“Sounds like she has something to hide. She was the last person to see Kurtz alive—besides his shooter, I mean.” Kerri squared her shoulders, ignored the exhaustion pulling at her. “Anything else I need to know?”

“Not yet. Go.” He jerked his head toward her Wagoneer. “Talk to the LT.”

“I’m going. I’ll catch up with you later.”

He gave her a two-fingered salute. “Yes, ma’am.”

Kerri laughed as she climbed into the driver’s seat. Her partner was right. It was better to give her thoughts to the LT than risk more trouble by keeping potentially significant information to herself.

Birmingham Police Department

First Avenue North, 5:00 p.m.

“You just caught me, Devlin,” Brooks said as he shouldered into his jacket.

Kerri closed the door behind her, giving them privacy from anyone else who might stroll by the LT’s office. “I have some information I need to pass along.” She braced herself and said the rest. “It’s about the Brendal Myers case.”

Pushing back the sides of the jacket he’d only just slipped into, Brooks sat his hands on his hips. “Devlin, I warned you to stay clear.”

“I know, but a friend who was concerned about my daughter called me,” she improvised. Lied. Whatever. At this point all that mattered was ensuring this aspect of the case was investigated thoroughly. “She and I went to school together. She’s the librarian over at Walker Academy. Has been for years.”

“All right, I’ll bite. What did this friend have to say that you feel I need to hear?”

“Alice Cortez attended Walker Academy last semester. There was trouble, and she transferred to Brighton at the beginning of the new semester. January.”

The LT stopped prepping to leave the office. “What kind of trouble?”

She had his attention now. “Two girls attempted suicide. Thankfully they weren’t successful.” Before he could ask how that tied into the Brighton Academy situation, she told him the rest of what Sue had shared with her.

“If I’m understanding you correctly,” he said, sounding dubious, “you think this Alice Cortez might be playing some sort of cultlike games to prompt other students into doing her bidding.”

When he said it that way, it sounded like something from a Scooby-Doo episode. “I’m saying there was trouble last fall when Alice attended Walker Academy, and now there’s trouble at Brighton. She was friends with the girls involved in the incident at Walker, and she’s friends with the girls involved at Brighton. Coincidence? Maybe. But it’s something Sykes and Peterson need to check out.”

Brooks mulled over her story for a bit, his brow lined in concentration. The LT was barreling toward sixty, but he looked like a forty-year-old. The man was a health nut and addicted to working out. More importantly, he was a good listener, a fair leader, and a damned good cop.

“What you’re telling me is an interesting twist and one that bears further investigation,” he agreed. “I’ll have Sykes and Peterson give it a go. I appreciate the heads-up, Devlin, as I am sure they will.”

Kerri managed her first decent breath since walking into his office. “Thank you, sir. No one wants this case solved more than me.”

“I’m very much aware of your personal interest in this case, Devlin.” He grabbed his briefcase. “But I will remind you again; stay out of the investigation. Sykes and Peterson have got this. I don’t want to hear about you digging around again. Are we understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Go home, Devlin. That’s exactly where I’m going.”

“Good night, sir.”

Devlin Residence

Twenty-First Avenue South

Birmingham, 6:30 p.m.

Kerri had left the office, driven straight to her sister’s house to pick up her daughter and then home. She needed some alone time with Tori. She wasn’t sure exactly how she would go about this diplomatically, but she wasn’t going to sleep until she’d had this talk with Tori.

She started with, “You want me to order Chinese?”

Tori tossed her backpack onto the sofa. She never bothered taking it to her room if her homework was done. “Sure.”

Kerri made the call and then sat down on the sofa next to her daughter. “Can we talk until the food arrives?”

Tori shrugged. “Guess so.”

“I spoke to someone at the school Alice attended last fall.”

Tori’s eyes rounded. “About what?”

“I wanted to find out if there was any trouble there when Alice attended. I have a friend who works at Walker Academy, and I asked her.”

“Did she tell you something?” Uncertainty, hope welled in her voice and eyes.

Kerri nodded. “She told me about a group of girls Alice hung out with. There was some trouble, but no one died, thankfully. One of the girls talked about this religious stuff Alice was into. I think they were doing some sort of rituals. Not at school, of course.”

Tori looked away.

Kerri’s gut clenched. “You mentioned that you didn’t like visiting Alice’s house. Can you tell me more about that? It could be really important.”

Tori moistened her lips. “Are you going to tell the other detectives what I say?”

“Only Falco—if that’s okay with you.”

Tori nodded. “You can tell Falco anything. He’s my friend.”

He was. He was Kerri’s too. Her heart lightened at the thought.

“Did Alice do some sort of ritual when you and Sarah were there?”

Tori took a breath. “She would like wear this creepy mask and do all this chanting. It was really weird.”

“Did she tell you things you should be thinking or doing?”

Tori frowned. “What do you mean?”

“When she did the chanting, was she suggesting things about either of you or suggestions for any actions you should take? Like being mean to other kids or hurting yourself in some way?”

Tori shrugged again. “I don’t know. It was all totally creepy, and it made me feel creepy. I don’t remember all of it. It’s kind of . . . I don’t know . . . blurry. Like a dream.”

A new worry nudged Kerri. “Did you eat or drink anything before this chanting ritual began?”