“I’ve got something.”
“Uh-huh.”
“No, I’ve really got something,” Alvarez told her. “Can you get back to the station?”
“I have a lot of screaming left to do here,” she said abruptly. “A lot of screaming,” she yelled loudly to someone or someones on her end.
“Make it quick screaming,” Alvarez told her, then clicked off, her mind already spinning ahead.
Could all these women—these victims—have been conceived at the same fertility clinic? Could their mothers have all used the same sperm donor? Donor 727?
But what did that mean? Even if it was true, what did that mean? Why were they dying? Why were they being killed?
If...
If they were being killed.
But that’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it? There’s something here. You know there’s something here. Whether Pescoli believes you or not.
She grabbed up her phone and called the lab, annoyed when she was given the runaround. Hanging up with them, she called Ashley Tang direct and said, “I need some DNA results yesterday. Isn’t there someone at the lab you can lean on?”
The forensic investigator answered, “They’re getting to it. You know how it is.”
“I don’t care how it is! I need answers.”
“Well, I’ve got one for you. Not DNA, but an explanation of sorts.”
“Hit me.”
“The poison found in Jocelyn Wallis’s system? We believe it was administered in the coffee grounds.”
“Put there on purpose? It wasn’t something picked up by mistake, somehow.”
“Most likely it was deliberate.”
“Was it meant to kill her?”
“Doesn’t look like it. The dosage was too small at this point, but then, there might be a lot more left in the coffee. We haven’t tested it yet.”
Alvarez jumped ahead to Kacey Lambert. The microphones. Maybe Jocelyn had been bugged, too? But the killer removed them before her place was examined?
“I’m going to check some other coffee, too,” Alvarez said. “Thanks. I’ll get it to you.”
This time when she hung up, she could feel her pulse racing and her breathing was rapid. Was Dr. Lambert in a killer’s sights?
It sure felt that way.
“Pescoli. Get back here!” she said aloud.
“You always overreact,” Jeremy declared, glaring at her from the couch. He held up his phone. “It’s just a picture. There’s nothing wrong with it!”
“If Heidi’s dad saw it, I don’t think he’d agree,” Pescoli responded.
“You showed it to him!”
“How could I show it to him? It’s on your phone. But he knows about it. Pay attention here. Sending pictures like that over the Internet is not a good idea.”
“There’s nothing illegal about it. Nothing!”