When I Watched Her Die by Sonya Bateman

Author:Sonya Bateman [Bateman, Sonya]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-02-25T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

Amos

The suite at the Whispering Pines already felt like home, and I was more than happy to get there. Even though I still had work to do tonight. No rest for the wicked, I reminded myself. I was pretending to be a detective, and I needed more to go on than observations and dumb luck.

I needed to catch the guy who was out there threatening me, mocking my inability to act against him, while he slaughtered women indiscriminately.

But first, I needed a shower.

I stayed under the water until it started to cool down, and then dried off and scrounged through the luggage for a T-shirt and shorts. At some point, I reflected, I really should put all these clothes away somewhere. And I still needed another pair of shoes, since my boots weren’t the best everyday footwear and I really didn’t want to wear those awful sneakers.

Just the thought of doing all that exhausted me, though. I’d take care of it tomorrow, hopefully after I’d gotten a good night’s sleep.

I went out to the main room and thought about turning the television on, but I doubted anything would interest me. Instead, I grabbed Donnie-boy’s laptop, now fully charged, and sat with it on the couch. If it was password-protected, it was probably useless to me.

It wasn’t. And as I waited for Windows to log in, I knew the lack of password meant there wouldn’t be anything work-related on the laptop that might help me find the killer.

But at least I could get to the internet.

Like his phone, Donnie’s laptop was bog-standard, nothing installed except for the programs and apps that came with the system. Either he hadn’t been on any kind of social media, or he kept his accounts so well hidden that he’d have to jump through hoops every time he accessed them. It was strange, and it smacked of paranoia.

The browser options were Microsoft Edge or nothing. I clicked on it and found that the home page was set to the default Yahoo News page. No bookmarks, no saved passwords, no personalization — no browser history. Did he not even use email on this thing?

Shrugging, I went to Google and ran a search for “shooting gas station new york state exit 34” because I couldn’t remember the name of the town where the gas station was.

The first result was an article with the headline: Massive Blaze Covers Multiple Murders in Parish, NY, Gas Station

Fire? That place was definitely not on fire when I left.

I clicked through to the article and started reading.

Four people were killed in what appears to be a shoot-out on Sunday night at a Mobil gas station in Parish, New York, which was then consumed by fire.

State police have confirmed that the blaze was most likely arson, the fire ignited with kerosene pumped from an island situated just in front of the store. Firefighters battled for six hours to put out the flames, and at first the victims found inside were believed to have died in the fire.

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