Beth Ann’s breath quickened. “What? My sister had a baby? When?”
Ellie had met with dozens of liars during the cases she’d worked. Beth Ann’s reaction was honest, as honest as it got.
She pulled a photo of the suicide note and set her phone on the table in front of Beth Ann. “I’m not sure of the timing. This is the note we found with your sister.”
Beth Ann leaned forward and read it, her eyes widening.
Seconds later, she looked up at Ellie, a myriad of emotions in her expression. “Oh, my God, Minnie had a little girl named Iris.” A guttural sob caught in her throat. “I… didn’t know.”
Ellie nodded thoughtfully. “Your parents said the same thing.”
A flash of anger flared across Beth Ann’s face. “They did?”
“Your father completely denied it, and your mother just broke down.”
Beth Ann stood and paced in front of the island, clenching and unclenching her fists.
“Did Minnie have any close friends?” Ellie asked. “Someone she may have confided in or called after she left home?”
Beth Ann thought for a minute, then grabbed a pen and notepad and jotted down a name. “Janet Rodgers. I don’t knowif they hung out that last year Minnie was at home, especially the last six months because Minnie didn’t want to be around anyone. But I guess it’s possible that Minnie reached out to her.”
“Did you try talking to Janet?” Ellie asked.
Frustration darkened Beth Ann’s eyes. “I went by Janet’s house once, but she claimed she hadn’t seen or talked to Minnie in months.”
“How about her teachers? Or the school counselor?” Ellie asked.
Beth Ann shrugged. “Maybe she’d turn to one of them, but I don’t know.”
Ellie took the paper with the girl’s name on it. “Thanks. I’ll talk to Janet.”
“If my sister was pregnant and didn’t want anyone to know, that might explain her withdrawal before she left home,” Beth Ann murmured, her expression tortured as her mind obviously raced to fill in the blanks. “If she’d told me, maybe I could have helped.”
“Don’t blame yourself, Beth Ann.” Ellie squeezed her hand. “Do you think your parents might have lied to me and that they did know about the baby? That perhaps that’s the reason your father and Minnie fought that night you said she was so upset?”
Beth Ann spun around, cheeks flaming with anger. “Maybe. If they did know, my father would have had a fit.”
“And that fight might have pushed Minnie to run away,” Ellie surmised.
Beth Ann’s eyes blurred with more tears, then she pressed her hand to her chest and inhaled several deep breaths again. “I guess it could have. Where is Minnie’s little girl now?”
Ellie gave her a sympathetic expression. “That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”
NINETEEN
Crooked Creek Police Department
Ellie’s phone buzzed as she walked to her office at the precinct. Cord. “Hey,” she said when she connected.
“The lost child is not that little girl Iris,” Cord said, obviously anticipating the question on the tip of her tongue. “It was a three-year-old boy named Simon. He got lost from his mother at the park, but we found him in the parking lot. He was playing hide-and-seek with some other kids and another mother spotted him when she was going to her car.”
Ellie breathed a sigh of relief that the child had been found safe. “I hope you and his mother warned him about playing in a parking lot. My God, someone could have run over him.”
“I know. I talked to him and so did his mother. She was practically hysterical.”
“I can understand that.”
Ellie spotted Angelica Gomez, the local news anchor, through the window in her office. The captain greeted her and her cameraman Tom, and they walked to the press room. “I have to give a press conference about Minnie Benton.” She filled him inon the sister’s response. “I’m sure you hated to leave her upset,” Cord said.
