I flipped back to the withdrawals. Harris had withdrawn the full balance of his account the week before he was killed. A week before Patricia had attempted to hire me.
Or had he…？
I was going to use it to leave him. But it will be better this way.
Suddenly, it made sense how Patricia had come up with fifty thousand in cash so easily. She must have withdrawn it from her husband’s account, planning to use it to run away, hoping he’d never come after her. But then she’d met me and figured she had enough cash to ensure he never would. The missing money would fit the narrative she had probably planned to tell the police—that he’d cashed out his assets and run off with another woman. Meanwhile, Patricia had all the money she’d need to start a new life someplace else.
Only two questions remained: Who killed Harris? And where had Patricia Mickler gone?
As I tucked Harris’s bank statement in my pocket and prepared to return the rest of the envelopes to the Micklers’ mailbox, a sleek black Lincoln Town Car rolled slowly past my van. I ducked low in my seat as it stopped in front of the Micklers’ driveway.
A man swung open the passenger-side door. The long legs of his tailored suit took crisp, precise strides to Patricia’s front door. He rang the doorbell, running a hand over his dark, meticulously styled hair as he waited for someone to answer. The driver stayed back in the car, concealed behind its tinted windows.
The man rang the bell once more, following it up with two sharp knocks I could hear in my van. When no one answered, he moved to the garage, his tall frame allowing him to peer easily inside the high, narrow windows. He turned back to his car with a tight shake of his head.
The driver’s door flung open. A pair of broad shoulders and sturdy, thick legs wedged their way out. With heavy, lumbering strides, the driver stalked around the side of the house, a silver blade slipping from his sleeve into his meaty hand as he disappeared behind it.
The man in the suit laced his fingers behind him, casually pacing the driveway, his eyes roving the street as he waited beside the Town Car. I sank lower in my seat, peering over the top of my steering wheel, hoping he couldn’t see me with the low afternoon sun at my back.
A moment later, the driver returned. He brushed his empty hands together, and with a tight nod to his passenger, they ducked back into their fancy black car. Heart racing, I dropped to the floorboard as the Lincoln reversed out of the driveway and swung in my direction. I waited for the purr of its engine to pass before cautiously sitting up.
Were these the people Patricia had warned me about? The ones with eyes and ears all over town?
My husband was involved with some very dangerous people.
Checking my mirror to be sure they were gone, I threw open my door and returned the mail to the box. Every voice in my head was screaming at me to go. To run. But what if Patricia had been home all along? What if she’d been hiding, not from me, but from those men? The driver had been carrying a very large knife, and it hadn’t been in his hand when he’d come back. I couldn’t just leave without making sure Patricia was okay.
I crept to the garage, leveraging myself on the edge of a raised planter beside the driveway to peek in the window. A brown Subaru wagon was parked inside, the same one she’d disappeared in when she’d left me in Panera, its rear window layered in stickers—JMU, Animals Are Friends Not Food, Adopt Don’t Shop, and Shed Happens. Stick figures of a man and a woman and two stick-figure dogs trailed across the glass.
Patricia was home.
I ran through the side yard and rounded the Micklers’ house, stopping short in the middle of her back porch. Sunlight glimmered off the long blade of the knife embedded in the trim beside the door. A piece of paper fluttered, held in place by its teeth.
YOU’VE TAKEN SOMETHING THAT BELONGS TO ME.
YOU HAVE 24 HOURS BEFORE MY PATIENCE RUNS OUT.—Z
I touched the bank statement in my pocket. Had all those small, incremental monthly deposits been retainer payments from clients? Or had Harris been embezzling money from his clients’ accounts?
… if they find out what we’ve done, they’ll come for both of us.
I had assumed Patricia had meant these dangerous people would find us if they knew what we had done to Harris. But what if that wasn’t what she was suggesting at all? What if she was referring to what she and Harris had done? What if the money in his account had belonged to these men and she’d stolen it—not from her husband, but from them? Could these men be the ones who had killed Harris?
I blew out a shaky breath. At least the men hadn’t gone inside.