The Podcast

Chapter 27

Tuesday afternoon

Lucas is staring down at the evidence reports strewn across his desk while Melanie stands expectantly at his side. He's read the reports. More than once. But something is holding him back. Keeping him from jumping to conclusions. It's simply too perfect.

"Well?" Melanie perches herself on the edge of his desk to meet his eye line, unable to take the suspense any longer. "Should I start arranging a team for his arrest?"

Lucas doesn't respond. He forces his mind to slow down, to remain unnaturally calm. Sangfroid. To focus on his breathing. It's the same tactic he'd used overseas in the military when bombs and gunfire surrounded him, men yelling out orders and cries for help, impossible to distinguish between the two.

Breathe, Lucas, Think.

Because lying in front of him printed in black and white, on two separate DNA evidence reports—the UCLA case and the Joshua Tree case—is a matching hair sample, found at both scenes.

A hair sample that is a direct match with one already in LAPD's system.

Belonging to Beaufort "Bo" West.

But that's it—just hair. No fingerprints, no saliva, no skin, no blood. Just strands of hair.

"No." Lucas moves to sit down in his chair, forcing Melanie back a few paces from his desk. He doesn't miss the bewildered look on her face.

"What?" Melanie lets out a small huff of air, trying to compose herself before speaking again. "Respectfully, boss, we have everything we need to arrest him. Clearly he's a serial killer. Didn't get caught in Chloe's case back in 2014 but he got just sloppy enough in these other three. He likely lured Chloe in as his first target, using sex to gain her trust. And now he's been on a killing spree as an act of revenge or warning against his own daughter. Using her podcast platform against her. The guy is a nut job. He's going to kill again. He's probably killed others we don't even know about yet."

"I'm going for a drive, Detective Lopez. Don't do anything until I give orders."

"You're—what?" Melanie throws her hands in the air, watching as her boss stands up and walks away, not even taking the evidence reports with him. She follows after him, her steps short and desperate.

"Where are you going?"

"Somewhere I can think." Lucas turns to look behind him, staring down his nose at her. "Somewhere quiet so I can focus."

"Look," Melanie meets his gaze, knowing Lucas is one of the best homicide detectives on LAPD's payroll and that his greatness often coincides with unorthodox methods. But she's finding it nearly impossible to understand his hesitancy at this moment. "I'm not trying to overstep here, I'm not. And you know I respect you. But this isn't the military, Detective Saba. If we don't take some form of action on the plain-as-day-evidence against Beaufort West in the next twenty-fours..." Melanie pauses, her heart racing at the daring look in Lucas' eyes. "I'm going to escalate it."

"To Chief Honey?"

"If I have to, yes."

Lucas runs his hand through his unruly hair, long overdue for a trim.

"Just trust me, Mel. Alright? Just need a little more time."

"I'm trying."

Lucas shakes his head and lets out a sigh of frustration before exiting the double-doors for the Homicide Division floor. He knows the sense of urgency that's flooding through Melanie's veins right now. He's succumbed to it before. He also knows it's an easy trap. Too good to be entirely true.

He slides into his SUV and pulls out his phone, typing in a quick internet search for "Bo West." He could easily look him up in the LAPD database but that's not the kind of intel he's interested in. Instead, he finds a slurry of Reddit threads and online forums, all somehow tied to Sumner's West Coast Killers podcast. He sees the most popular Reddit thread search result, Sumner's Snarky Secrets. The same one that came up during his interview with Nicholas Chen.

He clicks into it and starts scrolling through recent posts. And then he sees something he doesn't expect—a photo of himself.

Or at least, a photo of his back. On Sumner's doorstep. He zooms in on her surprised face staring up at him. He'd been sure he wasn't followed that day when he'd driven to her house. Double checked his mirrors before parking. There were few things Lucas knew how to do better than lose a tail.

And so the loop begins in his head—who the fuck took that photo?

He scrolls down to the flurry of comments, nested in a crazy winding structure that's hard to follow.

Looks like what SO MANY OF US have been saying for years is finally going to be proven as true. Sumner West—maybe you shouldn't have made your whole career about a murder that you committed? Looks like the LAPD finally got their shit together.

Lucas keeps scrolling, his dark brows pulling together concentration.

I mean I know this looks bad, but I still stand by the fact that her dad did it. Maybe Chloe was about to tell Sumner back in 2014 or someone had found out?! Like what kind of a father does that with his daughter's best friend. Ick.

Lucas rests the phone on his thigh, leaning back in the driver's seat. He pictures Sumner's face from yesterday, delicate features against perfect porcelain skin, flushed pink on the high points of her cheeks. He sees the way her eyes widened when he'd asked her if she had any idea who Chloe's killer might be. She'd been so adamant that she didn't know. Perhaps too adamant.

And then her admission. Almost more egregious than her obstruction of evidence: the confession that she'd tried to frame her father. That she'd taken the note from Chloe's murder scene to keep Bo West in the running as a lead suspect. Even risking her own guilty charge in the process. That letter could have led detectives right to the killer.

Unless she is the killer.

Lucas leans forward, resting his forearms over the steering wheel. Sumner couldn't be acting alone. It'd be impossible for her petite frame to wield a heavy object with enough force to kill George Schiff in one blow. And she wouldn't have been able to tie up two nineteen-year-old boys by herself in Joshua Tree Park.

But she'd been hellbent on framing her father once and had failed. Based on the success of her podcast, of her digital empire, she isn't someone who seems to take failure lightly.

Could this string of copycat murders be her next attempt? Ruin the thing that's most coveted to her in the process—the podcast—to keep herself above suspicion?

And if Sumner is somehow orchestrating this, ensuring her father's hair is planted at each of the copycat crime scenes—who else is she working with?

Lucas puts his car in drive and heads in the opposite direction of his own home: turning north toward Thousand Oaks, California.