He had to have googled her, so he would know that Lindsay was the one who found Hope after the accident—or at least that she was the local police chief’s daughter. The fact that he was pretending to be unaware of that confirmed their suspicions.

She and Ellie had spent the last two days nailing down the evidence, with Carter Decker digging in as well. They both felt more than a little anxious being here in Wichita without telling Decker what they were up to after all of his cooperation, but they were far outside the lines of a typical criminal case. To Decker, Alex Lopez was just another case, and Steve Thompson was just another suspect. She and Ellie were fighting for the people they loved.

Lindsay forced a polite smile. “Granted, cases of retrograde amnesia spanning that many years are rare. But so too would be the case of someone managing to fake it successfully for that long.”

Thompson held up his hands in mock surrender.

“So does the name Tara King mean anything to you?” Lindsay already knew that Decker had reached out to Thompson after connecting the necklace he found on Alex Lopez’s boat to the shooting of Richard Mullaney.

Thompson shook his head. “Never heard it until I got a call from a Long Island detective on, let’s see, it must have been Tuesday. A guy named Decker? My understanding now is that Tara babysat for the family a few times. They met her through their charitable work.”

“I’m surprised a babysitter wasn’t on your radar,” Lindsay said. “I would have assumed you’d look into every person who might have access to the house.”

“Well, you’d assume right. We got a complete list of the house staff from Mrs. Locke. Also a list of anyone who might possibly have a key. No Tara King.”

“So why wasn’t Tara on the list?” she asked.

He shrugged. “You’d need to ask someone else. I worked with the list I had.”

According to Decker, Melanie had said they never entrusted spare keys to part-time babysitters, but according to Jess, Hope had been able to let herself into the house.

By the time the waiter brought their orders, Lindsay was telling Thompson about the secret Facebook group she had found of women who claimed to have been groomed and sexually assaulted by Richard Mullaney.

“I’ve never heard anything about any kind of group like that,” he said.

The group didn’t actually exist, so his response wasn’t surprising. “But what about the underlying allegations themselves?” she asked. “Nothing like that came up when you were investigating Mullaney’s murder?”

“Not once.” He sounded appropriately shocked.

“But what about since then? It’s been fifteen years. The Me Too movement. Women are coming forward in ways they never have before.”

“Well, if they have with respect to Richard Mullaney, I can’t speak to that.”