“We’ll need names and contact numbers.”
“Fine.”
“Tell us about Cassie. What’s her deal? How long have you lived together? What’s she like?”
“Great girl. Real go-getter. We’ve lived together for about two years. Had a lot of fun, I can tell you.”
“Cassie’s mom mentioned drug abuse,” Paige said. Ella glanced over, a little annoyed Paige had gone right in for the kill right as they were establishing rapport.
Roxy laughed dismissively. “She would say that. If it was up to her, Cassie would still be coddled at home. Yes, we toked a little, but that’s all Cassie did. Me? I take some of the old nose powder, but Cassie drew the line there. She wasn’t a junkie. Far from it. Her mom just needs someone to blame.”
Ella couldn’t argue there. She’d seen the desperation on Vanessa’s face the moment they’d locked eyes. These murders were not simple drug hits. There was something much more sinister at play.
“Cassie worked?” Ella asked.
“Yup. In some office down the road. I’ll write down the details.” Roxy rose to her feet, moved into the kitchen area and grabbed a piece of mail and began writing on the back of it.
“Could I see Cassie’s bedroom?” Ella asked.
“Go ahead. Everything’s been cleaned up. It’s next to the bathroom”
Ella nodded to Paige. Together, they went into the hallway and found Cassie’s room. It was a fairly spacious rectangle with old green, mosaic wallpaper on three walls. The other wall was completely bare, save for a sparkling mirror.
Ella focused on the bed, the spot where this killer had taken Cassie’s life. She tried to piece things together, like how this offender entered the apartment in the first place. According to the crime scene report, the door had been locked when Roxy had come home. Either the killer locked the door after he left or he escaped another way. The only other exit was a huge drop on the other side of the bedroom window.
“Any ideas?” Paige asked.
Ella opened the window and looked down. No balconies to break his fall. No pipes to slide down.
“Unless Springheel Jack is our killer, I’m at a loss,” she said.
“Who?”
“Some mythical figure. A guy who could jump really high.”
Paige joined her. “Are we perhaps being a bit too gullible here? What’s stopping this guy just taking a key and locking the door when he left? Teri’s apartment was locked from the inside, but this one wasn’t.”
Roxy came in and handed Ella a folded-up piece of paper. “Names and numbers. The guys I was with the night Cassie was killed and Cassie’s work address.”
“Thanks,” Ella said, quickly glancing over it. She checked both sides, finding that the printed side was some kind of legal document regarding the building she lived in.
“You don’t need this? It looks important,” Ella asked.
Roxy shrugged. “Some crap from our owners. They’re always sending us stuff. I never read it.”
Ella scanned the contents. Something about a broken pipe that they were planning on fixing in due time.
Then something caught Ella’s eye.
Bilston Property & Co.
Where had she heard that word before?
“Roxy, who’s Bilston Property?” she asked.
“Uhh,” Roxy strained. “The management company that owns this place.”
At the bottom of the page, Ella spotted the owner’s signature. An incoherent squiggle with a typed name below it.