Chapters (29)
“Exactly. This is another form of what we saw with Peitra Jonet. In that case, he padded the amount of the invoice. Here, he made it look as if work he quoted was completed and paid for. Christ, Rena. This is not good. I think he’s laundering money.”
“Laundering money,” she repeated. Running illegally obtained money through a legitimate business to clean it. “Drugs? Prostitution? Porn. Oh God, please don’t let it be adolescent porn.”
“Sick fucks,” he said in agreement. “I don’t know. I think the only thing we can do is ask him.”
“Now?”
“Yeah. My guess is he’s not sleeping anyway.”
It was a fast drive back to the Whitmans’. Not a lot of traffic on the roads at four in the morning. They were just blocks away when Rena’s cell buzzed. “Who is texting me now?” she said, pulling her phone from her bag.
She read the message. Read it a second time to make sure that her tired eyes weren’t playing tricks on her. “It’s from Corrine Antler’s mom. Remember how she said that she’d been to Baywood once, to a wedding shower for her sister. It was hosted by a bridesmaid.”
“Yeah.”
“The bridesmaid was Kara Hamilton. Now Kara Wiese.”
A.L. turned to look at her. “Kara Wiese hosted a bridal shower for Patsy Antler’s sister. I’m guessing if she was a bridesmaid, then she was a pretty close friend of the sister. What do you think the chances are that she didn’t know that her friend’s niece had disappeared from her day care when she was five?”
Rena had opened her notebook and was reviewing the notes they’d taken that day. “Sister’s name is Toni Krider. Lives in Denver. Bridesmaid who hosted was her sister’s college roommate.” She closed her notebook. “Kara knew. There’s no way she didn’t know. But I guess we ask the sister to make sure.”
“Yeah. See if you can get the sister’s contact information from Patsy.”
Rena sent the text to Patsy Antler.
“What the hell does this mean?” A.L. asked. “Kara never mentioned it to us. Never said that what happened with Emma Whitman was eerie because it had happened before to someone she knew. You know how earlier you were pissed because everything had a reasonable explanation. Well, that’s the reasonable thing she should have said to us. But she didn’t.”
A.L. was right. “I think we need to be watching her,” Rena said.
“Agree. Get Faster to approve,” he said.
Rena picked up her phone again. She was getting a lot of people up early this morning.