“I wanted to interview Detective Young,” Lucas said. “He refused to help.”
“He wouldn’t generally be allowed to speak to the media, not on an open case like this,” Olivia said. “Now, he has a clear conflict of interest. I’m going to have to reassign the case.” She looked at her computer, typed, read something. “I’m passing this on to Detective Brian Hernandez. He’ll contact both of you for statements. He’ll have to get up to speed.”
“That’s all I can ask,” Regan said. “Thank you.”
Regan and Lucas left their contact information with the commander and exited the building.
“What now?” Lucas said.
“We wait. I’ll take you home.”
Lucas didn’t look happy. She was more optimistic. The wheels of justice moved slow, but they worked more often than not.
Still, Regan knew how he felt. So she said, “We have a podcast on Tuesday, and if Rachel Wagner is still walking free, we’re going to make her life a living hell.”
Forty
Rachel Wagner needed to know exactly what Lucas Vega knew. Steven had listened to the podcast last night and called her, told her to listen and share with him any insight she had.
She’d already listened to the damn thing and knew that Nicole Bergamo was going to cause her huge problems. If she told the police that Rachel had told her not to share the information about Candace and the truck, Steven would become suspicious. Rachel had been relieved that Nicole hadn’t shared her name on air—until Steven called her. He was obsessed with the podcast, even though he thought Lucas Vega was a novice. Even when Rachel had told him how much the podcast upset her girls, he still thought it was an interesting approach.
“It’s a cold case. I look at it from time to time, mostly sending notices to homeless shelters and hospitals looking for Abernathy. But maybe I need to be looking at the case in a different way.”
That was a problem. A huge problem. Abernathy had to be guilty in Steven’s mind, because that was the only way he wouldn’t look at other possibilities.
Rachel didn’t want to lose everything she had. How could she rebuild again? Rebuilding after everything that had happened in Tucson had been difficult and mentally exhausting. She didn’t want to go through that again.
Rachel waited until first Lucas, then his roommate, left their apartment. She’d parked down the street. His roommate had an overnight bag, and Lucas left with Regan Merritt.
Rachel did not like Regan. She was nosy and trouble, acting like some sort of investigator when she was nothing but a failed cop. Yet, Lucas couldn’t have gotten half this far with his stupid podcast without her. She was just as much to blame as Lucas if Rachel’s carefully built world disintegrated.
Rachel had dressed like a college student, had a jacket with a hoodie—just in case someone saw her, she didn’t want to be recognized. She easily opened the door—the lock was quite simple, and this wasn’t her first rodeo.
In his apartment, she went through Vega’s files. The more she read, the more upset she became. He had made the connection between Candace, Taylor, and Adele. He had a timeline on his wall, and he’d written that Candace had been at “Payson Mine” from Tuesday to Saturday.
How the hell did he figure it out?
Kim was the only person still alive who knew where they had gone and what they had done. Rachel couldn’t imagine that she would have said anything, but what if she had? What if she’d hinted? Was Vega smart enough to figure it out?
Doubtful. But maybe the ex-marshal had.
She didn’t think so, but she couldn’t be certain. Taylor might have told Candace, even though Taylor swore up and down she hadn’t, but if Candace had said anything to Lucas three years ago, why had he waited until now?
On a sticky note on the wall, Lucas had written Was Taylor’s overdose accidental or suicide?
Good. He was thinking what she wanted him to think, that Taylor had killed herself out of guilt for killing Candace. That kept Rachel out of it, exactly as she wanted. If these people needed a guilty party and wouldn’t be satisfied with the drunk, then Taylor was the next best to blame. She’d already laid the groundwork with Steven and with Regan Merritt.
Taylor killed Candace, then killed herself out of guilt because of Lucas’s podcast. Case closed.
Rachel breathed a bit easier, but she still had more to go through.
Lucas’s backpack had notes, a copy of the notes she herself had sent in the hopes that he would drop the podcast—not smart in hindsight, she realized, because Regan had barely left his side since.