“I’ll get it,” he said.
He pumped the gas, then went into the Mini Mart to pick up a couple of cold drinks. He wanted some iced tea. But as he stood in line at the checkout, his gaze landed on a rack of condoms.
“Will that be all?” the clerk asked as he set the two bottles near the register.
“Yeah.” He had no need for condoms. He wasn’t even dating anyone. But after he put down a twenty, he threw a box on the counter, anyway.
“Wait, you want those, too?” the clerk asked.
Jonah glanced through the front window of the store, where he could see Francesca waiting for him in the car. “Those, too,” he said. “And give me a sack.”
During the rest of the ride to Chandler, the thought of the panties she’d taken from Butch’s house—and still had in the pocket of the pants she’d worn last night—burned in Francesca’s mind. If she told Jonah about them, would he stay in Arizona? Did she want him to? She didn’t need him in order to continue the investigation.
But if she didn’t push ahead with what she believed to be true regarding Butch, what would she do about them? She couldn’t discard evidence or hang on to it indefinitely.
She should’ve mentioned those panties to Finch and Hunsacker. But she was so angry about the investigators’ reaction to last night, she’d shied away from admitting what she’d done. She wasn’t convinced they’d see it as helpful. They’d just use her actions as more proof of “typical P.I. behavior.”
Considering Hunsacker’s friendship with Butch, she wasn’t even sure the investigators would have those panties analyzed, not unless and until they had other evidence, irrefutable evidence, that he was their man. She could easily imagine Hunsacker saying, “Why spend the state’s money on such a long shot?” She’d told them what Paris had said about that Julia person, hadn’t she? And they’d blown it off. She doubted they’d do any more to find Julia than they’d already done by checking their list of missing persons.
On the other hand, what if no other evidence surfaced? What if those panties were indeed a conclusive piece of the puzzle? Then Finch and Hunsacker had to know about them.
“April is dead, and Kelly’s alive,” she said to Jonah. “If Butch is guilty, why would he kill one and not the other?”
“There could be a lot of reasons,” he said. “Maybe the women who give him what he wants live, and the others die. Murder to cover for rape would be nothing new in the criminal world.”
In the case of April Bonner, Francesca could picture that exact scenario….
“Or it could come down to the specific personalities involved,” he said. “Do you remember hearing about that guy who was kidnapping women from shopping malls as he traveled across America?”
Francesca shook her head. Although she paid attention to most major crimes, this one didn’t sound familiar.
“He brutally tortured and raped each one for days before killing her,” Jonah explained. “But his last victim he treated differently. Somehow she managed to develop a relationship with him. He stopped torturing her and let her live. And just before he was caught, when he knew the end was imminent, he gave her money and set her free.”
“There are so many variables,” she muttered. “Nothing’s absolute.”
“That’s what makes serial murder so difficult.”
The beginnings of a headache made Francesca wish she’d let Jonah drive. Her arm hurt, too, but at least it wasn’t broken. The doctor in the emergency room had told her she was lucky Demon hadn’t chomped right through the bone.
“You okay?” he asked when she rubbed her eyes.
She sighed. “Just getting sleepy.”
“Want me to drive?”
“No, that’s okay.” She was too upset with him and the situation to let him ease the load.
They listened to a song on the radio before he spoke again. “What are you thinking about?”
“Nothing in particular.”
He raised one eyebrow. “Your expression is certainly intense for not thinking about anything ‘in particular.’”
She adjusted the air-conditioning vent closest to her so the air wouldn’t hit her so directly. Should she tell him she had the panties? Why not? Maybe he could help her decide how to proceed. “I have something,” she said.
“Something?” he repeated.
“A pair of panties.”
His lips slanted into a crooked grin. “Are you talking dirty to me?”
She tried not to smile at his joke. She felt bad for getting him fired, which was beginning to neutralize some of the resentment she’d been harboring toward him. He’d saved her life last night and bruised his knee in the process. She figured she owed him some credit for that, too. Regardless of what he might or might not have done in the past, she couldn’t stop liking him. It was that simple.
“Nothing that exciting. I’m referring to the investigation we’re no longer part of.”
He tapped the dash. “And?”
“I have the panties Paris found in Butch’s jockey box last night.”
She wasn’t sure if it was concern or anger that sharpened his voice. “How’d you get those?”
“They were on the ground. I just…picked them up.”
“I don’t remember you telling Finch and Hunsacker about any panties.”
“Because I didn’t.”
He adjusted his own air-conditioning vent. “Why not?”
“You were there. You know why.”
The beard growth on his chin rasped as he rubbed it. “Yeah, I guess I do.”
“So now what? We’re off the case. Do I forget about them? Mail them anonymously to the sheriff’s office? What?”
Twisting in his seat, he leaned against the door. “Give them to me.”
“What will you do with them?”
“There’s a lab we use at Department 6. I’ll have them tested. If the tech finds sufficient DNA, I’ll have him create a profile.”
“At whose expense?”
“If my company won’t cover it, I will.”
She changed her grip on the steering wheel. “Why would you do that?”
He stared at her. “You have to ask? Why wouldn’t I if it might stop a murderer?”
“You make it very difficult not to like you,” she said grudgingly.
That crooked smile reappeared. “Too bad you’re still fighting it.”