Her lawyer said, “You can go back to your cell if you wish. You don’t have to speak with her.”
Clara blanched at the mention of her cell. Catherine had suspected that taking away her freedom would be a devastating blow to the woman. She expected to always do what she wanted, when she wanted.
Catherine really wanted to know why. What was the trigger? The cons, the honey traps, even killing Becca McCarthy, Catherine understood. But why Emily Masters and the others?
But to get her to talk, Catherine needed to be sneaky. She needed to appeal to Clara’s vanity and her deep need to be seen as intelligent—then tell her that she wasn’t.
“For more than seven years you held a grudge against Emily Masters. You must have planned this for a long time. And if you’d ended with her and her husband, walked away, I don’t think we would have ever caught you. Another unsolved murder. But then you targeted the Blairs. The Avilas. And the FBI is really good at catching serial killers who are so obvious with their victim choices.”
Clara snorted, didn’t speak.
“Taking two federal agents was really not very smart,” Catherine said.
Clara reddened, remained silent.
“Do you want to go?” the lawyer asked. The firm should have sent a senior partner, someone who would have shut this down and walked Clara out of the interview room.
“No,” she said, then turned to Catherine. “Hypothetically, because I’m not admitting to anything.”
“Hypothetically,” Catherine agreed.
“Emily had always been a stuck-up snob who thought she was better than me—I mean, better than everyone. Is it any surprise that when she bragged about bagging some rich dufus and moving to Florida that someone might take offense?”
“So you stalked her, found out where she was going on her honeymoon, and set up the factory just for her.”
“Nope,” Clara said, gloating. “Not going there.”
“No, it wasn’t the factory, not at first,” Catherine said. She’d read Matt and Kara’s reports multiple times. “You brought her to the farmhouse. Which I bet you bought because of that cage in the basement.”
Clara grinned, but didn’t speak.
“We found her wedding ring outside the house,” Catherine said. “Tying Emily to the farmhouse.”
Clara shrugged.
“So you convinced Garrett to set up the factory. Because we both know you didn’t have the brains to set up those elaborate traps and pitfalls.”
“I’m smart enough to do anything!” she snapped. “Garrett had no imagination, he just—” She stopped talking.
“He had fun with it,” Catherine said. “Maybe got into it because you convinced him that Emily had hurt you, that she was your arch enemy. And when they died, you thought oh, maybe someone will know that you knew her, so you targeted another, similar couple. I don’t even think you knew you were targeting women who looked like Becca McCarthy.” The realization hit Catherine just then. Each woman looked more and more like Becca, until Kara, who could have been her sister. They had thought “blonde, blue” but it was more than that.
Clara hated the women because she thought they might remindGarrettof Becca, so she wanted to not only kill them, but have Garrett participate in their murders as a form of subtle manipulation. If Garrett killed women who looked like Becca, shecould imagine that he was with her when she killed Becca all those years ago. She could convince herself that hewouldhave killed her.
“I don’t even know who you’re talking about,” Clara said. She tried to cross her arms in front of her, but her wrists were chained to the ring on the table.
“Ventura County Sheriff’s Department found Becca McCarthy’s body near Sespe Creek. They’re running tests, but so far everything matches Becca.”
Clara’s lips twitched into a smile, but she didn’t say a word.
She was pleased with herself. No remorse for her actions.
“Lily and her son will make a full recovery,” Catherine said. “You’re really lucky there. My team was skeptical about my analysis. Some of them thought Franklin had slept with you and you blackmailed him to help Garrett, but no. You’d always planned on killing him and his family for the crime of rejecting you.”
Clara suddenly slammed her fists down on the table. “No onehas ever rejected me.”
“That’s not true. Your mother. Your father. They didn’t know what to do with you because you were so different from them.”
“Arrogant jerks. Both of them. Mother’s probably hiding in her big house not wanting to face anyone.Oh, your daughter was arrested! Oh, you poor dear.”Clara laughed. Then she couldn’t stop.
