Free Harlequin Intrigue, Box Set 2 of 2 by Julie Miller Page A

up the empty hours in her life so she wouldn’t miss those relationships? “What did you find out?”
    Katie curled a leg beneath her to sit up higher in her chair. “When Olivia was investigating Danielle Reese’s murder last spring, she came up with her
Strangers on a Train
theory, and it got me to thinking.”
    Olivia nodded. “
Strangers on a Train
, as in the Alfred Hitchcock movie where two people meet and agree to commit murder for the other person.”
    Her partner, Jim, continued, “But since they’ve never met before and don’t run in the same social circles, the one with the motive can arrange for an alibi, while the one who actually commits the crime won’t pop as a suspect on the police’s radar because he or she has no motive to kill the victim.”
    â€œThat’s why we arrested Stephen March for Dani Reese’s murder.” Olivia braced her elbows on the table and leaned forward. “The evidence says he’s good for it. But he had no motive. I still believe he was blackmailed into doing it, or—”
    â€œHe murdered her in exchange for somebody else killing Richard Bratcher,” Max finished. Trent reached over and rested a hand on his partner’s shoulder. March and Bratcher were sensitive subjects for the stocky detective because Stephen March was his wife’s younger brother, and Bratcher had been the bullying fiancé who’d abused Rosie Krolikowski. Max nodded his appreciation at the show of support. “We got Hillary Wells for Bratcher’s murder, even though she barely knew the guy.” He turned his attention back to Katie. “Are you saying that you did your brainy thing and finally found where March and Dr. Wells could have met and set up their murder bargain?”
    â€œNot exactly.”
    â€œWhat exactly are we talking about, then?” he asked.
    â€œI designed a program to search for commonalities between cases by looking for key words or names or places. What I discovered is a pattern between several crimes that occurred over the last ten years.”
    â€œA pattern?” the lieutenant asked.
    Katie nodded. “I haven’t been able to prove that they’re all linked to one particular case, or even to just one person, but I’ve made some interesting connections between these six suspects and—” she swiped her finger across her laptop, changing the images “—these six victims.”
    Trent recognized the pictures of both Dani Reese and Richard Bratcher, the victims Stephen March and Hillary Wells had killed. He also recognized the stout cheeks and receding hairline of Leland Asher. “It’s not an exact swap where Suspect A kills Victim B while Suspect B kills Victim A. It’s more as though they’re links in a chain.”
    The lieutenant urged her to continue. “Do you have specific examples of those links?”
    â€œYes, ma’am.” Katie adjusted the display to bring the twelve images up side by side before she twirled her chair to the side and got up to touch the television screen. Her ease in front of an audience reinforced Trent’s suspicion that whatever had had her so flustered earlier had to do with the details about last night, maybe something that she still hadn’t shared with him—not a presentation to her boss and coworkers involving multiple murders. “It’s a painstaking process, but as I put in more information from the reports, I’ve come up with links from unsolved cases to people or events from murders you all have closed earlier this year. Some of these seem pretty random, but in a place the size of Kansas City, the fact that these people may have come into contact with each other at all seems compelling to me.”
    Olivia tried to follow Katie’s line of reasoning. “Some of the connections are obvious. Stephen March killed Danielle Reese. Dani was investigating Leland Asher.