“That’s why they went to Mexico? Tracking down some clue about my brother’s case?” It explained the spur-of-the-moment trip. And it smacked of Dad and Maggie.
“Also, Maggie asked her friend if it was possible to make a video call but digitally make it look like someone else was calling. The kid made her a video putting someone else’s face on your sister’s. I watched it and it looked real.”
“And let me guess,” Matt said. “It was Charlotte’s face.”
“How’d you know?” Keller asked.
“Apparently there are rumors that she’s still alive. That it wasn’t Charlotte’s body at the creek.”
Keller frowned.
Matt continued, “So if someone wanted to lure my sister—or, more likely, my father—somewhere, they might do it by pretending Charlotte was still alive.”
“It’s possible,” Keller said.
“But why get them to go all the way to Mexico? And who? Why?”
“I don’t know. I’m waiting on test results for some evidence found at the scene.”
“What evidence? What—”
“I’ll tell you more when I get the results; it could be nothing. But I’ve also got Carlita Escobar, the consular officer you met in Tulum, checking some things out.”
Matt would never forget Escobar, the tough woman who’d caused the Mexican cop to nearly piss himself. He felt an ache in his chest. It was so Maggie to be on the hunt for evidence.
Keller slid a computer tablet across the table.
Matt looked at the screen. It was the photo Maggie had sent him from Mexico.
“We enhanced the photo,” Keller said.
Matt stared at his father standing on a road in Tulum, the shadow of a bicycle, a sweat ring at his neck, like he’d been out for a ride. Keller put her index finger and thumb together on the screen and opened them, zooming in on the photo. Behind his father, a couple was standing in front of a building. And for the first time, Matt saw it.
“Oh my god,” Matt said, his pulse quickening. A shot of adrenaline galloped through him.
Maggie hadn’t really been taking a photo of her father, but using him as the pretext to shoot the couple. The woman was pretty, wore a bikini and shorts. And Matt suspected she had an Oklahoma accent. Right before she died, Maggie had sent Matt a photo of Hank.
But that wasn’t the thing that caused Matt’s heart to pound. No, it was the tall man next to Hank. He had a hand on his face, like he was going to wipe his brow. Or perhaps was trying to hide his face, only part of which was visible.
Enough to show a scar from a cleft lip.
CHAPTER 43
SARAH KELLER
After breakfast, Keller stood outside the diner with Matt. Her mind was racing. The woman in the photo Maggie Pine had sent to Matt was the same woman who’d lured him to the woods, taken his phone. And the man with the cleft lip fit the description of the guy who’d shoved Matt into the street, tried to steal his belongings. Who were they? What did they want? And why had Maggie Pine sent her brother the photograph on her last day alive?
Keller turned to Matt. “You need a ride to the nursing home?” She gestured her chin at her maroon Nissan rental, parked at the curb near the diner.
“Nah, my aunt is picking me up.” Matt glanced down the street. “Shit,” he said.
Keller was going to ask what was wrong when she saw Judy and Ira Adler, the directors of “A Violent Nature,” walking toward them.
Judy Adler nodded hello to Keller, then turned to Matt. Her husband hung back, as if conflicted.
“Matthew,” Judy said, “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
Matt offered a dismissive nod.
“I know this is a terrible time—and I know you wanted nothing to do with us on the last film—but we’re doing a follow-up to the documentary, and we’d love to talk to you. We think it could really help your brother, and—”
“Not interested,” Matt said. He gazed down the road as if looking for his aunt’s car.
“Matthew, you’re a filmmaker. You have to understand we’re just doing our jobs. And you may not have cared for it, but ‘A Violent Nature’ got your brother’s case on the map. No one cared until we—”
“Until you what?” Matt said. “Until you got everyone’s hopes up? Made my father look crazy? Pulled my little sister into this mess? Made my family the most hated people in this town? And for what?”
“Matthew, I’m—”
“I said, not interested.”