Logan POV

It always amazes me how sometimes a case feels like it drags on and on and then suddenly – boom.

Answers fall at your feet like confetti in a tickertape parade.

Bobby and I drove to New Jersey on the hope that we would find something in Brianna's apartment, some lead that would point us in the direction of her killer.

And we were hoping it would happen quickly.

But neither of us expected it to occur as quickly as it did.

Her apartment was clean, neat and organized. Almost as though when she left that last time, she knew she wouldn't be back.

There were no dishes in the sink, or dirty laundry in the hamper.

The trash can was empty.

The thermostat was set low.

"Pretty girl," I said as I picked up a framed photo of her and a woman who I guessed to be her mother. "I guess we have a notification to make, too."

"I doubt she's from here, or someone would've reported her missing. The locals from her hometown will have to do it."

"Ottumwa, Iowa," I said after I opened a desk drawer and poked through her papers. There were birthday cards and letters in there, with that postmark.

"Makes sense," he agreed. "The parents are probably starting to get worried now, but a few weeks without correspondence might not be all that unusual."

"It's like she went on vacation," I commented as I strolled through the empty apartment.

"Exactly like that," Bobby replied. "Look."

I turned around and found him holding up a stack of mail.

"Are you kidding me? Someone's bringing in her mail? Someone cares enough to do that, but no one called in a tip when we aired the photo?"

"Let's talk to the neighbors," he suggested.

So we left the apartment and knocked on the door across the hall.

"Can I help you?" an elderly woman asked cautiously as she peered through the two-inch crack created by the chain lock.

"NYPD," Bobby said gently as he held up his badge. "I'm Detective Goren. This is my partner Detective Logan. We're here about Brianna McMahon."

"Sweet girl. She's been in Florida for…what, three weeks now?"

"Florida. Is that what she told you?"

"Um…no," she answered as it dawned on her why we might be asking. "Did something happen to her?"

"Tell us where you got the idea that she's in Florida if she's not the one who told you."

"Her boyfriend," she said, nodding towards the apartment down the hall. "Or at least, I think he's her boyfriend. His name is Riley. He's been keeping an eye on her place, getting her mail, that kind of thing."

"So Riley said she went to Florida?" I confirmed as I took a few steps in the direction of the indicated apartment.

"That's right. Is Brianna okay?"

"No, I'm sorry," Bobby said as I continued down the hall. "She's not. She was found murdered a few weeks ago, but we weren't able to identify her until today."

"I knew it!" the woman yelled suddenly. "I told him it was her!"

"You saw her picture on the news?" I asked with interest.

"Yesterday. That woman police officer over in the city was talking about it and showing pictures, and I told Riley that one of the girls looked like Brianna, and he laughed about it and told me I needed to get a better prescription for my glasses!"

I caught Bobby's eye and he gave me a nod.

Riley couldn't have spoken with Brianna in weeks and yet he wasn't worried. His neighbor recognized her from the photo and yet he ridiculed her.

There was only one reason why the boyfriend would do such a thing.

"Ma'am, is Riley at home right now? Do you know?"

"He works nights," she said with a nod. "So he sleeps all day. He's in there."

"Okay, go back inside and keep your door shut," Bobby told her. He watched her until she was safely inside and then he turned to me and drew his weapon.

"I don't trust this guy, do you?" he asked me as we moved in front of Riley's door. "He went through a lot of trouble to cover up the fact that he killed his girlfriend."

"Of course, we're basing this assumption on the word of a woman pushing the century mark," I reminded him.

"True. Okay, well, let's see what he has to say."

He turned out to be quite expressive.

"You motherfuckers don't have shit on me, so just carry your sorry asses back to the city."

See, Riley looked like he was one of those guys who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth but he liked to pretend that he was raised on the streets.

At least with his language.

His wardrobe lacked conviction, though, because somehow the Reebok gym shorts and the Coney Island t-shirt just didn't scream gangster.

"You kiss your mother with that mouth?" I asked him as I stood in his kitchen.

His place was just as messy as Brianna's was neat, and I couldn't help but wonder how the two of them had ever gotten together.

And then it occurred to me that maybe they didn't.

All we knew was that that's what Riley had told the old lady.

"My mama's dead," he said petulantly.

"Oh yeah? Let me guess. She died of a broken heart when she saw what a little punk her baby turned out to be," I taunted, keeping his attention on me while Bobby made the rounds, checking out everything in plain sight.

"You don't know shit about my mother, you fucking dickhead, so shut the fuck up," he warned as he stepped closer to me.

I just smiled at him, with my hand still resting on the butt of my weapon where it's been since we walked into his apartment.

He'd invited us inside a few minutes ago, claiming he had nothing to hide. That part worried me a little because it either meant he was truly innocent or he was just too cocky to consider that he might get caught.

I was going with the latter for now, but maybe that's just because I don't like him.

"You're all bad ass with that gun and badge," he continued, taking another step so that he was now standing nose to chin with me. "Take away your little toys and I bet you're just a fucking pussy, aren't you?"

I made a point of leaning over until we were actually eye to eye and then I asked him, "Wanna find out?"

"Logan," Bobby said, and at first I thought he was telling me not to poke at the guy too much, but when I stood up straight and looked past Riley over to where Bobby stood near a bookshelf that was ironically devoid of books, I realized that he'd found something.

