Vile
all as she read the words.
    It should have been you, Jessie Lee .

11
    9911 Conroy Road, 8:18 p.m.
    Jess piled her wet hair up and fastened it with a clip. She stared at her reflection in the mirror and shook her head. She had ruined her favorite Mary Janes. By five o’clock, the rain had started to come down in sheets. Her red suit was soaking wet and splattered with mud but her shoes were beyond repair. Jess shuffled out of the bathroom and went to the window that looked out over the driveway. Still no Dan. He’d called to say he had a late meeting. The BPD cruiser assigned to watch over her sat right next to the Audi she was no longer allowed to drive. There would be another cruiser on the street but she couldn’t see it from here.
    Rubbing her eyes with her fists, she tried to block the images from that damned wall at the farmhouse. Whoever Amanda Brownfield was, she was connected to Spears. No question. Gant was coming tomorrow. He wanted to have a look personally. She doubted it would do any good. Unless the forensic team found something Jess and her team hadn’t, it was a waste of time and money.
    All she had was speculation. There was the lipstick imprint, but that alone didn’t prove anything other than the fact that Amanda had likely seen her mother just before or after her murder. Maybe she kissed the woman goodbye and left before the killer showed up. Or maybe she discovered the body and freaked out. Amanda Brownfield could be a serial killer groupie for all Jess knew. The articles she’d cut from newspapers and printed from the Internet might have nothing to do with Jess. The woman may have been obsessed with the Player long before she saw the name Jess Harris in print. The photos she’d discovered on the Internet may have been tracked down after the big media explosion in July. There was no way to be certain since any dates that might have printed with the material had been trimmed away before the articles were posted on the woman’s bedroom wall.
    None of which explained how she’d gotten her hands on that photo of Jess and Wesley. Since neither of them had a Facebook or a Twitter account, they didn’t go around posting selfies.
    What Jess needed was to find Amanda Brownfield or maybe her boyfriend, Brock Clements. There was a BOLO out for both. Jess and her team had just started interviewing neighbors when the deluge kicked into full force. The houses along that road were spaced acres apart. Not surprisingly, no one appeared to know anything other than what they saw passing on the road, which was how they’d known Clements was involved with Amanda.
    Sheriff Foster had promised to have the list of friends and acquaintances of both suspects to Jess by tomorrow afternoon. He had given her carte blanche in his county. Frankly, he’d made his feelings on the issue abundantly clear. He was more than happy for her to have this case. Who could blame him?
    The news had been relayed to Wettermark at Child Services. Maddie Brownfield needed to be in protective custody. With her grandmother murdered and her mother unaccounted for, the child could be in danger. Although Jess hated to see Maddie moved from the Graham home, the situation was too unpredictable to put that family and all those other children in danger. If Amanda Brownfield suddenly decided she wanted her child back, there was no telling what she might do. Jess didn’t have enough information about her to assess what she might be capable of.
    Wettermark had waited until after dark to move Maddie. Jess wrestled with whether or not to stop in and check on the little girl, but she wasn’t sure doing so was a good idea. No matter how careful she was or the evasive maneuvers taken, she couldn’t be sure those who Spears had tailing her wouldn’t end up finding the location. It wasn’t worth the risk.
    Per doctor’s orders, she was supposed to be putting work aside once she was home for the night but that wasn’t happening tonight. Not after what

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