Never See Them Again by M. William Phelps Read Free Book Online Page A

Lake City.
    â€œNo problem,” Marcus said. He took out a set of keys he had brought from Tiffany’s house so he and Tiffany could take her truck. They could drop off Tiffany’s friend first and then head back to Clear Lake. The others could return to the house in Nicola’s car.
    Nicola drove straight to Tiffany’s. When she arrived, Adelbert and her brother were still up partying. Now, though, there were two strippers at the house, who had shown up while Nicola and the others were out picking up Tiffany. They were all sitting around, laughing, smoking some weed, getting their drunk on.
    According to Nicola, it was another typical night at Tiffany’s house.
    Nothing seemed to be out of whack, Nicola explained. Things seemed to be going all right throughout the early-morning hours.
    â€œIs there anything else you can tell us?” the interviewing officer asked Nicola. She seemed scared, frightened to think that a good friend had been murdered in such a choreographed, concerted way, and she had been at the same house hours before. As far as the public knew then, someone had walked into the house and mowed them all down. No warning. No explanation. It wasn’t hard to tell that perhaps someone the kids knew had been invited into the house and decided, for some reason, to open fire on everyone.
    Later on that night (after the murders), Nicola told police, she was at a friend’s house when her manager called and asked if she knew how to get ahold of Tiffany Rowell’s father. This was a strange request. Nicola could not ever recall her boss phoning for this reason.
    â€œWhy?” Nicola asked him.
    â€œI think Tiffany was shot and killed inside her house.”
    â€œI don’t know . . . ,” Nicola said.
    â€œTry to get ahold of Tiffany, okay?” her manager said before hanging up.
    Nicola said she would.
    And that was about all Nicola knew. Yet through that interview, Nicola had given cops her brother’s contact information. He might know a bit more, she said. He had been at the house partying with Adelbert while Nicola was out. Nicola said her brother had stayed behind, too, after she left to go home as the sun came up.
    Detectives caught up with Nicola’s brother.
    â€œI left about nine-fifteen A.M. ,” he said, adding that he had been at Tiffany’s house since two forty-five in the morning, and arrived with Nicola, as she had claimed. One of the strippers whom he and Adelbert had partied with gave him a ride to his grandparents’ house later that morning because Nicola had left. “We had a good time, and there were no problems. Marcus and Tiffany went to bed [at some point] and we [the stripper and I] just sat there in the living room smoking and drinking. . . . During my time there, I did not hear or see anything out of the ordinary.”
    The officer pressed for more information. Was there anything he thought might have contributed to the murders? Strange phone calls? Maybe someone lurking about the yard? An unexpected visitor?
    There had to be something.
    Nicola’s brother said he did not know Marcus, Tiffany, or Adelbert that well. In fact, it was the first time he had ever been over to the house.

CHAPTER 6
    I F SOMEONE WOULD have taken time-lapse video of the scene outside the front of Tiffany Rowell’s house, a subtle, yet awfully sad picture would have emerged on the morning following the murders. As the midnight hour approached, then one, two, and three in the morning, that time-lapse photography would have shown the crowd growing increasingly sparse. People were disappearing, walking away like at the end of a rally, as the morning came to pass—that is, all but three individuals: George, Ann and Lelah Koloroutis. The three of them had stayed all night, waiting, praying, hoping against their better (gut) judgment and that sinking feeling that at some point a detective would come out and tell them it wasn’t Rachael