That gave me pause. “We don’t know for sure that they knew each other.”
He rolled his eyes. “Come on, Abs. You saw the tape. He recognized her and was happy to see her.”
“I looked him up today,” I admitted.
“Looked him up? Who, Robinowitz?”
I nodded. “I found some stuff in a public records search.”
Dutch scratched the stubble on the end of his chin. “You mean the DUI and the malpractice suits?”
“You did your own research, I see.”
He shrugged. “Nothing in his past is worthy of murder, is it?”
I sighed. “No. It’s not. All the lawsuits appeared to have been settled, and his driving record had been clean for two years. And, even if he’d continued to drink and mess up his life, it’s still not anything I could ever imagine Candice wanting to kill him over.”
Suddenly, Dutch appeared to have a thought. “Abs?”
“Yeah?”
“Candice’s sister, the one who died in the accident, was it a drunk driving incident?”
My brow shot up. “You know, honey, I don’t know. Candice never told me what caused the accident, just that it was raining really hard that day, which is why she gets a little nervous driving in foul weather.”
Dutch scratched at his chin. “What if Robinowitz was somehow involved with that accident?”
I considered that for a minute before I said, “That was twenty years ago, Dutch. You really think Candice would wait twenty years to take her revenge on him?”
“It makes more sense than any other theory we have right now, Edgar.”
“We have no other theory right now.”
“Which is why it makes sense,” Dutch insisted.
“Okay,” I said, getting up and moving to retrieve my new laptop. “Let’s just vet this theory of yours.”
It took us only fifteen minutes to find out that Robinowitz had no connection to the accident that had taken Sam Dubois’ life. There had been only a single car—Sam’s—on a slick, wet stretch of road where she’d lost control and the car had flipped multiple times. The details were awful to read, but the police report had designated it all Sam’s fault, suggesting she was driving too fast for the conditions.
Dutch seemed disappointed to discover his theory for Candice’s motive held no merit. “The thing that really surprises me about your hypothetical,” he said, referring back to our earlier conversation, “is what the heck is Candice doing driving around on the highway when she knows there’s a citywide search for her and that car?”
I frowned. It hadn’t even occurred to me how risky that was. Candice’s car was flashy, and her face and that car had been all over the news, so why would she risk driving around town when she could so easily be spotted? “It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense when you know how careful and cautious Candice usually is,” I agreed.
Dutch nudged me with his knee. “All of this is totally out of character for her, dollface.”
“There has to be something up with Robinowitz,” I said. “Candice would never just shoot an innocent man, Dutch. I know her, and she’d never do that.”
“Babe,” he said soberly, reaching out to take my hand. “Even if he proves to be the lowest scum on earth, Candice still murdered him. And even though I’ve agreed to let you investigate this on your own without protest, I’m worried that you haven’t really wrapped your head around the fact that, in the eyes of the law, Candice is a cold-blooded killer. The DA will be looking at murder one, and given the brutality of the crime and the fact that by all accounts Robinowitz was an upstanding citizen, they may even go for the death penalty.”
My breath caught because I realized Dutch was right. My best friend had murdered a man in cold blood, and whatever her reasons, none would ever be good enough to justify her actions in the eyes of the law. I blinked hard, but my vision still blurred with oncoming tears. If and when Candice was caught, the best she could hope for was life behind bars. The worst was that her life would end in a prison execution chamber. However I hoped to help her, I’d never be able to erase what she’d done.
Dutch seemed to understand what I was thinking because he pulled me out of my seat and into his lap. “Hey,” he whispered as I cried bitter tears. “Edgar, don’t cry.”
“I don’t know how to help her or what to do,” I whimpered.
“I know, sweetheart. Me either. So for now, we’ll just be her friend, continue to work on the facts, and keep an open mind until we know why she did what she did, okay?”
I hugged him tightly. I hoped he knew how much I loved him for saying that.
* * *
At two in the morning I crept out of the house and over to the Witts’. I’d left Dutch snoring away in our bed, and part of me had thought long and hard about leaving his side to come back for the file. The truth was, I didn’t want to look in it. I wanted to leave it where it was and never think about it again, because something told me that the second I looked into that file, I’d be falling down a rabbit hole with no easy way out.
The thing that’d finally gotten me to sneak out of the house and over to the Witts’ was knowing with an absolute certainty that Candice would never give up on me so easily. So I shrugged on a pair of leggings and Dutch’s big hoodie sweatshirt, slipped out the back door, through the gate, and over to my neighbors’ garage. For a few seconds I hid by the side of their house while I scoped out the street. Seeing no one else about, I crept to the house and put in the code. The door opened and the light inside came on. I ducked low and shimmied under the door, then hit the garage button on the inside quickly to lower the door again. Once it was all the way down, I moved to the terra-cotta pot I’d hidden the file and the cash in and retrieved the file.
Finding one of those canvas foldout chairs nearby, I sat down and closed my eyes, still silently debating with myself. At last I opened my eyes again and said, “Down the rabbit hole it is.”
