So that's what he'd been doing in the bedroom after I stormed out? Thinking, Huh, you know, I'm kinda hungry, and ordering food?
I shook my head. Sometimes, it's best to not question.
He signed the bill. Then he brought the tray over and set it on the table beside me. It was a plate of cookies and a glass of milk.
"Bedtime snack?" I said.
"Yeah."
"I didn't figure you for the milk-and-cookies type."
He rolled his eyes. "It's for you." He headed to the minibar, got out a Coke, and popped it. "This is mine."
I looked at the tray.
"It won't bite," he said. "Long night. Didn't eat much at dinner. Sure Quinn didn't feed you. Figured you should have something. Lost a lot of blood."
I took a cookie and held it out for him.
He hesitated.
"I'm not going to eat all six," I said.
He took the cookie and settled onto the sofa with his Coke. "Got something else for you. Possibly. Not much but . . . One of those charges laid against Aldrich? Girl goes to college here. In Pittsburgh."
I straightened. "Really?"
"Happened in New York State. Girl's parents pressed charges. He bolted. Changed his name. That's when he became David Miller."
"It's a recent one then."
"Almost four years ago. Anyway, looked it up in the journal. Trying to cross-reference. Think I found it. Pretty standard. Nothing useful. But then I checked into the case. Through a contact. Girl claimed it wasn't Aldrich who seduced her. Said it was a younger friend of his."
"What?"
"Police didn't buy it. Parents said she was blaming some imaginary partner--"
"Partner?" I turned to face him. "If we're looking for who might have killed him and put out a hit on me, a partner-in-crime tops the list."
"Yeah. I know. Take a trip tomorrow then? Talk to her?"
"Absolutely."
As I drank my milk and ate my cookies, Jack gave me more details on the case. Shannon Broadhurst had been fourteen at the time, eighteen now. He didn't know how she'd met Aldrich or how long the relationship lasted, because she refused to cooperate with the police and give any details. That's not uncommon when the charge is statutory rape. If a girl is willingly having sex with a guy, she's not going to be thrilled when Mom and Dad file charges against him.
The charge was actually second-degree rape. "Statutory rape" is a catchall term used for cases where the charge stems from the age of the girl, not whether she gave consent. The actual charge varies. Most places also allow for the so-called Romeo and Juliet exception, meaning it's only an offense if the guy in question is above a certain age himself, so you don't end up with a fifteen-year-old boy going to jail for having sex with his fifteen-year-old girlfriend. If the guy is over twenty-one, though, and the girl is under fifteen, that's when the charges get serious, like this one. If convicted, Aldrich could have spent seven years in jail.
But he'd bolted and she'd refused to talk, except to insist that her parents were wrong, that it wasn't Aldrich she was sleeping with but a friend he'd introduced her to. Who might be exactly whom we were looking for. A "friend" who knew Aldrich's past and vice versa. A friend who'd panicked at the thought that Aldrich was about to be caught. A friend who'd killed him and was now trying to kill me.
According to Jack--and confirmed by Quinn--the police were still tracing the path through Drew Aldrich's past, connecting the various dots. They had yet to identify him as the same man who'd seduced Shannon Broadhurst and fled New York State ahead of rape charges. That meant she didn't know he was dead. We stood our best chance of getting honest information from her before she found out. We'd pay her a visit as soon as we could.
CHAPTER 29
Quinn had woken to a message from the company that owned the vehicle Aldrich's killer had driven. The car had been rented on a corporate card at the Cleveland airport. The company provided everything they could, thinking they were helping the U.S. Marshal Service.
Speaking of Quinn's real-world career, as I said, getting away from it wasn't easy. Although he was technically on personal leave, he still had paperwork--e-mail, reports, and such. While he phoned with the news about the car right away, he didn't rush up to our room, instead tending to some urgent business while I read the journal and talked to Jack.
An hour later, when Quinn came up, he had coffee for all of us. Evelyn arrived moments later. She didn't get a "good morning" from the guys. She pretended not to notice, just walked to the armchair and waited patiently . . . for about five seconds.