Page 47 of The Secrets We Hide
Emmy couldn’t dwell on why she felt so relieved that Jude had posed the question. “Why would he lie?”
“Because of this.” She pointed at Emmy. “You’re spinning out instead of focusing on who murdered Allison Vickery.”
Emmy wasn’t spinning out. “Reggie isn’t that smart.”
“You don’t have to be smart to be cunning.”
Emmy looked out the kitchen window. That sounded exactly like something her father would say. She turned back to Jude. “Reggie told me that Dad was running a confidential informant deep inside the Rawley family. Do you know who they are?”
Jude didn’t have to answer the question. Her visible unease was like a third person in the room. “Tommy and I went to school with Lee and Tanya.”
“Lee?”
“His father was Leroy. We called him Lee.”
“Lee had a daughter. Husband beat her to death. The Rawleys disappeared him. They had a son everybody calls Woody.” Emmy sat down across from Jude at the table. “Reggie told me that Woody is Dad’s guy on the inside. Which makes sense. Nobody’s ever been able to catch Woody on anything. He’s arrogant, smart, and very good at staying out of trouble. The reason Dad asked Reggie to kick Jonah’s case was to protect Woody.”
Jude stared openly. “And Dad never mentioned any of this to you?”
“I thought he told me everything, but I had no idea.”
Jude sat back in her chair. Looked at the floor as she thought it through. She was making another decision. She looked back at Emmy. “You and I have talked about Dad before. The two different versions we each had. Even when he was trapped inside a bottle of Old Rip, my Gerald Clifton was never a dirty cop. I can’t believe that your Gerald was, either.”
“What’s the explanation? Assuming Reggie’s telling the truth. Why would Dad ask him to make the arrest disappear?”
“Could be he wanted to protect Cole’s father. That he asked Reggie for leniency and Reggie took it to the extreme by destroying evidence. Allison might not have even been a part of it.”
That sounded like the Allison Emmy had known. Even with the unexplained cash in the blue bin, she didn’t buy that Allison was a dirty cop. “What about Woody?”
“What about him?” Jude asked. “Reggie’s the one who admitted to you that he destroyed evidence. That’s a crime. He could go to prison. We both know he’s shady as hell. You can smell it on him from fifty feet. He’s found the perfect explanation for the case against Woody and Jonah going away. Dad’s dead. Woody won’t talk. Jonah is an imbecile. And now Allison Vickery is dead, too. Who’s left to testify against Reggie if it gets out that he ordered the destruction of evidence to cover for the Rawley family?”
Emmy’s brain couldn’t hold on to all the theories swirling around this case. Every time she thought she’d zeroed in on a suspect, a new piece of information sent her off in the opposite direction. “That’s either really convenient for Reggie or you’re saying that Reggie had something to do with Allison’s murder.”
“Well—”
Jude’s response was cut off by the sound of Emmy’s phone buzzing. She looked at the Caller ID. Sherry Robertson wouldn’t be calling this late without good reason.
Emmy put her on speakerphone. “What’s up, Sherry?”
“I just talked to one of Mandy’s doctors. She’s not out of the woods, but she’s been trying to wake herself up. Blinking her eyes. Moving around. Figured you’d want to be here in case she can talk.”
Emmy couldn’t feel any relief. She’d picked up on the tension in Sherry’s voice. “Is there something else?”
“Yeah,” Sherry said. “I’ll tell you when you get here.”
The call ended. Emmy looked at Jude again. “I asked Sherry to process Mandy for evidence. I think she probably found signs of recent abuse.”
“Go.”
Emmy stood up. Saw the suitcase by the door.
Jude said, “We can talk about that later.”
Emmy unclenched her teeth. “You can tell me on the way to the hospital.”
THIRTY-TWO MINUTES AFTER THE SHOOTING
CHAPTER EIGHT
