“I can agree with you there, love.”

  “I think that there are girls in the journals that are unidentified, but that doesn’t mean that the police wouldn’t know about them, another stupid assumption I made because I don’t know what I’m talking about and don’t know all the terms. I think Louis either was getting too close, or he confronted her, or maybe he confronted Jerkface, and it cost him his life.”

  My father asked, “So where does that leave the two of you?”

  “Nowhere. Cara and I have lots of theories, and they even make sense, and we can even kind of back them up, but we don’t have any real proof. We don’t know how to get proof, and we don’t know who to trust once we have it.”

  “You can always trust family, love. Perhaps it is time to call your brother. He is a police officer.”

  “We thought about that, too. But while we were looking for things online, we found a whole bunch of issues with cops in this state, and we’re afraid that if he makes waves, then one night when he needs someone to back him up, they’re going to think about his idiot sisters, the ones that made trouble for Jerkface and anyone that has covered for him. They don’t even have to be bad guys. We aren’t bad guys, and we helped the whackos. So some cop could have been doing the right thing, not knowing he was being used for the wrong thing, and the next thing he knows, his career is toast. Then where does that leave Rory? Backup-less.”

  “Love, I do not believe for a moment that the whole of the police department is corrupt. If there are even a few bad seeds, I would be surprised.”

  “Mom, it only takes one. Even if the chances are only one in a hundred million, I buy lottery tickets with odds worse than that, and I fully expect to win. I can’t do that. I can’t take that chance. If something happened because of me, I don’t know what I would do.”

  “Firstly, it is not because of you. You’ve done nothing wrong. Secondly, at the minute, we have no better option. Next, your brother is a full-grown man; you’ve no right to make his decisions, professional or otherwise. We should present this information to him. He has more knowledge than we; allow him the respect of making the decision for himself.”

  “That sounds completely reasonable. Mature even. When did this become policy?”

  “I keep telling you, love, you are not children anymore. Your father and I have done our job, and we’ve done it well. We trust each of you to do what is best.”

  A.J. called to say he was on his way home. When I explained what was going on, he said he was going to call Jessie and invite him out for a beer.

  My brother showed up a short time later.

  My mother gave him a very succinct version of all that we’d rambled on about.

  He thought about it over a cup of tea.

  Having made his decision, he called someone else from the department and invited him over.

  Since that guy is not a member of the family, it was only polite to have something for him to nibble on.

  Teagan and I were about to make a quick trip down to the store on Benita and Benigno when I smacked full into my neighbor while I was running toward my car. He’d noticed the parade of people into my apartment and wanted to make sure everything was okay. We told him we had to go to the store, but he was welcome to join us in the car, and we’d explain everything. Or when we got back, he could come on over to hear my brother explain everything to some guy he had coming over.

  I figure, after he’d been playing bodyguard all this time, it was the least I could do.

  He decided to join us in the car. He locked his apartment door and smooshed himself into my backseat, even though Teagan offered to climb back there since she is a whole bunch smaller than he is.

  We went through the whole thing again, without visual aids, and waited for my neighbor to punch holes in our theory. All he did was shake his head, let out a little whistle, and say he’d like to see the pictures.

  By the time we got back to the apartment, Mom had set up a proper tea at the dining room table, and Daddy and Rory had collated all the papers we had produced throughout the day.

  A rather large older gentleman joined us. Rory explained that Erik Nylund was his training officer and that he trusted him one hundred percent. We then sat at the table and explained everything from the moment that Louis entered my awareness. We shared all of our ideas, theories, the facts as we knew them, and the fears that we were putting Rory in a terrible situation.

  A.J. and Jessie showed up about halfway through, leaned on furniture, and listened.

  Erik listened without so much as a question. When we were done, he took a very deep breath, leaned back, drank some tea, and rubbed his chin.

  We all sat in limbo, waiting.

  “I need to get this in front of the right person, and I’ll tell ya why. It’s pretty clear you’ve done a great job of building your case, but the unfortunate part is this.” He pointed at the picture of Jerkface’s sister’s mother.

  I was completely perplexed. “I don’t understand.”

  “I can’t be positive, but I’m almost there. There is a big-shot lawyer in town. Lawyer by the name of Peter Magnar.”

  “Is he the Magnar of Magnar, Wyatt and Strong?”

  “That would be him. If I’m not mistaken, and I’m pretty sure I’m not, your murder suspect is the niece of Peter Magnar. I went to school with the SOB. That whole family is a piece of work.”

  “I’m confused. I thought her last name was Gagnon, or Branden, or Usha. Where does Magnar come from?”

  “When we were kids, their last name was Usha, but then the family broke up, and Magnar went one way, and his brother went another. Magnar took his stepfather’s name. Happens all the time these days.”

  “Well, crap. That would explain why Steph, who works for that firm, showed up. And why they were involved. And why the police seemed to be secondary.”

  Teagan was incensed. “Oh, it’s worse than that. You asked me what to do with the journals, I called Steph, and I handed them over, and I handed over the memory cards, too.”

