It was possible Cecelia had been closer to her mother and felt she needed to take care of her rather than flying the coop. Olivia may have simply wanted her freedom. Just because they were twins on the outside didn’t mean their inner hopes and dreams were in any way similar.
“The files from the original investigation,” Jack said, drawing her attention back to him, “should have been delivered to the office today.”
She would check with Nita, then stop back by the office and pick them up if they’d been delivered. “Do we know who’s representing Holmes?”
“That’s the icing on the cake. Theodore Siniard.” Jack grimaced. “There’s something about that guy. He gets under my skin. I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him. He’s a snake in the grass.”
Finley opted not to point out that plenty of his colleagues considered Jack a snake. But he was right about Siniard. He was a little oilier than most. How the hell had Holmes managed to land Siniard? The Legard name, she supposed.
“When you speak to your father, don’t mention this case. I’d like to see how this shakes down before the news that I’m representing the Legards gets out.”
Finley eyed her boss speculatively. Well, well . . . the stakes had just risen to the next level. “So, my mother is the judge who drew the case.”
“I’m hoping she’ll recuse herself,” Jack offered.
Not a chance. Her mother would die first. “I won’t hold my breath on that one.”
“When there’s nothing else, Fin, there’s always hope.”
She wasn’t holding her breath on that either.
This felt like the perfect opportunity. She went for it. “Are you ever going to tell me what happened between you and the Judge?”
His silver eyes narrowed to slits. “You kick a guy when he’s vulnerable, do ya?” He grunted. “And they call me ruthless.”
“I should get to work,” she said rather than waste time arguing an unwinnable case. “You need to go by the office on your way home and take your penance.”
He groaned. “I haven’t had a drink in nearly five years. Don’t I get credit for not screwing up my record?”
“Sure. It’s the disappearing act that has you on Nita’s bad side. You should have called.”
He growled. “We’ve worked together for a lot of years—this is the first time I have failed to call.”
“Even if you’re a model citizen your whole life,” Finley reminded him, “and then you kill someone, you’re still a murderer.”
Which begged a question: Why did having lunch with Sophia Legard push Jack so close to falling off the edge?
4
9:20 p.m.
Legard Residence
Lealand Lane
Nashville
Finley sat in the darkness of her car. She’d begged off Matt’s dinner invitation. Worse, she’d done it via text and then turned off her phone. He would forgive her. Work was his obsession too. He was just a little better at appearing to balance work and his personal life. She’d never quite refined that skill.
Derrick hadn’t minded. He’d respected her dedication.
So, like most evenings, tonight she had spent hours going through the Legard case file. She’d read every single report. The interviews. The autopsy. And she’d done some research into what the daughters and the mother had been up to for the past five years.
Sophia Legard, the mother, had taken the reins of her husband’s company. As it turned out, he’d been involved in far more than the music label. He had dabbled in property development and the stock market. The Legards’ current worth was several times more now than before the murder. Part of that, of course, could be ascribed to the recent real estate boom. The majority, however, was related to far wiser investing in the market. The wife had a knack, it seemed, for choosing well.
Did that include her friends? At fifty-nine she was two years younger than Jack. It was conceivable they knew each other. Nashville wasn’t that large. Both were high-profile people. It was certainly even possible they were friends. She thought of how her boss had felt the need for his first drink in years after a single meeting with Sophia Legard and how he’d averted his eyes when they’d talked about her. Finley made a mental note to look into the possibility the two had a personal history.
The daughter Cecelia was suspected of being agoraphobic. According to social media and various style and social bloggers, she had left the house less and less over time. She had no assets of her own that Finley could locate. No driver’s license. She looked basically the same—at least in the most recent photo available on the World Wide Web. Her hair was short now, in one of those neck-hugging shaggy styles considered to be cute and sexy. Dark-brown eyes, like Finley’s. If anything, Cecelia was thinner than before.