“What I mean is, Ms. Randolph was a witness to a crime I am investigating. I talked to her, got her statement, and now need to clarify something in the statement. Yet she never told me she was leaving town.”

“I wouldn’t know. I just work in the same firm. It’s a big company. She sent out an email asking if someone could lease her place for a year and watch her cats, and I’d just broken up with my boyfriend and was living with a friend on the couch and this place is amazing. And she’s not even charging me what it would be worth because I’m taking care of the place and stuff.”

“Who’s her direct supervisor?”

“Well, Mr. Hollinger.”

“And before she left?”

“Ms. Parker.

“Faith Parker?” Lucy asked.

“Yes. Do I need to call her?”

“No,” Jennifer and Lucy said simultaneously.

Jennifer said, “Thank you for your time.”

Jennifer didn’t say a word until they got back to her truck. “Well, fuck this,” she said. She picked up her phone and called someone. “Mike?… It’s Jen Reed. I need a meet first thing in the morning, and I’m bringing a fed with me. I have a juicy case and we need to bring in all the big guns.”

“Who’s Mike?” Lucy asked when Jennifer hung up.

“Michael Flores. Assistant district attorney. We go way back, he’ll listen to me. So be prepared, because I need to sell this and it’s not going to be easy. But fuck if I’m going to have some prick and lawyer lie to me and make me a fool.”

“Jen?” Lucy said. “You are no fool.”

Chapter Thirty

Detective Garrett Douglas didn’t like the feds much, and he really didn’t like that hot bitch fed who cut him out of the loop. What did that say about their so-called community relations? Their wanting to work with all the other agencies? Just lies.

Garrett was a good cop—he knew he was a good cop—but he was a small-town deputy. He’d just been going through hell three years ago, it wasn’t his fault.

He’d asked Carl about the Albright case, and Carl told him what he’d told him three years ago. And Garrett had no reason not to believe him.

Except … there was something bugging him. And he couldn’t figure out what it was.

He went home Thursday evening, bringing all the Albright files with him. He’d looked at them on Monday, but he wanted to look at them again. To make sure that he or Carl hadn’t missed anything. Double-check.

Because there was one thing that he was pretty sure about. The fed was right, and the Albrights had never left the country. They’d been murdered that Friday. All but the boy.