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  For a moment, there was no response. She looked down at her phone to see if they got disconnected, but no—the call was still active. “You emailed me a few minutes ago?”

  “I know who he is.”

  It got hard for Elle to breathe. Is. Both in the email and now on the phone, the man had used the present tense. She tried to keep her voice steady. “How do you know?”

  His words spilled out, urgency making them all jumble together. “I knew something was off about him, and then I started listening to your newest season a few days ago, and I realized there were connections with your case. He was in the areas the girls were killed. He has that fancy tea in his house they found on that one girl’s clothes. I’m sure of it. I have the evidence, but I knew no one would believe me. That’s why I called you—you’ve got to help before it’s too late for her.”

  “Leo, please, slow down. Too late for who?”

  Another few seconds of silence went by, and then: “When can you meet me?”

  Elle’s voice was hoarse. “Now. Right now. Do you live in the Cities? Let’s meet at a Perkins or something.”

  “No, I . . . Please, you need to come to me. My apartment’s in St. Paul. It’s not safe for me to leave my house.”

  Her brain did a quick calculation, weighing the risk of meeting a strange man at his home against not getting what could be a critical lead.

  “Why don’t you feel safe? Tell me what’s happening. This is serious; you had better not be fucking with me.” She bit her lower lip, regretting how aggressive the last sentence sounded. Dealing with fake tips was part of this job. So was dealing with nervous informants.

  “In an hour. Meet me in an hour, and I’ll give you everything you need to know to catch him.” He rattled off an address on Hamline Avenue and hung up.

  For a moment, Elle sat at her desk with the phone still clutched to her ear. Then she set it down and opened her internet browser.

  There were a few social media accounts for guys named Leo Toca in the Twin Cities area, but only two who had loose enough privacy settings for her to get a look at their profiles. One was an abuelo with a brood of grandkids surrounding him in his profile picture—definitely not the guy on the phone. The other was thirty-five years old and worked two part-time jobs, one as a janitor at a local university, the other as a mechanic in a shop on Snelling. Moving on to Google, a news report from last year caught her eye: Leo’s name alongside his business partner’s, Duane Grove, from when they appeared in court accused of running a chop shop. They were acquitted; the only reason it made the news was because one of the cars they were accused of stripping for parts belonged to a local politician. Since that trial, it seemed like he had kept a low profile.

  Someone knocked on her studio door. Elle stood up, flicked off the light to hide the crime scene photos on the wall, and opened the door.

  Natalie stood in the hall, one braid threaded through her fingers. “Mom said to tell you it’s time for cake.” She tried to look past Elle into the dark room. “Are you working on your podcast?”

  “Sort of, yes. Sorry, I know I shouldn’t on your birthday.” Elle put her hand on top of Natalie’s head, smoothing her perfect part. They started back down the hall.

  “Doesn’t it make you sad, working on cases where people hurt kids?”

  Elle winced. Natalie was aware of what Elle did, just like she knew the fascinatingly macabre information about Martín’s job. But just as she would never be allowed in the morgue, Elle did her best to keep the girl out of the podcast studio where all her crime scene photos and case notes were stuck to the walls. Still, there wasn’t much Sash could do to keep Natalie from listening to Justice Delayed; her generation had no issue navigating parental controls and erasing browser history. Elle was pretty sure the girl had heard at least a few episodes.

  “Yes, it makes me sad. I know the families of those kids loved them just as much as I love you, and I can’t stand what people did to them. But if I can help find those bad people and make them pay, then I think that’s a good thing. And that’s what I try to do.”

  As they got to the bottom of the stairs, Natalie looked back at her. There was a somber depth to her eyes that had no business in a ten-year-old. “Are you good at it?”

  “I think so. Yeah, I am.” Elle nodded.

  “Okay, then you should keep doing it, even if it’s hard. That’s what Mom’s always telling me when I complain about swimming.”

  Elle put an arm around the girl’s slight shoulders and pulled her in close.

