“You are to me.”

Tony looked away for a moment. Had she just made him uncomfortable?

Finally, he turned back and smiled. “Of course, if that’s what you want.”

She nodded. “Thank you, Tony. Now back to the case.” River looked down at her notes again. “Anyway, the friend suggested that the man Michelle was seeing was the shooter.” She looked back up at Tony. “I think this is a good tip, don’t you?”

“What did April do with it?”

“Says here she contacted the Chicago PD, was transferred to a detective Amato. No notes after that. Looks like she talked to him shortly before she disappeared.”

“That’s interesting,” Tony said. He started typing on his laptop. “You said the woman having the affair was named Michelle Matisse?”

“Yes.” River spelled the name.

A few minutes later, Tony smiled at her. “Looks like April was right. The man, Barry Davis, was arrested and charged with the killings. He’s serving life in prison.”

“Wow. When did his happen?”

“This article was written two months ago.”

“So, April never knew she’d helped solve this awful crime.”

“Probably not,” Tony said. “That’s sad.”

“Yes, it is.” River was finding all these cold cases sad. All this death. All this grief.

“Next time I talk to Arnie, I’ll tell him about this. It might make him even more determined to help us find April. Seems she knew what she was doing.”

“We really are blessed that you and Arnie are such good friends,” River said. “You told me that you two met at the academy, right?”

Tony smiled. “Yeah, we bonded there. He left before you joined. We worked hard, but we had fun. Arnie pushed it a little too far sometimes.”

“I can’t imagine that.”

“You remember Hogan’s Alley?” Tony asked.

Hogan’s Alley was a training location on the FBI Academy’s grounds, set up to look like a small town. Gunfights and robberies were staged there to help the agents in training learn how to handle real-life emergencies.

“Of course.”

“One of our instructors was named Jared Newcum. Arnie took a picture of him and had it made into something that looked like the front page from a newspaper. Newcum’s picture was on it, along with an article saying he was wanted by the police for cruelty and the harassment of trainees. When we met at Hogan’s one morning, the page was up on the window of the post office. We thought it was hysterical. Newcum, not so much.”

“Did Arnie get in trouble?” River asked.

“No. Newcum tried to find out who did it, but no one would turn him in. We all had to run around the training track until we were ready to drop. Still, no one ratted Arnie out. I think Newcum was actually rather impressed.”

River laughed, but something Tony said stuck in her mind. A newspaper.

“What’s the matter?” Tony said. “You look like you’ve just seen a ghost. My story wasn’t that disturbing, was it?”

“No, that’s not it.” River stared at him for a moment. Then she grabbed April’s notebook and pulled out the copies of the articles written about both of the Casanova killings. When she was done, she looked over at Tony. “Look, I may be way off here, but I think you need to ask Arnie to check on something. Remember when we said that the Casanova killer probably didn’t kill the other teenagers four years earlier since it didn’t seem like he was seeking attention?”

He nodded. “Sure, what are you thinking?”

“What if he was getting attention, but just not the way we assumed? What if he didn’t need to see his name in the news as the killer because his name was already associated with the murders. Already in the media?”

“You’ve lost me.”

“It’s been staring me in the face all this time. Brent Wilkins is the reporter who came up with the name Castlewood Casanova. When I was reading through the newspaper articles about both of the murders, I kept thinking they sounded the same. I just checked. The reporter who wrote about both cases? Brent Wilkins. He covered the story in Illinois, where the first murders took place. And then here, in Missouri.”

“Where he gave the killer a nickname,” Tony said slowly. He shook his head. “It makes sense, but it’s flimsy. Still, the police need to look into it. Check out this Wilkins guy.” He wrote something down on the pad of paper on his desk. He smiled at her. “Now that would be something, huh? If we were able to help April solve this case?”

CHAPTER

TWENTY

“Shhh. Don’t say anything.”

She felt someone’s hand over her mouth and started to struggle. Then she realized that the voice was familiar, and she relaxed.

“I’m not going to give you your medication this evening,” she whispered. “But you’ve got to stay still. Pretend to be asleep. When it gets dark, I’ll come back. You’ve got to get out of here. I overheard the doctor talking to someone on the phone. I’m afraid they want him to make you disappear. Permanently. Someone might be trying to find you, and they can’t allow that. If you understand, nod.”

It took all her strength and concentration to move her head up and down. Was this real? Was someone actually going to help her? She’d given up since her last attempt to escape had failed. She felt a tear roll down the side of her face.

“Oh, hon. I’m so sorry this is happening to you. I want to call the police, but I can’t risk it. I’m afraid he’ll find out. Never mind. I’m giving you too much information. I just need to get you out of here. We don’t have much time. Wait for me tonight. Don’t let them know you’re lucid.”

There was a noise that came from somewhere down the hallway. The nurse withdrew a syringe from her pocket. For a moment she was afraid it was a lie. Just another way to torture her. Then the nurse stuck the needle into the mattress and pushed the plunger. After that she put the empty syringe back in her pocket.

“Don’t worry. I won’t let you down.”

She closed her eyes and listened to the nurse’s shoes slap against the cold tile floor as she walked away. Then the door closed, and she flinched as the deadbolt lock slid shut.

Was it possible? Was she really going to finally be free? She couldn’t stop the tears. She’d actually given up. She prayed silently, asking God to keep her hope alive. She couldn’t take it if she was disappointed one more time. She just couldn’t.

But that probably wasn’t a problem. If she didn’t make it out this time, it sounded as if she’d never get another chance.

“READY TO GO OVER some of these other cases?” River asked.

Tony nodded. “I guess we have to.”

River flipped through her notebook. “Okay, another case mentioned on April’s site was the case of the Missing Mother. This happened almost ten years ago. It seems that Emily Smallwood left her house one night and never came back. She left her teenage son, Brandon, and her nine-year-old daughter, Stephanie at home. When she hadn’t returned home by ten that night, Brandon called the police. They found her car in the parking lot at the grocery store. The car was locked, but Emily was gone. They’ve never found her. Her children are now in Colorado. Stephanie is living with Emily’s ex-husband. Of course, the police checked out the husband, but it wasn’t him. He had an airtight alibi. He was at work when Emily went missing. The police had no other leads, and the case went cold.”

“Where did this happen?” Tony asked.

“In Michigan.”

River frowned. “It’s a long way away, but I guess we should still look into it.”