LITMIR.BIZ

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looked around the bowling alley, as if searching for more questions to ask. When it was clear that they were done, she handed out yet another one of her business cards. “Please don’t hesitate to call if you think of anything else or even hear about anything that might be about Mariah’s murder.”

      “I will,” Patterson said, pocketing the card. “Thanks.”

      The thanks seemed a little odd, but DeMarco could tell by the resigned look on the young man’s face that he was happy to have helped, even if only in the slightest of ways. He was already picking up his ball to try managing that 7-10 split when DeMarco and Kate turned and walked away.

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      “You think it’s too late to make a house call?” DeMarco asked.

      Kate laughed as she buckled her seatbelt. As soon as Dwayne Patterson had given them Jamie Griles’s name, she knew they would be making at least one more stop before calling it a day. She envied the drive and energy DeMarco had and could clearly see why she was so quickly making a name for herself in the bureau.

      “Not for someone with the lifestyle that Jamie Griles seems to lead,” Kate said. “I assume that’s the stop you’d like to make?”

      “Figured it might be worth a shot. It’s not even seven o’clock yet.”

      “I’ll call Gates and see if he can pull up an address.”

      Kate placed the call to Gates, only to find that he wasn’t at the precinct. He patched her through to Smith’s desk. The officer seemed happy enough to help, coming up with an address within twenty seconds.

      Just as Kate plugged the address into the map app on her phone, her hand started to buzz as Gates called her back.

      “Can I ask what you’re looking into Griles for?” Gates asked.

      “We got word that he was hanging out with Mariah Ogden’s group of friends on the night she was killed. He was apparently loud and possibly intoxicated.”

      “I should warn you that he’s a creep of the highest degree. But I honestly don’t see him as the sort to kill anyone.”

      “That’s what we’re hearing. Now, can you define creep?”

      “I’ve arrested him at last three times in the past few years. Small stuff, mostly. He’s got a DUI on his record, as well as a charge for disturbing the peace when he decided to start a little bar brawl at Esther’s Place. And, as I’m sure you may have already heard, he has something of a habit of trying to impress younger girls…often by purchasing alcohol for them. We haven’t been able to bust him for that yet, but it’s pretty much common knowledge.”

      “Yeah, we’re hearing all of that, too.”

      “Let me know if you need a hand.”

      Kate ended the call, starting to wonder if Griles might be more of a lead than she had originally thought. She checked the address in her GPS and saw that it was only sixteen minutes away from the Larry’s Lanes and Arcade.

      “You thinking the killer might be some sort of jilted or rejected ex-boyfriend or something?” Demarco asked as she guided them to the address.

      “In a small town like this, it’s where my mind automatically goes at first,” Kate said. “But until we can accurately look at any links between the two girls, that’s going to be hard to nail down. It’s the one reason I really wish the mother was still here.”

      “Maybe we can call her tomorrow,” DeMarco said. It was more of a question, though—a veiled way to ask: Would we be total monsters if we bothered the grieving mother tomorrow?

      “If nothing pans out tonight, we may have to,” Kate said.

      “The thing that’s hanging me up is where Kayla Peterson was killed. Right there on her front porch. I mean, she even got the key in the door. Makes me think she had the guy with her.”

      “Maybe trying to sneak him into her house?” Kate asked.

      “Maybe.”

      “There’s another possibility, too. Maybe he was there, waiting for her.”

      DeMarco nodded gravely. “Neither one of those scenarios is particularly pleasant.”

      As DeMarco drove to the address they had been given, Kate looked over the notes on the iPad DeMarco had been uploading all of the case files to. So far there wasn’t much to look at, but there were small things to pick up on here and there.

      “Both victims went to the same high school,” Kate noted as she read through the notes. “Although in a town this small that’s really not too much of a surprise.”

      “Different colleges,” DeMarco pointed out. “Kayla Peterson went way off to Florida for college. Mariah Ogden went to Western View Community College, just outside of Charlotte.”

      “I would be curious to know if Jamie Griles knew Kayla. If so, that would basically be the only link between them.”

      “And that wouldn’t be good news for Griles,” DeMarco said, thinking it over.

      It was the last thing either of them said, though Kate was pretty sure DeMarco was feeling the same stirrings of excitement she was. They were on their way to question their first concrete lead and that was always am exciting moment. Kate allowed herself to enjoy it, though as they drove through the night she could not ignore just how badly she was starting to miss Michael.

      She felt the old stings of feeling like a bad mother, of leaving her family behind. It was more than the guilt of any mother who went back to work after maternity leave, though. No, these were stings from the past, stings she had suffered through and thought she had managed to put behind her.

      But these stings…these were fresh. And they seemed to be reiterating the same cries of her heart. Maybe this was her last hoorah.

      Maybe she shouldn’t even be here at all.

***

      They covered the rest of the trip to Jamie Griles’s residence in silence. When they arrived, they found themselves pulling into a small gravel parking lot in front of what appeared to be a four-plex. It looked like one large house, divided into four different living spaces or apartments. Each apartment had its own mailbox at the mouth of the parking lot. Kate noted that the one marked 3 held the name J. GRILES.

      DeMarco parked beside a beaten-up old GMC pickup, parked slightly crooked in front of the third apartment. As they got out, Kate heard the rumbling of a stereo coming from one of the apartments. She was rather proud to find she knew the song as “Battery” by Metallica. Melissa had gone through a Metallica phase in her youth and had been both surprised and humiliated to find that her mother hadn’t outright hated the music.

      As they approached the door with a bronze 3 in its center, she realized the music was not coming from inside. However, someone was home: a soft light filled the window, mostly blocked by lopsided blinds. As Kate stepped onto the stoop, DeMarco knocked.

      “Yeah!” was the response from inside. “One minute!”

      There was some brief commotion from inside and then, about twenty seconds after knocking, the door was opened. Jamie Griles was an average-sized man. His black hair was held up in a style that nearly reminded Kate of Elvis, held in place by stiff-looking product. He had small eyes and a chiseled jaw that was covered in five o’clock shadow. He wasn’t handsome, but he was far from unattractive as well. It didn’t take much effort for Kate to imagine impressionable young girls to give him some attention in exchange for beer or other things.

      He smiled at the two women and said: “Can I help you ladies?”

      DeMarco apparently took offense to the way he was looking at them. When she took out her ID and badge, she basically thrust them at him. “Agents DeMarco and Wise, FBI. Are you Jamie Griles?”

      “I am,” he said. The smile was gone, replaced by what appeared to be genuine confusion. “But…FBI? What for?”

      “We’re

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