The Fifth to Die: A gripping, page-turner of a crime thriller. J.D. Barker

after midnight, when her daughter didn’t come home,” Rodriguez said.

      Mrs. Davies looked up, her eyes red and swollen. “Lili works downtown at an art gallery. On Thursdays she goes straight there after school and takes an Uber home when they close at eleven. She is always home by eleven thirty. If for some reason she’s running late, she texts me — she knows her father and I worry, so she always texts me. She is a responsible young lady, and this is her first job and she knows we worry . . .” She dabbed at her eyes with the tissue. “I hadn’t heard from her by eleven forty-five, so I called her, and it went straight to voice mail. Then I called the gallery and spoke to her supervisor, Ms. Edwins. She said Lili didn’t show up for her shift. She had tried to reach her several times and got the same thing: voice mail. No rings, just voice mail. I know that means her phone is off, which is very unlike her. She never turns her phone off. She knows I worry. I called her best friend, Gabby, then —”

      “What is Gabby’s last name?” Porter asked.

      “Deegan. Gabrielle Deegan. I gave her contact information to your partner.” When she said this, she glanced at Rodriguez. Porter didn’t correct her.

      Mrs. Davies continued. “Gabby said she hadn’t seen her all day. She wasn’t at school, and she wasn’t replying to text messages. This isn’t like Lili, you understand. She’s a straight-A student. She hasn’t missed a day of school since the fourth grade, when she had chicken pox.” Mrs. Davies paused, studying Porter’s face. “You’re the detective who chased . . . oh God, do you think 4MK took our daughter? Is that why you’re here?” Her eyes went wide and flooded with tears.

      “This isn’t 4MK,” Porter assured her, although he wasn’t certain of that himself. “At this point there is no reason to assume anyone has taken your daughter.”

      “She wouldn’t disappear like this.”

      Porter tried to change the subject. “Where does she go to school?”

      “Wilcox Academy.”

      Dr. Davies returned and handed Porter a steaming cup of coffee, then stood beside his wife on the couch. “I know what you’re thinking, and like we told your partners here, Lili doesn’t have a boyfriend. She wouldn’t skip school. She most definitely wouldn’t skip work — she loves that gallery. Something is wrong. The Find My iPhone feature is activated on her phone, but it’s not coming up on our account. I called Apple, and they said her phone is offline. Our daughter would not turn off her phone.”

      Nash cleared his throat. “Mrs. Davies, can you tell Detective Porter what Lili was wearing today when she was last seen?”

      Mrs. Davies nodded. “Her favorite coat, a red Perro parka, a white hat, matching gloves, and dark jeans. On cold days, Lili preferred to change into her uniform once she arrived on campus. She stopped in the kitchen and said goodbye to me before she left for school this morning. That’s her favorite coat. She bought it at Barneys with her first paycheck. She was so proud of that coat.”

      Rodriguez pursed her lips.

      Porter said nothing.

       4

       Porter

       Day 2 • 3:02 a.m.

      “How is that even possible?”

      “We can show them a photo of the jacket to try and confirm,” Nash suggested.

      Porter shook his head. “We can’t show them a picture of a dead girl.”

      The three of them stood outside the Davieses’ graystone, their breath creating an icy fog between them.

      “There is no way someone had time to kidnap Lili Davies, put her clothes on Ella Reynolds, and bury her under the ice at the park. There is no way. There just isn’t enough time.” Porter shuffled his feet. The temperature must be in single digits. “That means he would have been out at the lake during daylight hours, while it was open. Somebody would have seen him.”

      Nash thought about this for a second. “In this weather, the park is nearly deserted. The only real risk would be when the unsub carried the body from his vehicle to the water. Unless someone got close, nothing else would really jump out as a red flag. He would just look like some guy out by the lagoon, maybe ice-fishing or something. If he set up with a fishing pole, I bet he could spend the day without anyone giving him a second glance.”

      “Logistics aside,” Rodriguez said, “what’s the point?”

      Porter and Nash exchanged a glance. They both knew serial killers rarely had a point, at least not one that made sense to anyone but them. And although they only had one victim, if she tied to this second missing girl, they might be looking at a serial.

      “Do Ella Reynolds and Lili Davies know each other?” Porter asked Rodriguez.

      Rodriguez shook her head. “Her parents only knew the name from television.”

      “We should check with Lili’s friend Gabby,” Porter suggested. “What time did she leave for school?”

      Rodriguez glanced at her notes. “Quarter after seven.”

      Nash closed his eyes and crunched the numbers. “That only allows about twelve hours from the time Lili disappeared to the time Ella was found frozen in the lake.”

      “Look at you doing math.” Porter said, and snickered.

      “If this is one guy, he’s fast. Efficient,” Nash said.

      Porter turned back to Rodriguez. “Sophie, right?”

      She nodded.

      “Go back in and search the girl’s room. Look for anything out of the ordinary. Get her computer — check her e-mails, saved documents. Look for a diary, photos . . . You find anything at all, you call me. Find out her route to school. Does she walk or get a ride? With friends or alone? Got it?”

      Rodriguez chewed on her bottom lip. “What does this mean for Lili?”

      Porter wasn’t ready to go there. He turned back to Nash. “Let’s go wake up Eisley.”

       5

       Porter

       Day 2 • 4:18 a.m.

      The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office and morgue was off West Harrison in downtown Chicago. At this hour, Porter and Nash ran into little traffic, and they found the parking spaces out front to be relatively deserted. The guard at the front desk looked up at them with groggy eyes and nodded a hello. “Sign in, please.”

      Porter scribbled Burt Reynolds on the clipboard and handed it to Nash, who wrote Dolly Parton before returning it to the desk and following him to the bank of elevators at the back of the lobby. Porter wasn’t a fan of elevators but he was even less a fan of several flights of stairs.

      The second elevator from the left arrived first, and he followed Nash inside before he could change his mind.

      Porter hit the button marked 3. “Dolly was hot back in the day.”

      “Still is,” Nash replied. “A true GILF.”

      “GILF?”

      “I’ll explain when you’re a little older, Sam.”

      The doors opened on an empty hallway.

      Nash eyed the vending machine, then gave it a pass, heading