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“It’s an alibi, but not necessarily solid.” She didn’t know the woman. Could he have sneaked out? Say he was running to get ice cream, and she fell asleep and didn’t know when he came in? Would she lie for him?

“He has an alibi for one of the other attacks, Skye. You’re fixated on Calderon. Maybe you should expand your focus.”

“I have. After each attack I’ve expanded my focus, and I keep coming back to him. His alibis are weak. Anyone can sneak out late at night. I need to talk to Natalie Brown.”

Garcia scowled.

“Calderon was in the park only hours after Banner was killed. He was watching our crime scene from the trees,” she said.

“He has a plausible reason for being there.”

“Pul-lease.” Skye winced. She had a good relationship with her boss, but he was still her boss. In a professional tone, she continued. “He was in the park Saturday morning, knew there had been a murder, and yet brought his girlfriend to the park for a picnic? He inserted himself into the investigation like it’s a game and he’s the one making all the rules.”

Most predators ran from the police. Trent Calderon walked toward them.

“I said he was a creep,” Garcia mumbled. “Okay, verify his alibi. But do not hint that he’s a suspect. You cross that line, I can’t help you. Understood?”

“Understood,” she said.

Natalie Brown agreed to meet Skye while on her break from where she worked at the children’s hospital. Skye arrived a few minutes early and waited for her under a narrow awning, rain drumming steadily overhead.

In preparation for the meeting, Skye ran Brown through the criminal database. No record, but she didn’t expect to find anything. Something like that would have come out during the governor’s campaign two years ago. She then did a quick search on news and social media sites.

One public photo of the couple surfaced: six months earlier at a charity gala for the hospital. The caption called Natalie Governor Brown’s daughter and Calderon one of Salem’s most eligible bachelors. A gossip column had a single line about them being seen together at the Fire & Ice Club. Skye’s stomach turned. That was the same club the second victim had left twenty minutes before she was dragged into the trees and raped.

Natalie came from money. Three years ago, she graduated from nursing school, and her parents bought her a $1.1 million house south of the capitol in an older, established neighborhood. Yet she still worked as a nurse, which Skye admired. Skye’s mother had been a nurse before she died.

She stared out at the rain-slicked parking lot, umbrellas bobbing. Cars navigating slowly out of the lot, headlights on and windshield wipers on high. Could a woman date a man, sleep with a rapist, and not see the monster? Would she lie for him, defend him, fight for him? Or did she know, even if subconsciously, that he was a predator?

Eight women. Eight fractured lives. One had tried to kill herself. Another hadn’t left her house in months. One moved away. The latest victim was dead. How could Skye face any of the survivors and tell them she had failed? That the man responsible was still walking free, smiling, dating the governor’s daughter.

“Detective Truman?”

Skye turned. Natalie Brown looked nothing like Calderon’s victims. In fact, she looked more like Skye, without the height. Curly blond hair, blue eyes. Skye knew her to be twenty-six, but she looked younger in purple scrubs and minimal makeup than she had in the party picture online.

“Ms. Brown?”

Her smile showed genuine sweetness, the kind of nurse who would put her young patients at ease. “Natalie. Do you want to step into the lobby?” She pulled her sweater tight against the cold.

“This won’t take long. Thank you for agreeing to talk. Your boyfriend is Trent Calderon?”

“Yes,” she said. “He said you would call.”

“I prefer face-to-face interviews,” Skye said. “Did he tell you why?”

“That you needed to verify his alibi. He laughed, I thought it was a joke, but he said his car was spotted near a crime scene, and I should answer all your questions. Trent is the sweetest man I’ve ever dated.”

Sweet. That wasn’t a word Skye would use.

“How long have you been seeing each other?” Skye tried to sound casually interested but couldn’t quite suppress her cop tone.

“We’ve known each other for a couple years but only started dating after we went to a charity event together in May. Five, nearly six months now.” She smiled as if remembering something fondly. Then asked, “Is it true that Trent’s car was seen at a crime?”

“Nearby,” Skye said. She needed to tread carefully because Natalie would report back to Trent. “Mr. Calderon stated that he spent all night with you Friday.”

She blushed. The woman actually blushed. “Yes,” she said.

“At your place or his?”