Page 93 of Bring Them Home

“Well, that’s quite the investigative work.”

Her insides set ablaze with rage. She didn’t need praise from him, nor did she welcome it. There was something off about the marshal. In retrospect, there might have been from the moment he’d shown up tight-lipped and interested in Abigail. “Trent and I looked up who dismissed Abigail’s testimony against Hernandez eight years ago.”

“You said Abigail heard Hernandez tell someone to kill them all,” Trent put in.

“Sure, but there was no context.”

“It was during the time of the raid on his warehouse,” Amanda kicked back.

“I know none of it seems to make sense, but he was right to dismiss the testimony.”

“You thought Abigail’s statement had value when you admitted her to WITSEC,” she said, an accusation enclosed in her statement. If it wasn’t for the marshal service lining her up as a key witness, she might still be alive.

“As fun as this has been, I really need to get going.”

“Where?”

“Back to Texas.”

“Was it Judge Anderson who you approached for a search warrant on Hernandez’s residence?” She choked on the judge’s name, though she longed to believe there was an innocent alternative to him being corrupt.

“I’ve gotta go.” With that, he hung up.

“Safe travels,” she said sarcastically to an empty line.

“Anderson? Holy hell,” Trent said.

“Yeah, so I take it he lied to us and returned to Anderson, probably knowing that he’d reject the search warrant on Hernandez’s home.”

“Which we’re assuming, but he approved the one for his rural property. If he is paid to protect Hernandez, why do that?”

“He didn’t figure he had a choice without drawing attention to himself.” She hated she came up with that answer so fast. “The evidence against Hernandez was strong.” She checked the system and confirmed the record showed the search warrant was requested of Anderson. She didn’t want to believe it.

“All right, backing up a bit here,” Trent began. “If Holden went to Anderson knowing he’d reject the second search warrant, why go to him?”

“I’m telling you, there’s something off about Deputy Holden. Think about it. Holden shows up, gives us nothing about Abigail, when he could have spoken up days ago and saved her life.”

“And why did Holden sound so surprised we found Valerie and Brooke Archer alive?”

“And why was he in such a hurry to get off the phone? Is Holden dirty? He could have expected that Anderson would deny the search warrant for Hernandez’s Haymarket house.”

“And if he is dirty, he only turned up in Woodbridge to see if we knew where she was, so he could pass the information along to Hernandez.”

“Nothing much would surprise me at this point.” Not after Anderson…

“Unfortunately, we don’t have anything more than our suspicions here. And it still leaves us at a dead end with getting that search warrant on Hernandez’s residence.”

“Trust me, I’m well aware. We just need fresh evidence.”

“Yeah, that’s all.”

“And Deputy Holden needs to be investigated.” She called Malone and ran him through everything.

“I hope you’re wrong about all of this,” he said.

“That makes both of us.” Even more so about Anderson…

“Well, I’ll reach out to the director of the US Marshals Service. Let him handle Holden. It’s his house to clean up.”