Page 24 of The Secrets We Hide
Emmy said, “If she stayed under the reporting level, that’s roughly thirty withdrawals, right?”
“Yeah, but she was with Bill for ten years. Mandy was only six when they started dating. That’s a long time to build a nest egg.”
Taybee had said that Allison hired her shortly after themarriage. It made sense that Allison had started stockpiling cash then.
Sherry said, “We’re talking about this money like it’s Allison’s. Are you sure it’s not Bill’s?”
“Bill told me that Allison served him with divorce papers two weeks ago. There’s no way he would’ve left it behind.”
Sherry looked staggered by the news. Emmy had felt the same when Bill had thrown it in her face. For years, she had pleaded with Allison to leave him, and to have her finally do it without letting Emmy know felt like some kind of weird betrayal.
She told Sherry, “I heard from another source that Allison hired a forensic accountant last year to dig into Bill’s finances, but she dropped it when she went back to him.”
“You think she stayed with Bill so she could siphon money from his accounts?” Sherry considered the ramifications. “He’s rich, but he’s not that rich. Three hundred grand is a shit ton of money to go missing. And I don’t mean to be judgy, but Allison was always cheap with her money.”
Emmy took in the disarray in the dining-room office. “If I came to this house looking for my stolen 300k, I wouldn’t start with all the paperwork on the table. I’d be looking for a safe, tearing open mattresses and cushions, punching holes in walls. And I wouldn’t shoot the only person who could tell me where it was.”
“That’s some bad math, Emmy.” Sherry’s voice was little more than a whisper. “You know how this is gonna look. Dead cop plus three hundred grand equals dirty cop.”
Emmy wasn’t ready to go there yet. “Did you find any electronics?”
“Allison’s phone was in her purse. The biometrics were turned off, so we’ll have to crack the password. Same with the laptop in the dining room and the tablet and laptop in Mandy’s bedroom. I’m assuming the girl’s phone was in her back pocket when she fell through the ceiling. The screen was crushed. It’ll take us a while to figure out if we can salvage any data. For what it’s worth, Jude had Cole check all the 911 records. Doesn’t look like Mandy called for help.”
Emmy wondered if that was because Mandy had panicked orbecause the Clayville Chief of Police was already downstairs. Or maybe Mandy had known about the $300,000 in the attic. Or maybe all of those things had nothing to do with the shooting because every time Emmy pulled on a thread, another theory started to unravel.
Sherry asked, “Ready to go upstairs?”
Emmy’s foot was on the bottom tread of the stairs when she heard rap music playing loud enough to shake the windows. She looked out into the street. Saw a red Hyundai KONA pull to a stop behind the crime scene van. The light outside had changed since they’d entered the house. Dusk was brushing against the treetops.
Cole had found their witness before sundown.
CHAPTER FIVE
Emmy unzipped her Tyvek coveralls as she walked down the porch stairs. Cole jogged toward her. The temperature had dropped with the setting sun. She felt the cold air chilling the sweat on her body. The relief was short-lived. Her shoulder was throbbing. Her lower back was tight. Her tailbone ached with every step. She had a hitch in her gait.
At least both of her knees still worked.
“Boss,” Cole said, and she temporarily blanked on everything that came after.
He’d always called herMomor, when he was around other deputies,chief, because she had been the chief deputy for twelve years.
Bosshad been what everybody had called her father.
Emmy turned her head. Looked down the street at Ginny Saddler’s boy. Late twenties. Hairline already receding. Pencil mustache. He was leaning against the side of his car sucking on a vape pen. He’d lost his father to bone cancer a year ago, then lost his mother to Jack Daniel’s shortly after.
“Mom?” Cole said. “You okay?”
She snapped herself out of it. “You find anything off those doorbell cameras?”
“Six people emailed files so far, but there’s nothing that helps us out, not even the sound of the gunshots. We’ve got sixty-five houses in the neighborhood and twenty-two doorbell cameras. Only eleven of them record to the cloud. Everybody else uses the live feed.”
That made sense. Most people in North Falls installed doorbellcameras to check their porch for packages and hide from Girl Scouts selling cookies. “I want you to watch everything again with your headphones at the station. There’s got to be something.”
“Yes, boss.”
She kneaded her fist into her back to work out the kink as they walked toward Drake Saddler, who took a hard hit off his vape pen while he waited for them. He was dressed in a Falcons T-shirt, khaki shorts, and hunter green Crocs. His brown hair was long in the back. The skinny mustache curved like a baby caterpillar over his thin lips. He had a very wary look on his face, which made her think that this was going to be more of an interrogation than a conversation. She’d met Drake a few times when he’d dropped off his mother for book club. He’d always been polite but clearly uninterested in talking literature with a bunch of women over forty.
He said, “Hey, Miss Emmy.”
