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“Rose, they were looking for something,” Harris said. “Did you have any evidence on you? Something Randall gave you?”
The woman shook her head. “I didn’t have time to pack a bag or anything. Bob gave me some money for clothes.” Harris and Cassie exchanged a look at the mention of the cousin. “What? What is it? Is Bob okay?”
“We think someone took him.” Harris’s voice was gentle, but there was no real way to sugarcoat information like that.
“Took him? Where? Who?”
“Might be the same people who did this.” Harris gestured around the room. “Either way, we should move. You can pack up your stuff, and we’ll take you back to our hotel. Then we’ll figure out what to do from there.”
Rose looked like she was ready to pass out, either from exhaustion or stress or some combination of the two. Still, she pressed her lips together and nodded her head, then gathered her belongings in the duffel bag. Harris took it from her and shouldered it, leading the way out of the room.
Cassie wanted to offer the other woman some words of encouragement, but she knew there was nothing she could say to make her feel any better.
27
Rose entered their hotel room sandwiched between Harris and Cassie. Part of Cassie was worried Rose would bolt at the first available opportunity but reminded herself the woman had nowhere to go. Her best option was to shack up with a couple of complete strangers.
“You can take Cassie’s bed,” Harris said. “She can sleep with me. Or I can sleep on the floor.”
“We can share. It’s not a problem.” They a
ll needed as much rest as possible. “Do you need anything else, Rose? More clothes or vitamins?”
“Food?” Harris offered. “There’s room service. Or one of us could run to the store.”
Rose had been peeking out through the curtains, watching the road below. When she turned around, her eyes were still wide with fear. “No, I’m okay.” When Harris and Cassie leveled her with a look, she sat down on the bed. “Really, I’m okay. I was just out getting something to eat. That’s why I wasn’t in my room. Lucky, I guess.”
“Very lucky.” Harris shrugged out of her jacket. She took a seat on the bed opposite Rose. “I really need to ask you some questions about this whole situation. Are you up for that?”
Rose took a deep breath and blew it out. Face pinched in pain, she grabbed her belly. After shifting around for a second, she looked over at Harris. “I’ll do my best. I don’t know everything. Randall didn’t want me getting mixed up in any of this. But he also couldn’t lie to me.” The smile on her face was sad. “I always got it out of him eventually.” The smile faded, and she looked down at her feet. “Kind of regret that now.”
“Everything Randall did was for you,” Harris said. “He loved you very much.”
“Thanks.” Rose looked exhausted but met Harris’s eyes. “What do you need to know?”
“Do you have any idea how this all started? How your husband got mixed up with Aguilar?”
“Not really. Randall was always smart. Always good with numbers. But bad at keeping jobs. Kind of a space cadet, you know? Had trouble concentrating, and when he did concentrate, it was usually on the wrong thing. He’d find the most interesting project instead of the most important one.” Rose took a deep breath and shifted on the bed again. “One day, he came home and said he lost his job. This was quite a few years ago. And not the first time it had happened. Neither one of us made a lot of money, so I was scared. Said some things I shouldn’t have. He left. When he came back, he said he fixed it.”
“Fixed it?” Harris raised an eyebrow. “How?”
“I don’t know. He said he got a job as a freelance accountant. I’m horrible with numbers.” Rose laughed, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I don’t even know if that’s a real thing. I couldn’t understand his job if someone held a gun to my head.” Pausing, as though realizing that was a very real scenario for her now. “But I guess I didn’t care. Once he started making money, we tucked it away as often as we could. We didn’t want to have kids without something in our savings account.”
“When did you think something else was going on?”
“There wasn’t a single moment. Looking back now, I can see all sorts of signs. He was usually paid in cash. Sometimes he’d come home with presents. Like a diamond necklace. I told him not to spend our money on that, but he said he didn’t. That it was a present from his employer. I thought it was weird, but I liked being spoiled.”
“Well, I probably wouldn’t have refused it either,” Harris said. Cassie could tell the detective had said that to reassure the other woman, but it seemed to work. The slope of Rose’s shoulders relaxed a little.
“More and more money started coming in. I was happy about it, obviously. But something just didn’t sit right with me. Randall kept saying it was because there were more clients. Later I found out he only had one client—Aguilar.”
“How was he getting more money then?” Cassie asked.
“Aguilar was acquiring more businesses. As he came to trust Randall, he brought him into more of his prospects. Had him doing the books for a bunch of his investments.” She shook her head. “I didn’t know that until later. When we had to move.”
“You had to move?” Harris asked. “Why?”
“It wasn’t safe anymore. This was a few years ago still, but Aguilar had made enemies with someone powerful. I don’t know who, but he started going after Aguilar’s people. Someone broke into our house when we were gone. Aguilar bought us a new home. Moved us closer to him. Randall had no choice but to tell me who his boss was.”
