The Podcast

Chapter 34

Wednesday late morning

Before Lucas can respond, his phone rings. The shrill makes Sumner's shoulders jump, earning a low, deep chuckle from Lucas.

"Yes, it's Detective Saba." He stands quickly, his hand passing over the top of his head multiple times in quick succession. "Okay, alright. Yep, I'll be on the scene soon. Detective Lopez should get there before me." Lucas nods once more before hanging up.

His expression is grim. So stricken Sumner wonders briefly if it's a joke.

"What?"

"Are you familiar with Violet Russell or Natasha Wood?"

"Yeah, of course. The actresses. Why?"

But before Lucas can answer, Sumner already knows. Her hand comes to her mouth, a deathly sound escaping from deep within her throat as the air constricts around her.

"I mean I knew it...with the letter this morning, logically I knew what that must mean after the others but I still can't—" Sumner pauses, her voice hoarse with unshed tears as she moves her hand to the front of her threat. "I can't believe it."

"They're clearly escalating." Lucas grabs his phone and keys from the small butcher block island in the kitchen. "Which might actually be good news for us."

"Good news?" Sumner chokes the words out through a hiccup-like feeling in her chest, the burn of bile not too far away.

"When killers escalate they get sloppy. Their emotions override their logic. The need to kill becomes greater than the need to not get caught." Lucas recites the statements like he's said them before. Like they come easily to him. Sumner watches, transfixed, as he holsters his gun and his LAPD-issued badge to his hip.

Suddenly she's afraid of being alone. She doesn't want him to leave. It feels pathetic to admit to herself, let alone out loud.

But he sees it in her eyes. A trace of it at least.

"You should stay here." Lucas stares down at her with his hands on his hips. He needs to leave. Slate lets out a small whimper at his feet. "Safer. No one will expect you here." He moves toward the door. "I'll call you when I'm done at both crime scenes. Might be a while."

"You what?" Sumner stands from the couch, her legs wobbling as she clutches her arms around her stomach. The minute he closes that door behind him she's going to throw up, her eyes already darting toward the direction of the bathroom. "You–you want me to just stay here and wait all day? What am I supposed to do?"

"Well, seeing as every time you record a podcast these days more people end up getting murdered, I think it's pretty damn smart that you don't go anywhere near a mic for a while." Sumner's eyes flare with hurt and anger at his words, followed by a flash of something like regret. Lucas opens the front door.

"Make yourself at home. Haven't you ever taken a day off, sugar?" Lucas tosses her one of his infuriating winks before closing the door, Sumner's annoyance at his use of the word 'sugar' briefly distracting her from the nausea raging in her stomach.

His whiplash moments from cavalier to intense leave her breathless, staring after where he'd been by the front door just moments before.

Slate lets out a small yelp, echoing that he misses Lucas too.

Then Sumner remembers why she's here in an LAPD Detective's living room, why he's just left to investigate two new murder scenes, why her throat is full of stinging battery acid.

She runs toward the bathroom, lifts the cold porcelain lid of the toilet, and vomits.

—

"I'll just tell you now that I dispatched a unit to Thousand Oaks to get an alibi from Beaufort West for his whereabouts last night." Melanie keeps her voice low, her tone terse. She's tapping her foot outside the front door of Violet Russell's three-million-dollar cottage-chic bungalow, the Tiffany-blue arched door marked with crime-scene tape. "You know, just in case."