A Twisted Love Story(86)

“Are we any closer to finding Wes?” he asks.

No. Not at all. “We have leads coming in from the tip line, and we’re still chasing them down. But the reward has brought in a lot of false leads, as well.”

The money was a surprise to all of them. A local women’s activist group is offering a $10,000 reward for anyone who provides information that leads to finding Wes Harmon. No one is happy about it. Money brings out the true-crimers, the opportunists, and the psychos. Rewards tend to clog up the tip line with nonsense.

“Where are we with the girlfriend?” Doyle asks.

Karen chooses her words carefully. “I’m working on her. If Wes contacts anyone, it will be her.”

“Didn’t they plan to get married last weekend?”

“They did. The DA is working on getting her phone records. Hopefully, it will—”

“He isn’t going to call her,” Doyle says. “He can’t be that stupid.”

Probably not, but they have to go through the motions. Without stupid criminals, their arrest rate would be a lot lower.

“If he calls her, it’ll probably be at work,” Karen says. “There’s no way for us to get access to those records quickly. But if I had to guess, he’ll find another way. Maybe show up in person.”

“Or maybe they have prepaid phones,” Doyle says.

“We know he does. No confirmation about Ivy.”

Doyle flips through the pages in front of them. Wes’s case file. Karen has been through it hundreds of times. “What about his friends?” he asks.

“Most were colleagues. No one at Siphon is allowed to speak to us. The company directs everyone to their in-house counsel. He claims Wes hasn’t contacted anyone there.”

“Of course he does.”

“What about other women?” the sergeant says. Back in his prime, he was a good-looking man. Now, not so much. But at one point, he probably had a lot of women. “Was Wes seeing anyone on the side?”

Karen isn’t ready to give a direct answer to that, in case it doesn’t pan out. But maybe. “I have one lead on that to track down,” she says. “I’ll let you know if I find anything.”





71




Abigail steps out of the bathroom. She wears yoga pants, a T-shirt, and sneakers, and her gym bag sits on the bed. It’s the only thing between her and Wes. The irony doesn’t escape him. Any other time, it might be funny.

“I tried calling you yesterday,” he says. “A few times.”

She reaches up and casually adjusts her ponytail. “That’s weird. I didn’t get any calls from you.”

“They weren’t from my number.”

She waves her hand through the air, her long nails slicing through it. “Then how would I have known?”

“You knew.”

She takes another step forward, and her eyes flick toward the door he’s blocking. Her head turns a fraction of an inch as she looks toward the window.

“Not an option,” he says. “You can’t break it fast enough.”

Abigail shifts her weight, appearing to change her mind about trying to get out of the room. Her tone switches to something more friendly. “Why don’t you tell me why you’re here?”

“Why don’t you tell me why you talked to the police?”

Her eyes widen, becoming so large it reminds him of a cartoon. “I had to.”

“You need to explain that.”

“They came to me,” she says.

Some truth in that, probably. Karen must have tracked her down; he had assumed as much. But she didn’t have to talk. Didn’t have to betray him.

Didn’t have to lie.

Seven years of history between them. Seven years that included countless work problems, celebrations, holiday parties, a few personal conversations. And one night in bed.

Yes, they had told each other things, had confided in each other. He knew about a guy who broke her heart, and she knew about Ivy. Given their positions, the night they’d spent together was wrong. But if he put that aside, along with the uncomfortable days at the office afterward, they had been friends. Abigail wasn’t a problem until she decided to become his biggest one.

“Let’s go sit down and talk this through,” Abigail says. She gestures to the hall, toward the living room.

“You want to sit? Then sit.” He points to the bed. He grabs a chair from her vanity table, places it in front of the door, and takes a seat.

She perches herself on the edge of the bed, close to him, and crosses her legs.

“Before you were arrested, a detective came to see me,” Abigail says. “She showed up late one night to talk about you. I played stupid, obviously. I didn’t tell her anything about us.”

Wes narrows his eyes. He didn’t mean to. It’s a subconscious reaction to hearing her excuses.

“I’m not lying,” she says. “After you were arrested, they came to Siphon with a warrant to search your office.”

He holds up a hand. “Hold on. Didn’t you skip a few steps? Maybe another conversation with the police?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Answering a question with a question is not inspiring my confidence.”