I opened the file and took out the first piece of paper. I was quite surprised to find that it contained a DNA test for a Salazar Romero Kato, and an Olive Wintergarden. According to the results of the test, there was a ninety-nine percent chance of a familial relationship.
My brow furrowed. “What the hell is this?” I then caught myself and felt out the pocket of Dutch’s hoodie, which had jingled slightly when I’d put it on. He had fifty cents in the right-hand pocket. I’d get that “hell” for free and a bonus swearword if I wanted.
I looked back at the file and saw, behind the DNA results, a sheet of paper that was blank except for an address. I didn’t know whether the address was local; there was just a number and a street, nothing more. Puzzled, I looked at the paper behind that and found a signed lease agreement for an apartment in Las Vegas, Nevada, which had been prepaid for a year. The lease was made out to ExFactor LLC, and there was a set of keys taped to the lease.
The last few items in the file were equally mysterious. Behind the lease was an envelope containing a Nevada driver’s license with Candice’s somewhat blurry face but her sister’s info. It wasn’t a secret that Candice kept a fake ID using her sister’s name, but I’d never seen it up close until now. I studied the ID; something about it felt off. And then I realized that the height and eye color were wrong. Candice was a few inches taller than me (I’m five-four . . . ish), but the height listed on the ID read five-four. And Candice’s eyes were hazel, yet on the ID they were listed as green.
I felt sad as I read the stats, because I figured that Candice was using her sister’s height and eye color just to be consistent with her sister’s real height and eye color. It was a wonder no one at the Nevada DMV noticed, but then, why would they scrutinize something like that? Behind the ID was a corporate credit card that looked freshly minted. It was shiny with no scratch marks and the back hadn’t been signed yet. The name on the card was also ExFactor and there was an additional
small scrap of paper with four digits at the back of the file. The digits were 6168. Curious, I called the number on the back of the credit card, plugged in the account number, and when it asked for the last four digits of the primary account holder’s Social Security number, I typed in 6168.
“You have a prepaid credit balance of two hundred thousand dollars. No payment is due at this time.”
I ended the call and stood up to pace the garage. Nothing in the file made any sense at all and for the life of me I couldn’t understand why Candice thought them worth killing for. What did a DNA test, a street address, an apartment lease, and a prepaid credit card have to do with Dr. Robinowitz?
Unless . . .
I stopped pacing and looked at the DNA test. “Maybe Robinowitz was trying to get his hands on the test and maybe the apartment is where these two family members are hiding, and maybe the credit card . . .”
I sighed heavily. I had no good working theory for why Candice would want Robinowitz dead, but at least I had a few names to investigate. I’d start with the address on the sheet of paper. With any luck, the Google search would come back with a listing in Vegas and a piece of the puzzle would slide into place.
With another sigh I closed up the file and moved back over toward the flowerpot. Just as I was about to put it back in its hiding place, however, my radar pinged with a warning. I hesitated and focused on that ping.
What I felt was that it was a bad idea to put the file back in the flowerpot. In fact, I had a feeling I needed to take the file and the wad of cash in the bottom of the flowerpot with me over to my house. But where could I hide them? On the off chance that the cops came to our house with a warrant, they’d find them for sure, wouldn’t they?
And then the image of my walk-in closet came to my mind.
Dutch and I had his and hers closets, and in mine, above the top shelf was a return air vent that was missing the screws. Dave, our handyman/builder, had pointed it out to me right before we’d closed on the house, and he’d promised to come over and secure the vent, but three months later he had yet to deliver on that promise. The vent could easily be popped out, I knew, because, not wanting the thing to drop on my head, I’d wiggled it free just to see how secure it was without the screws. It seemed to be a snug fit even without the screws, so I hadn’t bothered to pester Dave about it, and now that I thought about the vent, I figured it was at least a decent hiding place for the file and cash.
With my mind made up, I tucked the items into the waistband of my leggings, pulled the sweatshirt down low, and hit the button for the garage door.
Ducking under the door, I typed the code into the pad quickly, and the door never rose above my waist before closing again. I crossed my fingers that no one had seen me as I hurried away from the Witts’.
Slipping back inside the house, I waited by the door, listening for any hint that Dutch might be up and looking for me, but the house was quiet and not even Eggy and Tuttle seemed disturbed by my night-crawling.
Tiptoeing into the bedroom, I didn’t relax until I heard the sound of Dutch’s soft snores. I took great care not to make any noise as I eased into my closet, closed the door, and flipped on the light. Using the small step stool I kept in the corner, I reached up and pulled the vent cover free, slipped the file and the cash into the hole, and felt like I’d just done the exact perfect thing. It never occurred to me that I’d actually just avoided a disaster.
Chapter Five
• • •
Dutch shook me awake the next morning around five thirty. “What’s happened?” I said, jerking myself awake. I’d been in a deep sleep.
“It’s our neighbors,” Dutch said. “They’ve had a B and E.”
“They . . . what?” I gasped, blinking furiously to try to shake the grogginess making my thoughts feel fuzzy.
