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thought they were part of his case.” Daniel leaned forward, elbows on his knees, his eyes on Alicia Tremaine’s face. “Simon was the first owner of the pictures. First that I know of, anyway. I know he had them before he died.” He glanced over at Luke. “The first time he died.”
    “Twelve years ago,” Luke supplied, then shrugged. “Mama read it in the paper.”
    Daniel’s lips thinned. “Mama Papa and millions of her closest friends. It doesn’t matter. My father found these pictures and threw Simon out of the house, told him if he ever came back he’d turn Simon over to the police. Simon had just turned eighteen.”
    “Your father. The judge. He just let Simon go.”
    “Good old Dad. He was afraid if the pictures became public, he’d lose the election.”
    “But he kept the pictures? Why?”
    “Dad didn’t want Simon ever coming back, so he held the pictures as insurance, blackmail. A few days later my father told my mother that he’d received a phone call, that Simon had died in a car crash in Mexico. Dad went down there, brought the body home, had it buried in the family plot.”
    “But it’s an unidentified man almost a foot shorter than Simon.” Luke shrugged again. “It was a good article—had lots of details. So how did your mother get these?”
    “The first time she found them in Dad’s safe. That was eleven years ago, a year after Simon ‘died.’ She found the pictures and some drawings Simon had made from them. My mother rarely cried, but she cried about those pictures. I found her that way.”
    “And you saw the pictures.”
    “Only a glimpse. Enough to suspect at least some of them were real. But my father came home then and was so angry. He had to admit he’d had them for a year. I said we should turn them over to the police, but my father refused. He said it would be bad for the family name and Simon was already dead, so what was the point?”
    Luke was frowning. “The point? Like, the victims? That was the point.”
    “Of course it was. But when I tried to take the pictures to the police, we got into it.” Daniel clenched his hands into fists, remembering. “I almost hit him. I was so mad.”
    “So what did you do?” Luke asked quietly.
    “I left the house to cool down, but when I came back, my father had burned the photos in the fireplace. They were gone.”
    “Obviously not gone.” Luke pointed to the envelope.
    “He must’ve had copies somewhere else. I was . . . stunned. My mother was telling me it was for the best and my father was standing looking so smug and superior. I lost it. I hit him. Knocked him down. We had a terrible fight. I was on my way out the front door when Susannah came in the back. She’d missed the reason for the fight and I didn’t want her to know. She was only seventeen. Turned out she knew more than I thought. If we’d talked then . . .” Daniel thought of the seventeen bodies Simon had left behind in Philadelphia. “Who knows what we might have averted?”
    “Did you tell anyone?”
    Daniel shrugged, disgusted with himself. “Tell them what? I had no proof and it was my word against that of a judge. My sister hadn’t seen any of it and my mother would never have crossed my father. So I said nothing and I’ve regretted it ever since.”
    “So you left home and never came back.”
    “Not until I got the call from the Dutton sheriff two weeks ago that they were missing. It was the same day I found out my mother had cancer. I just wanted to see her once more, but she’d already been dead for two months.” Killed by Simon.
    “So how did you get these pictures now?”
    “This past Thanksgiving my parents found out Simon was still alive.”
    “Because the blackmailer up in Philly had contacted your father.”
    Daniel’s eyes widened. “Wow, that really was some article.”
    “Got that off the Internet. Your family’s hot news, boy.”
    Daniel rolled his eyes. “Wonderful. Well, Dad and Mother went up to Philly to find