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“Look, I don’t know what kind of relationship you’ve formed with Lachlan, given he stayed at your house—” Mitch started.
“I’m not sleeping with him, if that’s what you’re asking. I can think objectively about this case,” she said quickly. She would not be taken off this case.
Mitch hesitated and she saw the doubt in his eyes. “Like I keep saying, we don’t know him, not really. He keeps to himself, he has a past that could make him very dangerous...” He looked to the door and back. “This is confidential, but he’s ex-CIA, Bethenny. He left after his wife’s death and requested a transfer to homicide, so I don’t think we should underestimate him, not even for a second. This entire thing could’ve been orchestrated, right back to the transfer to homicide. The CIA might even be involved in this...”
Bethenny fought against her impulse to give Mitch a piece of her mind and somehow mustered the control to speak calmly. “If you ask him, he ran from his old life to escape his pain. But let’s say the CIA is involved and he did this. Why Jessica? She has no connection to Eden, right? We’re in another state, in a small town where people barely leave, let alone get caught up in CIA drama.” She didn’t buy it, not for a second. “And what about the note? If this is linked to the CIA, why would he leave that note to link the cases? I think someone has followed him here. I think they’re tormenting him and—” She stopped cold. “I want that floor plan fingerprinted,” she said quickly. “If you’re going to believe he’s guilty, make sure his fingerprints are on it.” It wouldn’t be enough to prove his innocence, but it could be another piece of evidence to the contrary.
She turned and walked from the room, marching toward the study. The officers all had gloves on and knew better than to contaminate evidence, but if this case was going where she thought it was, she would need every piece of evidence she could get—and she would need it to hold up in court.
The paper had been bagged and labeled when Bethenny walked back into the room. She picked up the bag and took it directly to forensics. Only when they locked it in the box of evidence did she breathe a sigh of relief.
For the rest of the day, Bethenny walked around Lachlan’s house as officers searched every inch of it. She felt awful, like a traitor, but she didn’t have a choice. It had to be done. Even she had to admit the floor plan wasn’t going to help him, and neither was the fact that the matching knife to the murder weapon was still in his drawer. It showed that someone hadn’t merely taken it from him house and framed him.
“You drove Lachlan’s car here, right?” Mitch asked from behind her.
She turned, surprised by his sudden appearance. She was not, however, surprised by Mitch’s question, and she wordlessly handed over his keys. They would need to search his car too.
Mitch looked like he was going to remind her yet again that it was protocol, but he stopped short of doing so. She ran her hands over her face, rubbing her tired eyes.
The day seemed to drag on forever, but eventually, when Bethenny’s legs were tired from pacing, the search concluded.
“I’ll drop you home. Get some rest,” Mitch said with gentle eyes.
She knew today had taken a toll on him too.
“I’m going back to the station,” she said as the last officer out locked Lachlan’s house.
Mitch blew out a breath and shrugged like it was a situation he had no control over. Admittedly, he didn’t have much.
“But will you please drop me at home so I can pick up my car?” she asked, suddenly remembering she didn’t have a vehicle.
Mitch nodded. “Of course.”
Bethenny climbed into Mitch’s car, but neither of them said a word until they arrived at her house.
“Thank you,” she said, meeting his gaze.
He nodded but said little else—there was nothing to add to today’s conversations.
Bethenny got out of the car, then opened her garage, slid into her car, and put it in reverse. But as she started driving, she headed in the opposite direction of the station toward Jessica’s house. She slowed as she drove down Memory Lane. She paused in front of Jessica’s house, now a crime scene, and sat looking at the house.
What happened, Jessica?
The longer Bethenny stared at the house, the more certain she was that Lachlan hadn’t done this. It was such a small house. Lachlan didn’t need a floor plan to kill someone in it. It made no sense to her at all—all it did was incriminate him.
She remembered the coroner’s report and looked up at the second level of the home. It was a small home, but it had two floors. A balcony ran the length of the front façade, and she wondered if the back matched the front.
She was climbing out of the car before she realized what she was doing and opened the side fence. She stood in the backyard, staring up at the balcony. Her eyes dropped to the garden bed that was boxed in by a retaining wall. She looked up, then down again.
It was possible, but she needed a forensics kit.
She jogged down the side of the house, back to her car. She always kept a kit in the trunk of her car. She grabbed it and ran back to the garden bed. She pulled out some luminol and applied it to the rendered surface. It didn’t take long for the reagent to uncover the bloodstains that someone had attempted to clean off.
She stepped back, looking up at the balcony again.
Jessica had fallen and died here. Afterward, her body had been dragged inside and the knife had been used to create a spectacular crime scene.
When Bethenny had first arrived at the scene, she’d questioned why there was so much blood all through the house, and now she knew. The killer didn’t want the detectives to know Jessica had fallen to her death. They wanted the detectives to think she’d been stabbed and murdered inside the house, with a murder weapon that had fatefully been found by the neighbor.
