LITMIR.BIZ

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      The FBI agent had cut himself shaving that day, and a piece of tissue clung to a spot just above his Adam’s apple.

      Kendall fought the urge to pick at it.

      “That’s right,” he said. “And by the way, I’m not an expert either. I only act like I know what I’m talking about so I can get what I need to get and then find what I need to find.”

      She liked him for admitting that. He didn’t have to.

      “So where does this leave you,” she said, quickly amending her words, “leave us?”

      “You’ve dug into the Nevins case as much as anyone,” he said. “You probably have a feel for who might be able to help her with something as sophisticated as to upload files in a way that could not easily be traced. Not even by the FBI.”

      “No,” she answered. “There isn’t anyone. The people who knew her before prison are scared of her. None of them want a thing to do with her. I bet most of them sleep with a gun under their pillows.”

      “That fearful of her?”

      Kendall set down her coffee. “No,” she said, “that hopeful.”

      He cocked a brow. “Hopeful?”

      “Yeah,” Kendall said, “hopeful that they’d be able to shoot her in the head if she came for a visit. Believe me, there’s no welcome-home celebration from anyone who ever knew her before she became famous for killing.”

      “You’ve talked to some of her,” he let the word hang in the air, while he thought of the best way to rephrase it, “let’s call them, mentors.”

      “Just one,” Kendall said. “Jerry Connors is a non-player here. He’s an older, male version of Brenda Nevins. Backed into a corner, warehoused, and still looking for the wrong kind of attention.”

      “She managed somehow,” he said.

      “She’s pretty smart,” Kendall said. “I have to call our IT guy here at the county once a month. I’m notorious here for screwing up my password and needing a reset. Ten letters, two special characters, numerals. And, right, don’t ever write it down. It’s getting ridiculous. But Brenda’s wired differently. Maybe she could figure it out.”

      “It’s pretty sophisticated stuff,” SA Casey said. “And I’m about like you. Give me the days when my dog’s name and last four of my Social were good enough.”

      Kendall laughed. “Tell me about it. Those were the days.”

      When he got up to leave, Kendall wanted to ask him how tall he was. He must have been at least six-four, but that was a question that would imply interest, and she didn’t have any in him. Besides, she was married and very much in love with her husband, Steven.

      “I don’t think any of us should underestimate her intelligence,” she said.

      He gave her a look.

      “We never underestimate at the bureau,” he said.

      “Of course not,” she said. “I’m just thinking that she’s the kind of brilliant person that knows how to use people in ways that the rest of us can’t really fathom. Janie gave up everything, literally everything, because Brenda got her to that point. She found a way to get someone to do what she needed done.”

      SA Casey lingered in the doorway. “She wanted to make those videos,” he said.

      His head was three inches from the top of the doorframe. He was definitely taller than six-four.

      “And more importantly, she wanted to keep making them,” she said. “She wanted the world to see all that she could do. How beautiful she is. How clever. How talented. She sees no distinction between fame and infamy.”

      The FBI special agent took in every word. Kendall Stark might have been a detective for a small county in the middle of nowhere, but her assessment on Brenda Nevins was close to the briefing he’d been given when he got the case. “Grandiose narcissist” was the label given to the woman who’d seduced and then murdered a prison superintendent.

      Among a deadly list of her victims that included a TV producer, a bar owner, and a student teacher, were her husband, and her baby.

      “She needed someone to help her make those videos,” he said.

      Kendall stood to walk the special agent out of the convoluted hallways of the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office—though it was clear he’d had no problem navigating his way to her office with that so-called coffee branch.

      “Right,” she said, still thinking. “Someone who knew the ins and outs of media, computers, services, and video.”

      “Someone,” SA Casey said as they made their way down the hallway, passing the evidence room and records offices, “she could dispose of when the time was right.”

      He was right. Brenda’s helpers had the shelf life of lettuce.

      “Brenda Nevins sees everyone as an object,” Kendall said. “No one is a person when she lays her eyes on them. All exist as merely something to be used by her.”

      “Whoever is helping her doesn’t know that,” the agent said.

      “And when they finally figure it out,” Kendall added, “I’ll bet it will be too late.”

      CHAPTER FIVE

      As a thunderstorm pounded the airspace over Port Orchard, Erwin and Joe Thomas sat in the lobby of the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office. Hanging above the receptionist’s desk and console was a shiny steel image of salmon swirling around as though they were in the constant motion of the freedom of a river. There was a bit of irony there, of course. The fish-shaped figures were fashioned in a circle, chasing each other, going nowhere.

      Janie Thomas’s husband and son were in the same steely limbo.

      A rumble of thunder pulsed through the lobby, and the receptionist looked up from the magazine she was reading.

      “We don’t get many storms like these,” she said. “Almost scary.”

      The visitors and Kendall Stark looked over at her.

      “Yeah,” Joe said, “I had a kid down the hall from my dorm room that had his bass cranked up so loud that the first time I heard it I thought it was a thunderstorm. Pretty dumb, huh?”

      “Not so dumb,” Kendall said. “I had a boyfriend that played the bass so loud that I’m lucky I can hear anything anyone says.”

      The mood had been fraught with tension. The small talk was an opportunity to break the ice. Joe and his dad were there, she knew, because of the video blog Brenda had released.

      Kendall extended her hand to Erwin, but he declined to greet her with a handshake. Joe, whom Kendall decided favored his mother with his coloring—hair and eyes—reached out.

      “Detective, we saw the thing on YouTube,” Joe said.

      “I should have called you,” Kendall said.

      “You should have,” Erwin said, standing with his arms wrapped around his chest in a defensive pose.

      Erwin looked at his son. “He wants to know about her.”

      Kendall looked at Joe and offered a quick, sympathetic nod. She turned her attention to Erwin.

      “Let’s talk, okay?” She asked. “Follow me.”

      The aftermath of murder is never predictable. How people behave when the unimaginable transpires is a source of endless pondering and discussion among those who deal with it every day. Sometimes people act as though they’ll never recover, that the death of the loved one is that line in the sand that will forever mark the rest of their days. Other times, relief seems to rear up, and the one closest to the victim starts planning a garage sale

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