Part 60 (1/2)

Double bingo.

”Yeah,” said Martha. ”He once joked that I should be careful because he knew all these ways to kill me with certain chemicals. I didn't think it was very funny.”

Sarah and I locked eyeb.a.l.l.s again. Certainly Robert Macintyre had the means. But the motive was still not 100 percent clear.

The guy gets dumped a few weeks before his own wedding, so he decides to kill newlyweds. Fair enough. Or should I say crazy enough? a.s.suming he was suffering from PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, the bitter disappointment and heartbreak could easily cause him to snap. Violently.

But why kill just the Vows couples?

Were we looking for logic where there simply wasn't any? Insane behavior has its own set of rules.

Patiently, methodically, Sarah pressed on.

”So you read the article in the paper this morning, Martha, and you obviously must have had your suspicions. But what makes you so sure it's Robert?”

I was hurting for this girl as she wiped her eyes yet again. She felt so d.a.m.n responsible.

”Robbie told me that if it couldn't be us, it shouldn't be anyone.”

”I'm not sure I follow you,” said Sarah.

Slowly, Martha looked at Detective Harris, then me, then back to Sarah. And that's when she told us.

”The day I broke up with him was the same day we heard back from the New York Times,” she said. ”They wanted us to be a Vows couple.”

Book Five

Payback Is a b.i.t.c.h

Chapter 95

A DOZEN OFFICERS, Detective Harris, Sarah, and me. As numbers go we were approaching a small army, certainly more than protocol when bringing in a guy for questioning. Then again, this wasn't just any guy.

There was no hard proof, not a single witness, and no direct evidence linking Robert Macintyre to the Honeymoon Murderer. Everything was circ.u.mstantial. It all could've been a coincidence.

If so, I'd be the first to shake his hand and apologize.

”The only way he escapes alive back there is if he knows how to fly,” said Harris, returning to the front of Macintyre's Brooklyn brownstone, where the rest of us were gathered. He'd just checked the rear of the building, along with two of the officers. Macintyre's apartment was on the fifth floor, the top. ”There's a small courtyard back there but no fire escape.”

I turned to Sarah. ”You ready?”

”Yeah,” she said.