The Poet (Samantha Jazz)

The door jerks open. I launch to my feet and turn toward the door. Lang blasts into the small room, his big body awkwardly, well, big. He’s big. It’s not. He scans his surroundings and slams the door behind him. “What the hell are you doing, Jazz?” he demands. “I told you to stay where you were.”

I wave that comment off and focus on what matters. “Whoever killed Newman probably killed the parking lot camera first, which, considering I can’t get the camera back up, is likely. Which is weird considering Summer’s security feed was offline and The Poet always knows how to maneuver around cameras.”

“The Poet is dead,” he snaps. “I don’t know where you’re going with this and I don’t think I want to know.”

I wave that off and focus on the here and now. “We need to know if that camera’s knocked out, because if it’s not, then the killer could have been here in this security booth where we stand right now.”

“You have access to the security booth and you alone, which means that you could have cleared the footage. In other words, everyone whispers about me being the brawn and you being the brains. I’m officially the brawn and brains. The man had a restraining order against you, and you were here when he died.”

“I’m more than aware of that fact,” I snap.

“Alone, Jazz,” he snaps right back.

My brows dip. “Alone?”

“You were here when you shouldn’t have been here, gone rogue, and gone rogue alone. Only you’re not alone this time, are you? I’m here.”

I scowl. “I didn’t call you.”

“You should have and before you came. What happened to ‘live together, die together,’ remember?”

“That’s what you say every time you drag me into a hellish situation I shouldn’t be in, which is often. I don’t do that to you.”

“Right,” he says, his tone taking on a mocking quality. “Ms. Morals. Better than me. We’ve never gone down for one of my hellish situations.” He motions to the cameras. “What’s on there that I need to know about?”

“Nothing. There’s nothing worth seeing on that feed. What about when you were skulking around the building?”

“No one to shoot. Nothing to see. Because he killed himself. That’s the whole point here. How about we make sure you don’t go down for his choice to take his life?”

“The passenger door was open and the gun is in his hand in the passenger seat. He didn’t make that choice.”

“The door’s shut, Jazz.”

I blanch but recover quickly. “It was open.”

“Read my lips,” he says. “The door is shut. I saw it with my own eyes.”

Chapter 85

Newman’s door was shut when Lang got to him.

Those words replay in my mind and I flash back to me finding that very same door open.

My mind processes this information in a rapid formation of facts that all amount to validation.

“Did you hear me?” Lang presses. “The door was shut.”

I snap back to the present and to Lang with a quick reply. “Further proof that he was murdered. I must have surprised the killer. He or she shut the door after I turned my back on the minivan to talk to you. Then that person escaped while the camera was off.”

“Or Newman realized we were onto him and killed himself. That’s the right answer, Jazz. He killed himself.”

“The Poet wouldn’t kill himself. That’s not how he’s made. That’s not how he thinks. He believed the world was a better place because he was here. Someone killed him.”

“They’re going to say that someone was you. He killed himself. Accept that you didn’t understand him as well as you thought you did and thank fuck for that. None of us need to understand him that well.”

“You’re not hearing me.”

“I don’t know what your problem is here. I might not have gone through all your profile training, but I know this. Killers kill themselves when they get trapped. It happens.” He starts naming serial killers who killed themselves. “Joe Ball. Bitter Blood. Charlie Brandt. Dallen—”

“Stop. I get it. It happens. It didn’t happen here.”

“He was obsessed with you. Now you’re obsessed. It’s over. Let it be over.”

“I just—”

“Let it go. Who cares if some family member sought vengeance? Who cares? He’s gone. Thank the good Lord, and let’s get busy on the next one.”

“Something is off.” My jaw sets hard. “Maybe he wasn’t working alone.”

“That’s not your profile,” he profiles.

“Him controlling someone else, like Newman, that would fit. Him killing himself does not fit. The door was open. Someone shut it. And I know this because I can describe everything I saw inside that minivan. And you won’t find my fingerprints because I didn’t have to open the door. It was open. I leaned in.”

“Or you killed him and that’s how you know. That’s what the investigators are going to say. Protect yourself. You saw the blood on the window. You called it in.”