The kitchen fell silent. Vero’s mouth fell open and she blinked at me. A laugh started deep in her throat, building into a cackle until it exploded out of her. I started laughing, too. “You didn’t.”
“I did.”
She shook her head as she crossed the kitchen and filled both of our wineglasses. She handed me mine, watching me with a level of amusement she usually reserved for my children as she sipped. “You like him, don’t you?”
I leaned against the counter beside her, mostly so I wouldn’t have to look her in the eyes. I took a long swig, pretty sure the answer was obvious.
Vero drained her glass. She set it down and put an arm around my shoulder. “You know you can’t call him, right? If he figures out who you are, he could blow your alibi to pieces. You said it yourself. We have to get rid of anything that could tie us back to the Micklers.” I knew she was right. And yet, I couldn’t make myself get rid of his number. “You think we should kill him, just to be sure?”
“No!” I turned to gape at her. “We didn’t kill anyone! And we’re not going to kill anyone! Not Andrei Borovkov. And definitely not Julian. This is it. End of story.”
Vero laughed, her cheeks flushed from the wine. “Relax, I was only kidding!”
I popped open the phone and threw the SIM card in the garbage disposal. Water poured from the tap, and Vero’s laughter died as I flipped the wall switch. We both started at the sudden grind of metal on metal. The sound trailed down my spine, dragging a shiver from me as our last tie to Patricia Mickler rattled down the drain.
CHAPTER 19
I’d learned two very important lessons having a sister for a cop. One, you can find almost anyone on the internet. And two, you’re more likely to get caught committing crimes in your own home than in plain sight.
Which was why I was committing mine in my local public library.
The kids were with Steven for the weekend, and Vero was home studying for her midterm accounting exams. I hadn’t exactly been lying when I’d told her I was going to the library to do research for the book. How else was I going to know what happened in the next chapter of the mystery surrounding the Micklers if I couldn’t figure out where Patricia went?
I claimed a seat at the last workstation in the back of the room and opened a browser. Then I typed in Patricia’s name, scouring social media sites and white pages for any information I could find about her: neighborhoods where she used to live, people she was close with, places she frequented … In less than an hour I was yawning, and not one step closer to finding her. Patricia Mickler’s life made mine look glamorous by comparison. With the exception of her office, the animal shelter where she volunteered, and the weekly Pilates class she’d mentioned, it seemed she rarely left the house. Apparently, she had even fewer friends than I did.
Patricia’s online profile featured more animals than people, the only exception being a photo of some shelter volunteers, taken at an adoption event the month prior. Patricia, clearly the oldest of the group, cuddled a white-faced mutt with a patch of black fur covering one eye. The caption said the dog’s name was Pirate, and Aaron—the young, curly-haired volunteer beside her—held the dog’s littermate, Molly.
I clicked over to her friends list, searching for the faces of the volunteers in the photo, but didn’t find any matches. Patricia didn’t appear to connect with them beyond the time she spent at the shelter. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised; the other volunteers were all young, probably in college, and Patricia, betrayed by the smile lines and shadows around her eyes, stuck out from the fresh-faced group like a sore thumb. Maybe this was the reason she chose to compartmentalize that part of her life. Still, she looked younger in the photo than the weary, defeated woman I’d met in the Panera. Happier and more at ease somehow. As if this place were her home, and these animals were her family.
According to public records, Patricia had been an only child and her parents were deceased. From her social media pages, I knew she and Harris had met in college at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown, which meant she’d lived within a four-mile radius of the DC beltway her entire life. I couldn’t see her cashing out and leaving town to start over someplace else alone. She seemed far too timid for a bold move like that. Maybe she was just confused and scared, holed up in a hotel room, too terrified to face what she’d done. Or too afraid of the men Harris had been tangled up with.
Wherever she was, if she didn’t come out of hiding soon, the police were going to find her. And they were going to ask her questions. And those questions would inevitably lead them to me. She’d paid me for a job. And I’d told her I had done it. As far as the police were concerned, it would seem like an open-and-shut case. My only hope was to find her first and explain to her what had happened. That I hadn’t been the one to kill her husband. Maybe, together, we could find a way to prove those other two men were guilty.