  They walked into the dining room where the light from birthday candles flickered on the table. Beaming, Sash started “Happy Birthday” about three keys too high, and they did their best to get through it. Everyone clapped as all ten candles extinguished with a whoosh of the girl’s breath.

  Trying not to be obvious, Elle glanced at her watch every few minutes until finally, Sash announced it was time to go, since Natalie would be up late tomorrow. They had moved her usual Friday piano lesson to today so they could do dinner and a musical downtown.

  By the time they bundled out the door, there was just enough time to get to Leo’s.

  She ran up to her studio and opened the small safe under her desk, pulling out her handgun. She had gotten a permit to carry after a run-in with the angry father of the suspect in her season two case. She had evidence his son had been collecting and disseminating child porn for eight years, but the man chose to threaten Elle instead of directing his anger where it belonged. That was the only case she’d covered that still wasn’t resolved. She’d been sure she assembled enough evidence alongside the police in Alexandria to arrest the guy, but so far, nothing had been done. Still, there’d been enough public outcry that she hoped the guy’s life would be unbearable in a small city like that. The threats had slowed down now that a few years had passed, but she kept a gun nearby when she was out investigating.

  “Hey, I’ve got to run an errand,” she said as soon as she was back downstairs.

  Martín glanced away from the baking show he’d sat down in front of. “Where you going?”

  Elle wrapped her arms around him from behind the couch and dropped a kiss on the back of his neck. “Just something I’ve got to check out for the podcast. I should be back in an hour.”

  “Want some company?”

  “Nah, you’ve worked all day. Thanks, though.”

  “All right,” he said, blinking lazily at her. He already looked half asleep. By the time she got home, he’d be crashed out right where he sat.

  She smiled and kissed him again. After bundling up, she walked out into the freezing night air.

  It took about fifteen minutes to get to Leo’s apartment in Falcon Heights. He lived in an old three-story without an elevator, and she was panting by the time she got to the top of the stairs, coat unzipped. Her fitness routine had taken a turn for the worse since she started working from home. After regaining her breath, she knocked on Leo’s door, and it creaked inward an inch or two. It wasn’t latched.

  “Hello?” Elle called out, and knocked again. “Leo Toca?”

  “Are you the police? Don’t shoot!” someone shouted inside.

  Elle gripped the gun at her hip, but didn’t draw it. “I’m not the police!” she shouted, then realized it might be unwise to let him know that. But it was too late now. Taking a deep breath, she pushed the door open the rest of the way.

  There was a man kneeling on the floor, his hands covered in blood as he leaned over a body.

  Elle froze, her mouth open. The kneeling man looked up at her, his face white with shock. She recognized him then, from his picture in that news article: Duane Grove, Leo Toca’s suspected chop shop associate.

  Finally, she found her voice. “Did you kill him?”

  “No!” the man shouted; then, more quietly, “No . . . I—I just came over to borrow something, and I found him like this.”

  “I’m coming inside.” Elle’s fingers were wrapped tightly around her Ruger, her eyes
wide and unblinking as she stared at Duane, waiting for any sudden movements. “Is he breathing?”

  Duane took a shaky breath, arms stretching overhead at the sight of her gun. “No, I don’t think so. I just found him like this, I swear.”

  On the floor, the victim was flat on his back, wide brown eyes staring at the ceiling. Elle didn’t really need to check for a pulse, but when she did and felt the stillness under her fingertips, she cursed.

  The shots were at point-blank range, leaving a scorch mark around the hole on his forehead. Elle had never seen a murder victim in person—only in crime scene photos—so it was hard to know if they all looked like this. But the expression on his face was undeniable.

  Leo Toca looked like he saw his attacker coming and he couldn’t believe who it was.

  * * *

  “He’s dead.”

  As soon as Elle said the words, Duane Grove hightailed it out of the apartment before she could stop him. She sat back, staring at the body for a few minutes before she could will her limbs to move.

