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“Yeah,” Jason said thoughtfully. “She didn’t look too happy.”
14
THE FOLLOWING DAY, Caroline stood near her father’s bed and carefully arranged the dozens of flowers, potted plants, balloons and cards that had arrived daily since the shooting. He’d been moved out of the intensive care unit and into a private room and could finally accept personal items.
While the judge spent most of his time sleeping, he’d been awake for intermittently longer periods of time. Not wanting to tire him out, Caroline had sat quietly reading.
Jason was never more than a few steps away, although she noted that his guard seemed to be lowering a bit, now that her father had regained consciousness. He seemed convinced that the judge would eventually recall exactly who had come to his door that fateful night, and that an arrest was imminent.
Now he stood by the windows, conversing in low tones with Deputy Black and two FBI agents. Caroline glanced at her father, but he was sound asleep, his mouth slack. The last thing she wanted was for him to overhear any of the conversation and become distressed.
Seeing him so relaxed, she turned her ear to Jason’s discussion. She knew the FBI had recovered fingerprints from the beach house in Santa Cruz but had not been able to come up with a match. They’d also pulled a second partial footprint from the soil beside the house that seemed to match the one they’d retrieved from the Sea Cliff house.
There was no longer any doubt that whoever had attacked her father had also ransacked the beach house.
“This involved more than one person,” Jason said. “Unless they brought a ladder, which there’s no evidence they did, one person couldn’t have reached the electrical service drop without help.
The FBI agents seemed in agreement with his assessment, and they had stepped up security at both the houses and the hospital. They had set up a command post of sorts outside her father’s room, with several laptops and communications systems that allowed them to speak to their teams located outside the hospital.
“The neighbors can’t recall seeing or hearing anything unusual at the house in Santa Cruz,” the first agent said. “They said there was a downpour that evening that drove everyone indoors for about two hours. My guess is that’s when the perps entered the house. They may have even parked their car outside the area, so as not to arouse suspicion.”
“What about the footprint?” Jason asked. “Are you sure it’s a match to the one found at the primary residence?”
“Absolutely,” the second agent said. “The rain actually worked in our favor, since it softened the soil. Again, it’s only a partial print, as if the perp was walking on his or her toes.”
“Her?” Jason’s voice sharpened.
“It’s only a theory,” the first agent said. “We don’t have the complete footprint, so there’s no way of telling the exact size of the shoe, but it looks to be on the small side. So it could be a male with smaller feet or it could be a female.”
Caroline watched as Jason’s face grew thoughtful; then he excused himself and walked over to where she sat. She stood up and drew him over toward the door, out of earshot.
“I heard,” she said. “Why would any woman do this?”
Jason shook his head. “I don’t know. Did your father ever mention a female friend? Someone he was seeing, either romantically or maybe as a friend?”
“No,” she said fervently, keeping her voice low. “To my knowledge, my father lived like a monk after he lost my mother. He never once brought a woman back to the house, and if he ever had a date, I didn’t know about it.”
Jason smiled grimly. “No doubt part of his plan to keep you innocent.”
She gaped at him. “Are you telling me that my father did have relationships?”
He gave her a helpless look. “He’s a man, Caroline. He’s also wealthy and powerful. I’m sure there are a lot of women who find him very attractive. Just because he didn’t bring them home, or tell you about them, doesn’t mean they didn’t exist.”
She felt a little stunned. “But I wanted him to date,” she said. “I used to try to play matchmaker for him, and he’d just laugh and tell me that he was a hopeless cause. He said I was the only girl for him. Eventually, I just gave up, because he seemed so dead set against it.”
“He was only dead set against bringing another woman into your life,” Jason said softly. “He loved your mother very much, and I don’t think he ever wanted to replace those memories. He wanted you to remember her, too.”
