Stolen Daughters by Carolyn Arnold (e ink ebook reader .TXT) 📕

“I’m not letting you take him.” Alesha’s eyes became wild, and she lunged toward Amanda.

Trent caught her and had her spun and in cuffs before she could blink.

“Looks like your lady friend got a ticket to the cells,” Amanda said. “Are you going to join her?”

Samuel stepped outside. He proceeded to pull a key from his pocket and lock the front door. “I’m only going with you because I know I’m innocent.”

We’ll see about that…

* * *

They booked Alesha Booth for attempted assault on an officer, and they got Samuel into an interrogation room.

Amanda entered with Trent, and they both sat across from him.

She started. “It sure took you a while to answer the door, considering you and the missus were both up and dressed.”

Samuel cracked his knuckles and clasped his hands on the table. “We were watching a movie and didn’t hear you at first.”

“I thought maybe you were considering running out the back door.” She put it out there nonchalantly.

“No reason to. I have nothing to hide.”

She opened a folder she’d brought in with her and consulted his background, though it was more for show than her needing a refresher. “You have a history of violence, Mr. Booth.” She paused there, giving him a chance to defend himself, but he remained mute. She went on. “You have a sealed juvie record, but I’m going to guess it would support what I just said.”

Samuel remained silent.

“Your wife’s nose—”

He met her eyes. “What about it?”

“It’s been broken and reset. Did you break it?”

“No, I’d never touch her.”

They’d check hospital records and see if there was a history of domestic abuse in the Booth household. “But you did kill Joyce Summer.”

“A matter of public record, and I served my time for that.”

“Why did you kill her?”

Samuel clenched his jaw so hard a pulse tapped in his cheeks.

“Why don’t you tell us what happened? Help us understand.”

“Can’t you look it up?”

“Hmph.” Amanda glanced at Trent, back to Samuel. “You’re not exactly being cooperative with us, Mr. Booth.”

“I’m not? I could get a lawyer down here. I know my rights.”

“Did you know Ms. Summer had a right to live? She’d be forty if she were still alive today.”

“As I said, I did my time. Move on. I have.”

Amanda leaned forward and angled her head. Samuel was questionable enough to bring in, but his attitude was rubbing her the wrong way. “Have you, though, or are you back to your old tricks? Why did you kill Joyce?”

“I was angry.”

“Why?”

“She was a slut,” he spat.

Amanda cringed at his reaction. “So what? She deserved to die?”

“She screwed my best friend.”

“Yet, is he still alive?”

Samuel broke eye contact, dipping his gaze to his hands.

“It takes two to play. Why didn’t you kill him too, Mr. Booth? Why just Joyce?” She had her reasons for pressing him and digging into his past.

He continued to avoid looking at their side of the table.

“Did you kill her because as the woman she deserved the punishment? To know what she’d done to you? Were you teaching her a lesson?” She wanted to see if she could get a telling reaction.

“I didn’t…”

“Didn’t what, Mr. Booth?”

“It wasn’t about punishing her. She just got me so angry.” Finally, some eye contact. His nostrils were flaring now, and his shoulders and chest heaving as he breathed heavily.

“So it was her fault?”

“Not what I meant, but, yeah, it was.”

“You get angry again recently?” She pulled a photo the folder and put it on the table. “Ashley Lynch, sixteen. She was strangled, doused with gasoline.”

He remained silent as he looked at the photo. His face was expressionless, giving nothing away.

“And Shannon Fox. Forty-three, stabbed, drugged, and mutilated.” She slapped a printout of her picture down.

“I don’t know who they are.”

“Huh, and is this from you?” She set a picture of the note next to the ones of the victims. Her entire body quaked as she did so. “Did you think I’d understand what you did? And how, in any way, are we on the same team?”

Samuel’s gaze lifted, though he remained mute.

Her heart was racing, and it was like she was watching herself, not really in possession of her faculties. “Answer me.”

“I didn’t kill either of those women.”

“That’s your story?”

“That’s my truth. And I don’t have any idea what this is…” He flicked a finger toward the note.

She shrugged. “Then you won’t have a problem giving us your alibis for the times of their murders.”

“None at all.”

His confidence and demeanor had her second-guessing their decision to bring him in. Maybe they simply saw what they had wanted to see. She told him the times he needed to account for.

He paled and glanced up at the ceiling, let out a huff. “Doubt you’ll believe me, but I was at home with my wife.”

She sprung to her feet and went into the hall.

Trent joined her. “Do you think he killed them?”

She ran a hand through her hair. “I don’t know… Probably not, but I’m not ready to let him go just yet.”

“I know you want to close this case—so do I—but if Samuel Booth’s not our killer, we need to release him.”

“No, we have time to hold him without pressing charges. I can’t ignore the fact he killed a woman for sleeping with his friend, and that he killed her because he saw her as a slut.”

“You may have taken some liberty with that conclusion…” Trent winced.

“Nah.” She shook her head. “What’s to say he’s not targeting women now for essentially the same reason? You know, cleaning up Prince William County.”

Trent knotted up his face. “I think we need more.”

She considered his words, and he was right. “We’ll hold him overnight and do some more digging. If nothing turns up, we’ll set him free.”

“Sounds fair.”

“I’m getting started right away.” She headed to her desk and thought about what Brandon Fisher had said—that their killer may have been traumatized in his childhood. She’d just go rooting deep in Samuel Booth’s closet to see what skeletons she could