He paused, considered this, then replied again, “No.”
“You’re a real estate agent, right?” Detective Bennett asked.
“Yes. I’m not working at the moment, I transferred to work out of an office here when I moved, but I haven't started yet.”
“Oh,” Detective Bennett faked surprise. “But you showed Zoe Kitter a house less than two weeks ago.”
Luke cursed under his breath. She was right. Hehadshown a house to a woman a couple of weeks ago. He’d forgotten her name, but now that Detective Bennett had pointed it out, he remembered that her name had been Zoe and she’d wanted to buy a home for herself and her little toddler daughter.
“You remember now?”
“A friend’s kid broke his arm, he asked me to fill in for him. I only showed the one house,” he rattled off. He was getting more nervous by the minute. Why wouldn’t they tell him what crime they believed he had committed?
“What about Megan and Timmy Hunter?” Detective Dawson asked. “You remember them?”
“Yes.”
“Eyewitnesses say they saw you talking to her a few nights ago.”
“I bumped into them the other night on my way to my brother’s house.”
“Bumped into them?”
“Neither of us was looking where we were going, we bumped into each other. She dropped her stuff. I felt bad so helped her out and calmed Timmy down.” Had Megan accused him of something? Was she unhappy that he’d said he was interested in someone else and decided to try to get him in trouble? She hadn’t seemed crazy but who knew, maybe she was, maybe she wanted to punish him for turning her down.
“We found your DNA on Timmy’s blanket,” Detective Dawson told him.
He nodded. “Of course. I told you I held the baby and calmed him down.”
“We also found a fingerprint on Timmy’s pacifier. We think that when we compare it to the ones you so generously provided for us that it’s going to match.”
He nodded again. “The pacifier had fallen to the ground. I picked it up, my fingerprints are probably on it. Why are you asking me questions about Megan? Did she say that I did something to her? To Timmy?” He looked from one detective to the other, but both of their faces were unreadable masks.
“Megan and Timmy Hunter are dead. They were murdered last night,” Detective Bennett informed him.
Luke felt instantly nauseous. “And you think I did it?”
“Your fingerprints and DNA were on the baby blanket and pacifier found at the place where they were abducted.”
“I told you how they got there,” he countered.
This was a nightmare. It had to be. Any second now he would wake up breathless and sweaty in his bed.
They couldn’t really think he killed a woman and her four-month-old son.
One look at their faces confirmed that indeed they did think that.
How was he going to convince them otherwise?
“Zoe Kitter is dead too, isn’t she?” he asked quietly. If they’d asked him about the Hunters and they were dead, then Zoe was dead too because they’d also asked him about her.
“She was murdered a few days ago,” Detective Dawson confirmed.
“Do you know an Adam and Macy Dove?” Detective Bennett asked.
More victims? Not only did they believe he was a killer, but they thought he was aserialkiller. He wracked his brain, searching every crevasse for anyone he’d ever known who might have had that name. He came up empty. “No.”
“They were foster parents. You grew up in the foster care system, didn’t you?” Detective Dawson asked.