Page 63 of You Know Why

“So this isn’t really about the murders. It’s about the money.”

“I think it’s always been about the money. I think he stole from his boss and got busted. I think he ran, and they caught up with him before he got away, because of a total fluke that slowed him down and took him to Atlanta instead of London. Whether they were following, driving, or waiting, I don’t know.”

“Put a pin in that fluke for me, okay? Let’s back up. Andrew came from money, right? The parents were überwealthy?”

“Very.”

“Does he inherit?”

She ticks the side of her nose with her forefinger. “There you go. That’s what I’ve been digging around in. Yes. I spoke to their family lawyer, Aaron Pollan. Andrew gets everything once they move through probate. And it’s a lot of money.”

“But surely if he’s convicted of murdering them, he doesn’t inherit.”

“No. Then it goes to his next of kin.”

“Brooklyn, I assume?”

“Now that’s where it gets tricky. It goes into a trust, which is in her name. But guess who the trustee is?”

He holds her eyes as if staring at them will help him read her mind. “Andrew?”

“Nope. Robert Gussin.”

He sucks in a breath. “Oh. That’s . . . interesting.”

“I thought so, too.”

The server clears their plates, and Drake orders coffee for them both. “I think it’s going to be a long night.”

“You betcha.” He seems to have forgiven her the omission; he has his teeth in the story now.

“All right. Let’s back up even further. How did the Lockes get their money? What did Locke Senior do?”

“Andrew Locke Senior is the grandfather. Locke Junior, the colonel, is his dad, called Andy. Andrew is the third. The money was generational. Colonel Locke had a distinguished military career—Air Force—and then married Lucy Carmichael, who was from Dahlonega. Lucy inherited a substantial amount of wealth from her family, adding to his own fortune. He retired as a bird colonel, and by then Locke Senior was dead, so they moved into the house in Malogen. Upstanding people, community oriented, until Andrew’s murder accusation, at least.”

“And Locke Senior? What did he do?”

“He was Air Force, too, and when he retired, he worked for Lockheed, in their Marietta plant. Rumor mill being what it is, small-town network, all of that, he was supposedly involved with some rather unsavory characters who wanted to get their hands on some of the classified data he was working with. The Soviets were all over the aerospace guys back then. It was the beginning of the Cold War, and they needed to know what our capabilities were. Put it this way: Locke Senior got really rich, really fast. Bought the house, the land, and set up shop as a gentleman farmer.”

“So is this the family business, you think? Passing secrets to our enemies?”

“I don’t know about that. Right now, I’m just relaying rumors. My family’s lived in this town for a long time, too. I remember my dad and Locke Senior getting drunk at a party once, and Locke was rambling on about the fog of war, how men do the craziest things when they don’t see another path out. That men will do things you’d never expect when they’re cornered. They are no better than animals in a trap, desperate to live. That’s what he said. It’s always stuck with me. It’s what I look for in every crime, really, what the suspect might do if they’re cornered. It’s the why behind everything.”

“Money’s not the only reason, Theresa. Love is, too. Love makes people do the most insane things.”

There is something in his voice, longing, maybe? It makes her shift her chair closer to the table. It makes her want to get the check and leave. But they have a job to do.

“This is true,” she says.

“But that’s a long way from Andrew killing Chloe, then a decade later stealing money from his uncle, trying to kill his new wife, and promptly murdering his parents.”

“It is. I’m just trying to lay out all the pieces for you. If this is bigger than just a domestic murder, if there’s some sort of generational criminal action taking place . . . we might need a different approach. We need his military records. We need to know exactly what was happening when he mustered out.”

Their coffee arrives in thick mugs, and Drake doctors his with cream and two sugars. She takes hers black. It is strong, and the heat is welcome. She hasn’t felt warm through since the night of the murders.

“Are Brooklyn and Andrew living within their means?” Drake finally asks. “Racking up debt?”

“No major debt. But he’s been systematically emptying their accounts over the past few months. He had a plan, he saw a way out. No question he was running. He bundled up his family and tried to disappear with them. I think whoever it is he’s running from caught up to him, and that’s why he left Hartsfield. Whoever the curly-headed man is in the video, he got to him, somehow. Andrew put the family on the plane to Italy and thought they’d left. He thought they were safe. Or it’s something worse, and he’s been snatched. Or he’s at the bottom of a lake somewhere. If he was stealing large sums of money . . . People tend to get pissed off when they find out they’ve been cheated.”