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“I’m torn on that, actually. When I put myself in her place, I’m not sure I’d behave any differently. She’s got a complicated relationship with the family, and as a health professional, she’s also experienced in handling crises in a calm, collected way. She has to compartmentalize those emotions just like we do when we work a crime scene.”
“Then what is it?”
“That’s just it, I’m not sure.” She shook her head and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “It’s possible I’m overthinking everything.”
Arnett glanced at the clock on the dash. “The team’ll pull out the cameras and the footage as soon as the caterers have cleaned up from the event, hopefully something there will clear things up one way or the other. I say sleep on it, and see what your subconscious says in the morning.”
Jo stared out the window at the slowing rain. “With Hayes and the press on us, I’m not sure how well I’ll sleep until we have our killer. But you’re probably right—we should at least try.”
* * *
But after she climbed back into her own car at HQ and watched Arnett drive off, she still hadn’t been able to get Julia’s lie off her mind.
Which lie?The thought struck like a hidden snake, then echoed through her mind. Was it the slipperiness surrounding Naomie’s phone call that was bothering her most? Or the deceit she’d detected when Julia blamed her refusal of police protection on her obligations to her clients? Or was it the very odd vibe she’d picked up whenever Julia dealt with her in-laws?
She’d verified that divorce papers had been filed, and Lopez had discovered several of Julia’s credit cards were recently shut down. The divorce—and the rancor surrounding it—were real. And yet, she was still sensing deception around that situation that she couldn’t put her finger on.
She shook her head—it made no sense.
Tapping a single nail on her steering wheel, she pulled out of the HQ lot. She needed to get over herself—she wasn’t a human lie detector, and she’d been wrong before. But generally when she was wrong, it was because she failed to pick up on someone’s deception, or that she was wrong about what exactly they were lying about, and whether that lie was relevant to her case. She’d never thought someone was being deceptive and had it turn out they were being truthful.
Instead of slowing down as she approached the turn to home, she sped up and passed it, instead heading back to Triple-B. She and Arnett had only been gone from the memorial for about fifteen minutes, so the clean-up should still be underway. Julia wouldn’t necessarily stay until it was finished, but it wasn’t likely she’d bow out without at least helping. Jo drove as quickly as she could without endangering anyone, easing up across the street from the Triple-B lot ten minutes later. She scanned the area—Julia’s Mercedes was still there. She pulled into a side street kitty-corner to the building and parked herself in the shadows.
Twenty minutes later Julia emerged, speed walking toward her car as though late for an appointment. Why—and with whom?
Jo waited for Julia’s tail lights to disappear around the corner before pulling out to follow. She sped up to cut down the distance between them, but turned at a casual pace onto the street Julia’d taken, staying as far back as she was able without losing sight of the car.
After a short stint on the pike, Julia pulled into the parking lot of a Staples office supply store. Jo selected a spot that allowed her to keep watch on both the store entrance and Julia’s car and settled in to wait.
She had several calls to make anyway—perfect time to knock them out.
First, she called Lacey to update her on the investigation. Then, unable to face a call, she texted Hayes, who responded with a mini-rant about how the public was calling DA Barbieri continually with concerns about the safety of pregnant women. Finally, Jo brought up Sophie’s contact and put through a call to her.
“Any news?” she asked when Sophie picked up.
“None whatsoever. David said he was going to call you directly,” she said, with irritated hesitation.
“You sound strange. Everything okay?” Jo asked.
She blew out a prolonged puff of air. “I’m…confused. It doesn’t make sense that Chelsea didn’t want you to call David when she collapsed today.”
“Yeah, Bob and I were just discussing that,” Jo said. “But it’s good news, right?”
“It should be,” Sophie said. “Except I don’t like it when things don’t make sense. When people suddenly act out of character, it usually means something else is going on.”
Jo smiled to herself—she and her sister had more in common than either liked to admit. “Or it could be that you, for very understandable reasons, are just hypersensitive to her motives right now. She had plenty of people around caring for her, so maybe she figured it didn’t make sense to bother him. Or, maybe she realized her plan wasn’t working, and gave up on it. Having your two best friends killed can reevaluate your priorities.”
“No, that’s true,” Sophie said with another sigh. “You’re probably right.”
Julia appeared out of the store’s sliding front doors carrying something large and bulky in a plastic bag, still striding like she was late for something. Jo sat up and turned the car back on. “Sorry, Soph, gotta go.”
But this time Julia went directly home, to a little duplex with low-maintenance landscaping, flaking paint, and a detached garage she didn’t park inside. The vehicle had barely come to a stop before she was out, door slammed behind her, hurrying up the front porch.
As Julia disappeared inside, Jo slid under the shadow of a large maple tree a block down from Julia’s driveway. When Julia didn’t come out again after several minutes, Jo considered leaving. She was probably wasting her time when she should be sleeping—Julia had probably crawled under her covers and was crying herself to sleep as she tried to process her dearest friend’s premature death. But she’d definitely been in a hurry, and had stopped off to make some sort of a purchase, both things that suggested something else was going on. Maybe someone was coming to her house to meet her? She couldn’t risk missing whatever it was, so it was worth hanging around a little longer to find out. She fired off a text to Matt updating him on where she was and what she was doing.
She’d barely finished the text when Julia’s front door opened again. She emerged, carrying a plastic grocery bag tied in a knot at the top.
Jo hurried to tap open her camera app, then pointed her phone toward Julia trotting quickly across the porch and down her driveway—toward the trash can waiting at the curb for the next morning’s pick up.
