“Cherish Daney told me she tried to open Rand up, wished she’d been more effective. For his sake. But what if she had another motive? What if she found out what Drew had done, wanted Rand to come forward about Drew’s involvement in Kristal’s murder?”

He let out a couple of barking coughs, cleared his throat. “Good evening to you, too. Where’d all this come from?”

“You’ve been saying all along Cherish had to know something. Maybe she had suspicions but was able to deny them until she finally came upon something blatant.”

“Like what?”

“Trophies. Someone with Drew’s control obsession might very well keep some. He got a kick out of sneaking around Cherish, a hidden cache would be great fun. But arrogance leads to carelessness. Maybe he slipped up and left something for her to find. Or all those trips with ‘assistants’ got her suspicious and she started to snoop around the house. If she’s anything but a monster herself, finding hard evidence of Drew’s crimes would horrify her. She’d also be scared on a selfish level: If the truth ever came out, she was sure to come under suspicion as an accomplice. One way to deal with all that would be to come forward with evidence of her own and bail. Having Rand corroborate Drew’s involvement in Kristal’s murder would be a big step in that direction.”

“Daney molests and murders for years and she’s Little Miss Clueless until now?”

“Nothing we’ve learned so far says she did anything worse than exceed the foster limit. Beth Scoggins said she filled her days cooking, cleaning, and teaching. My bet is she kept busy so as not to think.”

“Not to mention seven grand a month.”

“For Drew it was the money,” I said. “Maybe for her, too. But she drives an old heap and lives simply. Plus you saw how she worked with Valerie. Patient, despite Valerie’s resentment.”

“The dutiful hausfrau,” he said. “Meanwhile Drew’s out doing his sperm thing . . . I’m still not convinced she’s squeaky clean, but fine, let’s run with it. She wants Rand to rat out Drew, does therapy with him, then what?”

“She fails. The most common errors unqualified therapists make are moving too fast and talking too much. Toss in Cherish’s anxiety and she’d have come on way too strong. She needed Rand to ‘see’ that Drew had contracted Troy to kill Kristal. Whether or not he had.”

“She tried to plant it in his head?”

“It started during prison visits. Hinting around, hoping to set off a spark in Rand’s head. Rand was a submissive personality, impressionable, so perhaps he actually recalled something— seeing Drew talk to Troy shortly before the murder, an offhand comment by Troy about Drew. Or he thought he did. Because an adult mastermind would be welcome news for him. Reduce his own culpability.”