“You know I can’t tell you that,” he said, though I had no doubt that Joshua knew every detail of the investigation. “I will ask you again, though, how you knew exactly where to look and what we might find. You seem to know a lot about something that happened before you were born.”
“Beth told me,” I said. The nurse had pushed me into the elevator, and we were descending. “She told me about Lily Knowles in our interviews, and Ransom Wells gave me the documentation, including the birth certificate. According to Beth, Lily is responsible for the murders of Julian Greer, Thomas Armstrong, Paul Veerhoever, and Lawrence Gage. And there are likely others, too, including a groundskeeper. We just have to find the others.”
There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line. Joshua was playing it close to the vest, which he was so good at. How he’d felt when he’d learned, after forty years, that Beth had a half sister, he hadn’t told me. He was all business when he talked to me about the case. I suspected that maybe, for the first time in a long time, the legendary Detective Black was mad. Really mad.
“So you went to the Greer mansion alone,” he said to me on the phone now as the elevator doors opened and the nurse pushed me down the busy hallway.
“Yes,” I said.
“And you fell over the cliff.”
We’d gone over this before, more than once, but a cop is always a cop. “Yes. I fell.”
“And Beth wasn’t home at the time.”
“You know she wasn’t. She was getting a medical scan done. It’s an ironclad alibi. Beth didn’t push me, I swear.”
“It just seems odd that you would fall over a dangerous cliff on your own. You’re certain you weren’t intoxicated?”
“I’m certain. It was an accident, okay? I stood in the wrong place and leaned the wrong way, and over I went. They really should put a fence up there. It’s dangerous. Now, how about you tell me what the lab is testing and how long it will take?”
The change of subject worked. “I never said there was any lab testing.”
“It was in the statement in the news.”
“No, it said that anything that was collected would be sent for lab testing. You’re as bad as those reporters. There’s nothing to report.”
“No? Then why am I hearing that the DNA tests on the body that was found by the lake are being expedited?”
“Where are you hearing that?”
“Some of those emails in my inbox are from people who hear things. Is it true?”
“I’m hanging up now. Please be careful, Shea. That’s all I ask.”
I thanked him and hung up, thinking Of course I’ll be careful, but I’ve already survived Anton Anders and Lily Knowles, two of Claire Lake’s worst murderers. I can survive Beth Greer.
The nurse pushed me through the front doors of the hospital, and I inhaled the fresh air, taking it in deep even though it was cloudy and cold. The bite of fall felt good in my throat and my lungs. An SUV had pulled up to the curb, and a familiar figure got out.
I thanked the nurse as Michael De Vos took the crutches from her and helped me out of the wheelchair. He was bundled in a wool coat against the chill, and he’d left the stubble on his jaw at my request. He looked woodsy and masculine and all-over good. He smiled at me and kissed me sweetly as I leaned on the crutches.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said.
He opened the passenger door of the SUV. I hesitated for a moment, my gaze on the darkness of the passenger seat.
I glanced at Michael to see him watching me. He looked like he wasn’t in a hurry, as if he could wait all day. “You can do this,” he said.