  Finally, her fingers stopped trembling enough that she could dial 911. Once they had the details and an officer dispatched, she texted her old friend, Ayaan Bishar. Being in Crimes Against Children, Ayaan would probably have nothing to do with investigating Leo’s murder, but it was best she knew Elle had inadvertently gotten wrapped up in another Minneapolis PD case.

  Then Elle clutched her phone, unable to take her eyes off Leo’s slowly graying face.

  It sounds like every choice in your life until now has been made for you.

  Dr. Swedberg’s words from nearly a year ago echoed in Elle’s head as she stared at the body. She had seen five therapists in her life, but for some reason, Dr. Swedberg was able to cut through her distrust and shine a light on a part of her mind that had long been hidden in shadows. That was the day her blurry future snapped into focus. That was the day she decided she had to stop hoping other people would fix the broken pieces inside her.

  That was the day Elle decided her next case would be TCK.

  Now, sprawled out on the floor in front of her was another unmade choice, another of someone else’s bad decisions screwing up her plans—and taking Leo Toca’s life.

  Knowing the first responders would be at the apartment any minute, Elle snapped into motion. Leo’s apartment was starkly furnished: one sofa that folded out into a bed, a wobbly dining table with two mismatched chairs, a bare kitchen with paper plates and plastic cutlery and an empty trash can. There was no sign of a computer or printer, and no backpack in sight. That left one place to search, and it could get her arrested. But if Leo actually did have a clue about who TCK could be and had some evidence to prove it, she had to know.

  Looking over her shoulder at the partially ajar apartment door, Elle crouched next to Leo’s body and pulled a pen out of her laptop bag. She inserted it in his left jeans pocket and gently lifted at the fabric, bending to peer inside. Nothing. The sound of a distant siren made her pulse pick up; she scurried around to his right side and did the same. A dark bit of plastic stood out against the white interior of his pocket. Her fingertips were clumsy and numb as she used the pen to slowly nudge it up and dislodge it onto the floor. Elle looked around. She couldn’t steal the flash drive. That would be too much, even for her. She’d been building up a trust with Minneapolis PD for two years; she couldn’t break it now. The siren was getting closer.

  She stood up and ran into the bedroom, looking for a computer. There was a small desk against the window across from a twin bed, but no computer or laptop on it. She opened the desk drawers, slid her hands under the pillow, checked in the closet—nothing.

  “Shit,” she spat. Back in the main room, she rushed to Leo’s side. Pounding footsteps were coming up the stairs. Using a clean tissue from the box on the counter, she picked up the flash drive and put it back in Leo’s pocket with trembling hands.

  She was standing, flushed, with her hands in the air when a detective with dark brown curly hair burst through the door. His weapon was drawn but not aimed at her.

  “I’m Elle Castillo,” she said. “I called it in.”

  “Detective Sam Hyde. Are you the only one here?” he asked as another officer, a white woman with a slick blond ponytail, walked into the room. She went straight to Leo’s body to examine it.

  “I am now. When I arrived, there was another man here, right next to the body. I think it was the victim’s business partner, Duane Grove.” Elle quickly explained their limited conversation, including the fact that Duane said Leo was already shot when he arrived and seemed distraught when she confirmed he was dead. She did not mention the flash drive in his pocket. Ayaan might not charge her with disturbing a crime scene, but she wasn’t so sure about Detective Hyde.

  “Are you armed?” he asked when she was finished.

  Elle nodded at her right hip. “Yes, I have a carry permit for my Ruger LCP II. You can take it off me if that’ll make you more comfortable.”

  He nodded, a slight tint coming into his cheeks as he swept her coat aside and pulled the handgun out of its holster. Without ceremony, he released the magazine and shoved both it and the gun into his coat pocket. “Sorry, it’s policy. You can have it back later. Commander Bishar vouched for you; she called when I was en route.”

  “Yes, she and I met when I was in CPS. And I’ve worked a case with her before as an independent investigator.”