"What is it?"

"Grounds for an arrest," he said.

I brought my gaze back to Riley and smiled again and then grabbed onto his arm and whirled him around.

"Riley…what's your last name again?" I asked him as I snapped the cuffs around his wrists.

"Fuck you."

"It's Smith," Bobby supplied as continued to look through the papers that had caught his eye.

"Riley Smith? Are you kidding me? That's so unoriginal for a guy like you. I like your idea better," I told him. "Okay, Riley Fuckyou Smith, you're under arrest for the murder of Brianna McMahon."

I finished reading him his rights, despite the fact that he cursed me throughout the entire process, and then I looked at Bobby as he approached me.

"So what is it?" I asked him.

"A printout of the instructions," he said, holding up a piece of paper.

I took it from him and glanced over it briefly before waving it in front of Riley.

"Are you kidding me, Riley? You printed that stuff out? Why'd you do that, huh?"

"It's research, you fucking morons. What, do you two share a fucking brain? I'm a writer, okay? I write about murder. I found that forum post and thought it sounded like some fucking cool shit, so I printed it out."

"So you're a writer, but you didn't write this," I clarified.

"What, I'm a writer, so I must write every fucking piece of literature in my crib? I can't have someone else's shit laying around to read? You're a fucking idiot, man."

"Literature?" Bobby questioned skeptically.

"I write shit. And I read shit, okay?" he said in annoyance. Then he glared at me and said, "What d'you got laying around your place, huh? Fucking Penthouse so you can spank the monkey cos you can't find no bitch to fuck your lame dick?"

Like I said, this guy was something else. I'm sure he was trying to piss me off, but I just found him pathetic.

"Yeah," I agreed. "Stacks of Penthouse. But I didn't write any of the articles."

"And I didn't write that."

"Uh huh," I said as I held up the paper and started reading aloud. "You don't want the fucking cops to know who the bitch is so you gotta make sure you fuck up the prints. You're right, Riley. That sounds nothing like you."

Bobby spoke up, preventing Riley from offering what surely would've been a scathing reply.

"You didn't do anything, so you don't mind us doing a quick search, right?" he asked him.

Because up until now, we were limited to things in plain sight, by virtue of our invitation inside.

"What the fuck ever, man. Knock yourselves out. You ain't gonna find shit," he said with a grin.

"Oh, I think we'll find shit," I said, kicking at piles of dirty laundry that were spread about the living room. "Now sit your ass in that chair and don't move. You got me, Riley?"

He glared at me, but then he sat down in a hard-back chair at the edge of the kitchen.

"We need to make a call," Bobby said quietly to me. I gave him a nod and then walked over closer to Riley.

"So tell me about Brianna," I said while Bobby pulled out his phone to call the locals.

As a courtesy, we'd called Detective Wydner, the Paramus investigator, while we made the drive to Maywood, but now we'd need the Maywood PD to dispatch their CSU so that there wouldn't be any question about the proper handling of evidence.

"She was my girl," he replied.

"See, that's what I can't figure out. Look at this place. You're a pig."

He snorted out a laugh at my comment and said, "You're fucking one to talk."

"Yeah, I get it. Cop. Pig. Ha ha."

"That's some funny shit."

"Hilarious. So…Brianna."

"What can I say? She liked slumming."

"When was the last time you saw her?"

"About three weeks ago."

"And you, being the loving boyfriend, agreed to take care of her place while she was gone to…where'd she go again?"

"Florida, dumbass. I told you that already."

"Yeah. Why Florida?"

"To see her mom."

"Uh huh," I agreed as I looked around the room again. Bobby had a stack of papers laying on the table that he'd taken from the bookshelf. I thumbed through them and said, "So we're supposed to believe you're a writer? What do you write?"

"I told you. I write about murder."

"You blog about it," Bobby spoke up, apparently on hold.

"Yeah," he said with a nod. "That's fucking cool shit."

"So you said," I replied blandly.

But really, it wasn't so cool.

Because that gave him reason to have this stuff sitting around his apartment.

And yeah, it looked fishy, but what proof did we have that he'd actually done something wrong?

Just that he's a punk?

Or because he was taking care of Brianna's apartment?

He'd blown off the old lady when she mentioned seeing Brianna on the news, but what did that really prove?

That he just wasn't paying any attention to her because he thought Brianna was in Florida?

"It can all be explained away," Bobby murmured to me after he hung up the phone. "There's nothing concrete."

"But it's him," I said firmly.

"I know."

"So now what?"

Technically, we'd just arrested him based on evidence that he now had an explanation for. It was going to get ugly if we hauled him across state lines only to find out that he's telling the truth.

But he's not.

"We take him in and we get a confession. And we do it quickly."

I nodded, knowing where his mind had gone.

"If we get him to talk today…"

"I'm going to tell her what we've got and get her to postpone. Think what that'll do for her to be able to announce that this guy's in custody on the night before the meeting with Holt."

"Unless we're wrong. And then she'll look like an idiot. We'll screw her chances."

"So we can wait and not worry about the press conference…just do our jobs and take what comes tomorrow."

"Or we can make her the hero and Holt won't have any decision to make."

"Uh huh. As long as we're right."

"We're right. Text her," I said. "This is the guy."

TBC...