“It’s got to be his burner phone. He made those calls to the Antrim residence,” said Jane. “And when Julianne answered, he hung up. Because the person he really wanted to talk to was Amy.”
“Their house has an alarm system,” said Frost. “The residence should be secure.”
“What about when Amy leaves the house, like she did today? They can’t watch her every second.”
A silhouette moved across the living room and stood framed at the window. It was Amy’s mother, looking out at the street. Mama tiger, watching for danger. In Julianne’s place, Jane would be just as vigilant.
“I’ll give Brookline PD a call,” said Frost. “See if they can send a cruiser by the house every so often.”
They tensed as car headlights approached, the vehicle moving slowly enough to make Jane’s pulse kick into a gallop. A dark sedan rolled past the Antrim house and turned into a driveway two doors down as a garage door rumbled open.
They both relaxed.
Jane turned her attention back to the house, where Amy was now standing beside her mother at the window. “Did it strike you as odd, what Amy said tonight?”
“Which part?”
“How she refused to talk about her biological father. How upset she was when I brought up the subject.”
“Sounds like it was a pretty traumatic childhood. Watching her mother get beat up.”
“I wonder where he is now. If it’s possible he’s the one who—”
“I know where you’re going with this, but come on. She’d be able to recognize her own father, even after thirteen years.”
“You’re right.” Jane leaned back in the seat and let out a weary sigh. She wanted to go home. She wanted to eat dinner with her family and read a story to Regina and climb into bed with Gabriel, but she could not stop mulling over what happened tonight. And what else they should be doing to keep Amy safe.
“What if this man’s been stalking her for a while? Not just weeks, but months?” Frost said. “We assumed he first saw her at the cemetery, but he could have latched on to her earlier. And where’s the most likely place she would have picked up a stalker?”
“The university.”
Frost nodded. “Pretty girl spends four years walking around campus. Some guy notices her, starts to follow her. Gets obsessed with her. Maybe even tries to kill her.”
“Okay. But what does any of this have to do with Sofia Suarez?”
“Maybe nothing.”
She looked at the house again. Mother and daughter were gone and the window was now empty. She thought of other stalking victims, lifeless women she had not laid eyes on until the moment she stood over their bodies. That was the burden of working in homicide; you are always too late to change the victim’s fate.
This time is different, she thought. This time the victim is still alive and breathing, and we are going to keep her that way.
“You ever wish you could go back to college?” Frost asked as he and Jane descended the stairwell of the campus parking garage. The concrete echoed with their footsteps, multiplying the sound into the boots of an invading army.
“Not me. I couldn’t wait to get out of college,” said Jane, “and get on with the rest of my life.”
“Well, I miss it,” said Frost. “I miss sitting in class, soaking up all that knowledge. Imagining all the possibilities lying in front of me.”
“Yet here you are.”
“Yeah.” Frost sighed. “Here I am.”
They pushed out through the ground-floor exit door and stepped onto the Northeastern campus. The summer session had started three weeks ago and this warm spring day had brought out shockingly skimpy outfits. Since when did halter tops and short shorts become suitable campus wear? Jane thought of her daughter, Regina, fifteen years from now, strolling this campus half naked like some of these girls. No, not if Jane had anything to say about it.
Oh god. I really have turned into my mother.
“If I could do it over again,” said Frost, watching students stream past, “if I could go back to college…”
“You’d still become a cop,” said Jane.
“Maybe. Or maybe I would’ve gone in a completely different direction. I could have gone to law school like Alice.”
“You’d hate it.”
“How do you know?”
“Sitting in some courtroom all day when you could be out on the hunt with me?”
“I’d wear nicer suits.”