“The Witts,” Dutch explained, pulling on his jeans and the sweatshirt I’d worn just a few hours before. “The cops are next door and I got a call from the security company. Someone called in some suspicious activity at their place last night and the cops just arrived.”
I stared slack-jawed at Dutch. “They . . . what?”
Dutch smirked and kissed my forehead. “Go back to sleep,” he said. “I’ll find out what’s going on and fill you in later.”
He left me to sit there and stare about the room, trying to make sense of what he’d just told me. And then I was also in motion. Throwing off the bedcovers, I reached for my leggings again and a sweater from the dresser and ran after him.
I found Dutch standing at the top of the Witts’ drive talking to an officer who was taking the report. There were two patrol cars parked in front of our neighbors’ house and the front door was open. Inside I could see more cops searching the place and even through the door I could tell the house was a mess.
I let Dutch do all the talking as he explained the Witts were out of town and we were keeping an eye on the place. I learned from the cop that the Witts’ security system had been overridden and if not for the call from the neighbor across the street who saw the bounce of a flashlight beam through one of their windows, no one would have been the wiser until the Witts returned home.
I gulped when I thought about the chance I’d taken by using the Witts’ garage as a hiding place for the file, and then I had a terrible thought that I wanted to shrug off, but couldn’t.
What if the break-in had been related to the one at my office? What if the intruder had been looking for that file?
I turned my head up and down the street, seeing all the hiding places for someone to watch me unnoticed while I slipped into the Witts’ garage and came out twenty minutes later. Playing devil’s advocate, if I were the person who’d vandalized our offices looking for that file and discovered it gone, I’d stick close to Candice’s best friend just to see if she did anything suspicious, and going into a neighbor’s house via the garage in the dead of night was certainly worth investigating. I could easily see how the perp had assumed I’d hidden it somewhere on their premises.
Little did he or she know, however, that I’d taken it with me when I came back out. I felt a chill sneak up my spine when I thought about it, because if the perp hadn’t found the file at the Witts’, would he or she assume it was back at our place?
I looked nervously over at our home. After we’d had a really big scare on the day of our wedding, Dutch had installed top-of-the-line security for us complete with cameras, motion detectors, motion lights, silent alarms, and even a fully stocked panic room. We were as tight as Fort Knox, but maybe the Witts had thought that too?
I hung out next to Dutch for the next half hour as he called the Witts and explained what’d happened. Dina Witt had taken the call and she was quite distraught, asking Dutch to take some pictures of the damage to text to her. I went with him inside the house and it looked a whole lot like my office. Broken and overturned furniture, every drawer opened and emptied, clothing pulled out of closets and bureaus, even the cupboard had not been spared—nor the dishes in the cabinet. The garage had barely been searched, only a few things were out of place there, and I could tell that whoever had been watching me had thought I’d merely entered the home through the garage, and hadn’t thought to hide anything there. The flowerpot with the bag of potting soil on top remained where I’d left it, neatly tucked on a shelf.
Heading back inside, given the mess, I couldn’t really tell what might’ve been taken, except of course the obvious empty jewelry case on the floor of Dina and Scott’s bedroom.
I heard her start to cry when Dutch called her back and told her about that. He hadn’t wanted to send her a photo without bracing her.
Later, we walked back over to our place and Dutch started a pot of coffee. I sat forlornly in a chair feeling huge waves of guilt because I was convinced the robbery at the Witts’ and the robbery at my office weren’t a coincidence.
It was a few seconds before I
realized Dutch was staring at me with his arms crossed and an expectant look on his face. “What?” I asked.
“That’s what I should ask you,” he said.
My brow furrowed.
“What’re you hiding from me, Edgar?”
I pressed my lips together. I didn’t want to lie to him anymore, but I couldn’t tell him about that file until I knew why Candice wanted me to hide it and why someone was so intent on getting their hands on it. I stared at the ground and shook my head. “Dutch . . .”
“This is serious, Edgar.”
I lifted my chin. “Don’t you think I know that?”
Thumbing over his shoulder toward the Witts’, he said, “That’s the same guy that hit your office. I doubt he got the addresses mixed up. The other night you called me from the inside of what sounded like a warehouse, but now I’m thinking it might’ve been the Witts’ garage. What the hell was over there?”
I pressed my lips together again.
“Was it Candice’s laptop?” he asked.
I stared him in the eye. “No.”
“Then what? What’s over there, Edgar?”
I kept looking him in the eye and said, “Nothing. There’s nothing there.”
“Was whatever you were hiding for Candice taken?” he asked.
I said nothing. Dutch was starting to figure all of this out and I wanted him to stop.
“You’re not going to tell me?” he asked after a long silence.
“I can’t.”
Dutch’s jaw clenched. He didn’t like that answer. “Okay,” he said after another long silence. “How about hypothetically, then?”
I almost chuckled, but he didn’t seem like he thought it was funny. “Listen,” I began. “Candice asked me to keep something safe for her, and she asked me to promise not to tell anybody what it was, so, until she tells me different, I’m keeping it secret.”
“Is it a weapon?” Dutch asked, and I knew he was thinking it might be the gun she had used to shoot Robinowitz.