  Sam’s lip curled up at that, and Elle had to fight to keep from rolling her eyes. It wasn’t like she was some teenager researching cases from their mom’s basement—and even if she was, she’d seen internet sleuths crack cases that had stumped law enforcement for decades. It was kind of the whole reason she’d been able to make this podcast her career. But she could always tell when someone on the force immediately disregarded her work because she wasn’t a real cop.

  “I’m supposed to bring you back to the station so Commander Bishar and I can ask you some questions. That okay?” The way he asked, Elle could tell she didn’t have much choice. She nodded and picked up her bag.

  Sam looked past her at the other officer. “I’m going to have Ms. Castillo follow me back to the station. Forensics will be here in five. You good?”

  The female officer nodded, and Sam walked out the door with Elle following close behind.

  I-35W was a cluster of red brake lights and swirling snowflakes. There were three inches of fresh powder on the ground, and as usual, people were driving like assholes. Elle drummed on her steering wheel as she stared at the cars, at people cutting in and out of lanes, horns blaring. The longer she sat, the more she wanted to scream. She should be talking with Leo about the Countdown Killer. She should be in her studio, preparing for next week’s episode. She should have a name, a direction, a lead. Instead, she was stuck here in traffic—and stuck on this case.

  Thirty minutes later, they finally got to the station. Elle pulled in next to Sam’s sedan. Sam had about a foot on her, so she had to rush to keep up. He brought her through the familiar double glass doors and down the hall to an interview room.

  “Take a seat. Want anything to drink?”

  Elle shook her head, but then changed her mind and said, “Yeah, some water.”

  Sam left the room, shutting the door behind him. She looked at it and wondered for a moment if it was locked. She wasn’t under arrest, but she also wasn’t used to being the only one in a room like this. When she’d been here in the past, she was sitting next to an officer across from a suspect or a neglectful parent.

  After a moment, Commander Ayaan Bishar entered the room and sat across from Elle, facing the direction of the hidden camera. Seeing her in the seat Elle associated with the suspect was oddly unsettling, like running into your dentist at the bar.

  Ayaan led the Crimes Against Children division, but before she made detective, she used to accompany Elle on protective custody calls for CPS. They also worked the Jair Brown case together a couple years ago—the five-year-old boy who had gone missing f
rom his home and turned up buried in a shallow grave less than a mile away two days later. Ayaan had made the arrest after Elle, Martín, and her podcast listeners finally put together the evidence on the boy’s uncle.

  “Hey, Ayaan,” Elle said.

  She looked exactly the same—round face framed by a soft purple hijab, tied up in a turban style; deep brown eyes sharp and probing under perfectly penciled eyebrows. “Hi, Elle,” she said. “It’s nice to see you, although I wish it were under better circumstances. I meant to call and tell you I’m enjoying your new season.”

  “Thank you.”

  Sam returned with a bottle of water and sat next to Ayaan, across from Elle. She wondered if they did this on purpose, putting her on the side where they normally sat, like that would make her more comfortable. Elle fidgeted, feeling ridiculous. She wasn’t a suspect here.

  “You briefly said on the phone, but can you tell me why you were at Leo Toca’s apartment?” Ayaan asked.

  “He emailed my podcast account, said he had a tip for me. So, I went to meet him.”

  “Why didn’t you meet somewhere public?”

  “I wanted to, but he asked me to come to his house.”

  “Do you often go to strangers’ houses alone at night because they ask you to?” Sam asked.

  Elle fought to not roll her eyes. “No, but I don’t often get someone claiming they know who Minnesota’s most notorious serial killer is.”

  Sam’s eyes widened a little. “You’re doing the Countdown Killer case?”

  She lifted her chin. “Yes, I started releasing episodes in December. I’ve gotten a lot of tips since then, but Leo seemed especially credible to me.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because he mentioned having seen this special tea from one of the crime scenes in the man’s house. And he sounded scared, like he was sure someone was after him.” As she said the words, Elle sat back in her chair. In all the chaos, she’d almost forgotten about that. Leo had sounded terrified.