Journey's Prey by Mary Stone

Author:Mary Stone [Stone, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mary Stone Publishing
Published: 2024-06-14T00:00:00+00:00

19

If Journey hadn’t been belted in, she’d have slid across the car console and into Lucas’s lap, he’d taken the corner out of Margo Wood’s neighborhood so quickly.

“Hey, Toretto. Get us to Green’s house alive, all right?”

“I knew that guy was no good.” Lucas turned again. At least he used his signal this time. “I knew it.”

Journey frowned. “Know? You don’t know anything. Neither of us does. I told you, just because someone’s a creep doesn’t mean they’re a killer. If they were, there’d barely be a woman left alive in the world and barely a man out of jail.”

That was stronger than she believed, but Lucas would get the point. He was fixating too hard on one suspect he didn’t like. They didn’t have quite enough.

Lucas wasn’t convinced. “Come on! It’s gotta be Green. Who else could it be?”

“Who else? Just about anyone else.”

“Seriously? Rachel didn’t have a boyfriend so we can rule that out. Her friend Kate didn’t mention anyone harassing her or being a pain in the ass, so we should be looking beyond her friends.” The tension seemed to fall from Lucas’s face. He lifted his foot from the gas. Then pushed it down again. “So it must be Green. Who else we got?”

Journey gripped her seat belt. “Anyone at the pool. How about Ben Sheldon?”

“Ben? The lifeguard? Something struck you about him?”

Journey thought back to the conversation she’d had at the pool. Ben had been friendly, conversational. Helpful. Maybe too helpful. It was Ben who’d told her the rumor about Jeff Green and Cassidy Mitchell, which sent them chasing after his boss.

“No, but we wouldn’t be looking at Green if it weren’t for Ben. And we’re talking about someone seriously disturbed here. The person who disfigured those girls has managed to hide in plain sight until now. We’re not looking for a freak. We’re looking for a normal, functional person who does freakish things. That could be Ben.”

“Could be…I don’t know. What about Derek Milton?”

“The stocky kid. Sure.” Journey liked that Lucas was opening his mind now. “Could be Derek. He knows the pool rats just as well as Green. Sees them all day, gets excited, something breaks…”

“Or how about Shelby Cooper?”

“Shelby, the one with the pixie?” Journey could almost hear Lucas’s mind snapping closed again as they turned onto Green’s street. A finger of pine trees in the national forest ran along the road. “Come on. We’re talking about a sex crime here.”

“You think women can’t commit sex crimes?” She braced her hands on the dashboard as Lucas sped toward Green’s house. “The victims were assaulted, but they weren’t raped. Didn’t Ben say Shelby was attracted to women?”

Journey breathed out slowly. Ben had told them about Shelby. But this was a man’s crime, surely. Although Shelby looked strong and muscular, female sexual predators were incredibly rare. Even Aileen Wuornos didn’t rape the men she killed.

They were getting off track here.

“Yeah, but…”

“Exactly. Jeff Green. Any luck on the BOLO?”

Journey checked her phone for messages. “Nothing.”

They pulled up to Green’s house.

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