Page 3 of I’ll Be Watching You

I should’ve ignored it. But I was a PI, always on call. It could be a lead. Or a family crisis.

“Get it,” Cal said without any hint of frustration or anger. Yeah, he got me. And it felt good. “But,” he added, “unless someone’s bleeding, you’re not leaving tonight.”

“Deal.”

I checked the screen. Local number, but not in my contacts.

“Angelhart,” I answered.

I heard traffic. A car speaker.

“Is this Margo? Dr. Cooper Angelhart’s daughter?”

That hit like a jolt. I stood, crossed to the counter, pulled out a notepad. Cal was watching me.

“This is Margo. Who’s calling?”

“Liz Swanson. I—I probably shouldn’t have called . . .”

The name was familiar. I couldn’t quite place it.

“How do you know my dad?”

“I’m a nurse. I worked with Dr. Cooper for years. He’s a great doctor, and I . . .”

Her voice trailed off.

Liz Swanson. Yeah, I could picture her now. Maybe forty—would be older now—petite, blonde, warm smile.

“Liz. From the VA, I remember. Where are you? Do you want to meet?”

It was after seven. I had planned this long-overdue dinner and sleepover with Cal. But if this was about my father—who was in prison for a murder I knew he didn’t commit—Cal would understand.

“I just got off my shift. I need to talk to my husband first. But Georgia told me to call you.”

My breath caught. “Georgia Rollins?”

“Yes,” Liz said.

Nine months ago, Dr. Devin Klein’s former assistant Georgia Rollins had sent me on a wild-goose chase looking for Klein’s ex-wife who didn’t exist, then Georgia disappeared. When I realized that she’d misled me, I didn’t have an unlimited amount of time to find her. A mortgage and bills required me to actually get paid for most of the cases I worked.

“When did you talk to her?” Maybe she was back in town. I hadn’t been actively looking for Georgia since I joined the family PI business in May. Guilt clawed at the back of my head that I had put my dad’s investigation on the back burner because I was busy with work and, more recently, with Cal.

“Um, back in February, I think? I ran into Georgia at a veterans’ shelter where I volunteer. I was surprised to see her, especially since we’d been friendly when we worked together, then she just up and left after Dr. Klein’s funeral. She explained that she had taken a job out of town, then she asked if I’d talked to you. I said no, why would I? She said you were asking questions about Dr. Klein and if I knew anything that might help Dr. Cooper, I should call you.”

I hadn’t known any of that. The first and last time I saw Georgia was nine months ago, nearly three years after her boss had been murdered in his office. I’d periodically hunted for her, finally locating her working at a hospital in Tucson. I drove down immediately. She was surprised that I wanted to talk to her, but seemed forthcoming. She’d said that Dr. Klein’s murder had her “reevaluating” her life choices and she wanted to start over. She gave me information that didn’t pan out, but when I went back to confront her, I learned she’d quit her job and left no forwarding address.

Which made me think that she had deliberately misled me and bolted.

Why tell this nurse to call me with information when Georgia hadn’t wanted to share the truth with me? Why would she lie to me, but tell Liz to help?

“What do you know?” I asked, my tone harsh. I tempered it and asked, “I mean, why are you calling now? My dad went to prison over three and a half years ago.” It would be four years in March.

“I didn’t know anything, not then.”

Liz sounded defensive, and I didn’t know if that was because she really didn’t know something that might have helped my dad, or if she felt guilty for not coming forward sooner with information.

“Okay,” I said with as much calm as I could muster, “what have you learned since then that you think can help my dad now?”