe it’s him? Even his own father believes it.”
“I believe in evidence,” John says. “Even some clues and hints wouldn’t hurt at this point, and we have nothing. So lie low for a while, all right? Don’t go punching Ross again. Let us do our job.”
“Isn’t it your fucking job to find those clues and catch that asshole?” And I hang up on him because what else is there to say?
I could tell him where to shove it, yeah, but insulting a cop? Not the best idea when you want him to catch the psycho hounding you and your own.
But then what the hell is left to do?
Like Octavia told me this morning, I have text messages on my phone, from Zane and Kaden. Missed calls, too.
My finger hovers over the call button.
What am I gonna do? Shovel my shit on their doorstep? Tell them, what, that I can’t deal with a few messages that make no sense and a dead cat on my doorstep, and that they should drive over and hold my hand?
Fuck that.
So I compromise. I send them each a quick message saying “Still alive,” since they’ve been wondering about that, and throw my phone on the kitchen table.
Run a hand over my face.
What next?
Ross.
John doesn’t believe Ross is behind the messages. He thinks I’m the link.
The link to what?
An ex-girlfriend, John said. We’ve been over that. I had one before I left St. Louis back when I was eighteen. I was with her during my last year of high school.
We broke up a couple months before I skipped town. What was her name again? Elina. Alina. The family name was something Russian. Solokov?
Yeah, that was it. Pretty girl. Blond. Curvy. Nice. What would she have to do with any of this shit?
“Remember who you left behind.”
Nah, this is bullshit. Who I left behind could be just about anyone in St. Louis. Or in Milwaukee. Literally anyone I ever met in my life.
But what is most precious to me? Am I supposed to combine the messages?
Who I left behind.
What is most precious to me.
You will lose what she has lost.
And the first message. You will suffer for your sins.