Moira inhales sharply. She recognises him. It’s the guy. The turquoise T-shirt has replaced the maroon and gold scarf and navy hoodie, and he’s not wearing his black-framed glasses in the photo, but the slim face and blond hair are the same. Brad Winslow was the man with the silver VW Beetle who was spying on her two days ago.
Why did you follow me, Brad? Moira wonders. And why did you delete Peggy’s post? She puts her phone on the bedside table and lies back in the darkness. There’s something really odd going on here: he’d followed her for most of the day after she’d found the body, but after she’d chased him off he hadn’t seemed to return. Online, there were Peggy’s posts about getting burgled and the murder being deleted whenever she posted them, the lack of news coverage about the burglaries, and the fact that the Manatee Park murder hadn’t appeared in any telly or radio broadcasts and was only on one newspaper site online, and even then it had been reported as an ‘accident’。 That’s far too much to be pure coincidence. Instead it points to The Homestead meddling in how the news is portrayed and shared inside and outside the community. Moira just doesn’t get why.
She reaches out to Pip and strokes his silken head. He snores louder.
It’s as if The Homestead is able to block bad news getting reported. And deleting residents’ posts when they’re trying to share information and find out what’s going on in their own community isn’t okay. It’s like Big Brother is watching their every move and deleting the things they don’t like – editing the narrative of The Homestead in a kind of Stepford community or Truman Show-type situation.
Moira shudders. That’s really not okay. It’s creepy.
This is real life; real things – bad things – are happening, and the residents are entitled to know about them. Hank could have died today. A young woman has already lost her life.
Finding the killer isn’t enough now. Moira also needs to know why the management of The Homestead are censoring what their residents say, and if they are somehow manipulating the news.
She thinks back to when she was sitting in the ambulance earlier and the conversation between Detective Golding and Philip. Remembers the venom in Golding’s voice, and the fear in Philip’s.
She needs to know what’s going on.
38
RICK
He’s barely gotten a couple of streets from home when his cell phone starts ringing. Easing his foot off the gas a little and driving one-handed, Rick reaches into his pants pocket for his cell and answers. ‘You’re talking to Denver.’
‘It’s Hawk.’
‘Hey buddy. What’ve you got for me?’
‘A bunch of stuff as it goes, it’s like your Christmas came early.’
Rick smiles. He knows Hawk will try and squeeze him for another game ticket, but if the intel’s good that’s fine with him. ‘So tell me about it.’
‘ID first – your Jane Doe is officially confirmed as Kristen Altman. Twenty-three years of age. Her most recent address is an apartment in The Homestead staffers’ building – Golden Springs. She has a driver’s licence but no vehicle registered with the DMV. Her birth certificate has her as a native of Pennsylvania.’
‘Twenty-three.’ Rick lets out a long whistle. Shakes his head. Twenty-three years old – the woman was barely more than a child.
‘Yeah. Bad business for sure,’ says Hawk, chewing on gum as he speaks. ‘Listen, I got the read-out from the autopsy. She was shot with a .22 calibre. The wound was in her chest but up towards her shoulder and it missed her vital organs. It wasn’t fatal, not immediately.’
‘But?’
‘But she was in the pool. She would have lost a hell of a lot of blood and gotten real weak. The medical examiner said the cause of death was drowning, but from the wound and the blood ratio in her body, she was shot before she hit the drink.’