  “Then we are just screwed, and all of this is going to get blamed on Louis, and Jerkface and his sister are going to get in trouble for some small part of a cover-up, but with a really big legal firm like Magnar and whoever, they’ll come up smelling like a rose, and it’s my fault for being stupid, and at some point they are going to come after me and mine. God, I can’t believe I was so stupid.”

  My father spoke in a very stern voice, which is unusual for him. “You aren’t stupid.”

  “Okay, it is my fault for being trusting and naive.”

  A.J. pushed away from the wall. “Promise not to get mad.”

  “What?”

  “Cara, I’m a photographer. I had those memory cards in the safe at my studio. I couldn’t help it. I backed them up. It’s just what I do.”

  Erik brightened. “You have professionally made and maintained copies in a secured environment?”

  “I do. I made backups. I didn’t want Jovana mistakenly showing them to a client, so I sealed the thumb drive in an envelope and wrote my name across the seal. I know it was stupid, but I figured if the cards were sensitive enough to put in a safe, then they were sensitive enough to protect. I also left the copy I’d uploaded on my computer and put it in a hidden file, ‘cause I figured if there really was a bad guy out to get them, hiding them in plain sight was the smart thing to do.”

  “Oh. My. God.”

  A.J. looked at the floor. “Wait, it gets worse.”

  “Worse?”

  “Remember when I took the journals and you thought they were missing, and I told you they were just in my room and I forgot to put them back? That wasn’t the whole truth.”

  “What’s the whole truth?”

  “Digital images don’t cost anything, Cara. Once you have the equipment, doesn’t matter if you shoot one image or a thousand. I’d just bought a new light box for a series of brochures I was contracted to do. I wanted to make sure I could create the image exactly as I wanted with the proper depth of field and shadow control and contrast. Anyway, I set it up in my room, and the journals were right there. The writing was beautiful; the curve of the page was a challenge. I wanted to make sure I could get the image without distortion. I shot a few pages, then a few more. All I had to do was flip and shoot. It really didn’t take any time once I had it set up. I wanted to check for consistency among the different pages, the different colors of ink, the different books. I have it all.”

  Before I could do a happy dance, Teagan blurted, “We’ll never get that into court. They’ll just say that we faked it or altered it or something.”

  Erik smiled. “It’s enough to get us in front of a judge. I know exactly the shark to get us there. I’m going to make a call.”

  By the time everybody left, I was exhausted, unsure of exactly what had happened, and elated that soon this would be all over.

  Erik had a meeting with his shark first thing in the morning. A.J. was going to go to the studio and turn everything over to Erik. Erik and his shark intended to have everything in front of a judge by the end of the day and promised to be in touch.

  The good news is that the real professionals are now working on it. The bad news is that while they are working on it, we’re pretty much in the dark.

  I didn’t even get to the mall to buy my super sheer fabulous something.

  I showered first. By the time A.J. was out of the shower, I’m sure I was snoring. Figuratively. I would never snore literally. Well, unless I had a really bad cold.

  I think it’s pretty much a law of nature that when people that actually know what they’re doing start doing what needs to be done, things move a whole lot faster.

  Erik called to let us know that the department’s finest was now working with the DA’s office. They didn’t have all the facts yet, but things were looking good.

  Jerkface and his sister were lawyered up, we all knew that, and when you have a lawyer they aren’t supposed to ask you any questions without your lawyer present, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t pay attention to what you say. Turns out the whole jail is pretty much on tape. The city has the lawsuits to prove it. But this time it worked out to their advantage. I’m not sure if the cops set it up, and I doubt we’ll ever know the whole story, but Kirsten was on a special ward, mostly at the behest of her lawyers, and they were also making sure she didn’t commit suicide. One of the regular guards there could pass for Kirsten’s mother. Granted, it’s a bit of a stretch. Kirsten’s mother died pretty young, but if she’d lived long enough to put on some weight and grow in some gray hairs, she would have looked a lot like that guard. She would have looked a lot like half the women in the mall, but Kirsten was already stressed, so it didn’t take all that much.

  Kirsten flipped a nut. Somewhere in all the ranting was a confession or three.

  Erik has already warned us that all the facts will have to be checked. That just her confession is not enough, and that Jessie, Teagan, A.J., and I will probably have to testify at some point, so he can’t tell me everything, but he can tell us what is likely to end up in the paper.

  Jerkface’s father married again shortly after his wife took off with some guy she met in a bar. That’s when Jerkface and his sister were introduced. They rapidly became inseparable. Looking back, it may have been for survival, but at the time it wasn’t seen that way.

  After a couple of years, inappropriate sexual contact was reported, and before charges were brought, Kirsten and her mother moved out of the house. Times were different then, and because the sexual contact was between a young man and an older woman and she had vacated, nothing ever became of it.

  A very large part of me wanted to point out that a twelve-year-old, for the purposes of this type of conversation, is not a young man, but I let it go.

  Kirsten’s mom then married the big-shot lawyer’s brother, an equally horrific example of humankind. There is some discussion of which adult was more damaging to Kirsten. From the age of twelve through seventeen, Kirsten was passed back and forth between her mother, her stepfather, and other people in their social circle.

  It is believed that Jerkface knew about this, but was powerless to do anything to help.

  None of the dead girls looked like each other. None of them looked like Kirsten. All of them looked like a young version of Kirsten’s mother. The theory is that Kirsten kept killing her mother. Over and over and over again. It is also theorized that she killed her actual mother as well, but that is still being investigated.

  Kirsten is on the psych ward sedated. Her lawyers seem less inclined to work with her now that the family secrets are out. Turns out that the big-shot lawyer had pretty high-level political aspirations, and this particular family skeleton could not be spun into something positive, no matter how good the spinner.

  Kirsten’s stepfather cannot be found. Although the statute of limitations is over in the strict sense, he might still be held accountable if they can find him.

  So far they have been unable to find any evidence that would lead to the conclusion that Jerkface or his sister killed Louis.

  The journals, the images from the memory cards, and a surfeit of other evidence is being reviewed by people who know what they are looking at and looking for.

  Jerkface is under suicide watch.

  So far, our family name has been kept out of it. It could be a long time before we have any involvement at all. Perhaps years.

  For now, the investigation continues, but they are quite certain that the serial murderer is Kirsten and that Jerkface was simply trying to protect his crazy sister. From what they can piece together, Jerkface didn’t know anything about the murders until well after they had been committed, although it isn’t clear just how long he had been involved, and being involved at all is a crime.

  I was completely ooked out, but I also had a bunch of stuff I had to do.

  First I called Teagan, then my mom, and filled them both in. They in turn would fill in the others. When you have a big family, a well-organized phone tree is a given.

  I ran over to the engraver guy and picked up my gift. It turned out so well I gave him a big hug, which is strange because I am not a hugger, and promised to send lots of business his way.

  I dropped by Adeline’s house. She looked a little tired, but I figured the wedding was a big outing for someone who didn’t get out much. I fixed her some food and visited. We chatted about the wedding. I guess she and Nana Jo and Nana are going to get together for lunch sometime this week. I was excited for all of them.

  I left Adeline to her painting. She was hot on a project. A new project is always a good thing.

  I went over to the studio and helped Jovana set up a shoot. The cutest damn thing I’d ever seen. She had a toddler-sized white claw-foot bathtub. In that she had plastic Christmas ornaments that looked like huge bubbles. She had a great big yellow rubber duckie with a shower cap on. We sat that on a big area rug that had different colored fishies on it. She set up all her lights and a couple of different backgrounds so that when the kids showed up the transition would be quick.

  The kids arrived in a mood. All three of them, fit to be tied. Twin girls and their slightly older sister. All cute as they could be.

  Jovana had them changed into thick white terry bathrobes and sitting on the floor playing before the parents knew what to do with themselves. I kept them busy in the farthest reaches of the studio so that the kids couldn’t see them, but we could watch on a monitor.

  I think the best shot will turn out to be one that couldn’t have been planned. While Jovana turned to grab a toy to get the kids’ attention, the older sister scampered around the back of the tub and held a bubble in her right hand. As she did that, one of the twins pulled herself up, holding onto the rim of the tub, on her very tiptoes, peering at the rubber duckie. While those two were busy with the tub, the second twin burst out in a giggle and threw her hands up and out with a look of joy turning to surprise as she just started to tip over.

  More pictures with the tub, some without the tub, some with a shower curtain backdrop, some with a plain color, some on big building blocks, then my next favorite.

  Jovana pulled out a flapper-looking dress that wasn’t adult-sized, but was much too large for the girls. The oldest sister put that on. Then two little girl’s sailor suits, the ones with the white pleated skirt and blue square collar that ties in the front at the chest. Complete with bloomers and Mary Janes. Again, they were not adult-sized, but much too big for the girls.

  Next she pulled out a big chest full of gloves and hats and boas. Positioned it a few feet from the girls, and let nature take its course.

  She got pictures of them being coy, and curious, and dressing each other in their treasures. She got a picture of the two little girls sitting on the floor beside the chest as the older sister checked herself out in a huge ornate mirror.

  The pictures would be stunning, they weren’t the least bit traumatic on the kids or their parents, and it took very little time to break down all the props once the clients had gone home.

  Jovana released me for the day.

  I asked if there was anything I could ferry to my parents’ house, food-wise; she said she had a van for just that purpose. I told her I’d see her there and headed off.

  Back at my apartment, I felt better than I had in a long time. No more worries about Jerkface and Kirsten, although I’m tremendously sad for them both. There is no excuse for the things they did, but perhaps there is a reason. Not reason enough to be excused, but reason enough to be understood.

  I had a little while before I was supposed to be at my parents’ house, so I took my time wrapping the gift. Signed both our names to it, just as A.J. had for the teapot.