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Mason cleared his throat. “We’ll need a little more proof. We can get the DNA back in a week or so.”
“I have nothing to hide,” the other woman said.
Annie had spent twenty-four years agonizing over her failure to save Sarah. The guilt had nearly swallowed her alive, though everyone told her she couldn’t have done anything. Until a few days ago, she hadn’t been able to recall much about that awful night. Maybe she hadn’t wanted to remember how she froze in fear when the kidnapper grabbed Sarah.
Annie fingered the scar on her neck where the attacker had wounded her with a knife. She’d been left for dead in the cold waters of Lake Superior, and while logically she knew she was no match for the gruff woman who’d snatched her sister, Annie had struggled to believe it.
“Were any of the things you told me about your life true? Those things you said about your m-mother?”
“I had a rotten life, if that’s what you’re asking. All those things I said about my mother were true. And it was all your fault.”
There was nothing Annie could say to counter that when her own conscience condemned her too. She was only too glad when her boss, Kade Matthews, texted her with a new case. Mason could continue the questioning about the necklace.
Two
With Annie out of the room, Taylor leaned forward, tucking her head, and hugged herself. While Annie was around, Taylor knew her purpose and how to respond to anything, but on her own, she was a piece of driftwood tossed by the waves. Her hatred focused her.
Sheriff Kaleva shifted in his chair across the table from her. “You planted that necklace in the shed to frame Jon Dunstan, didn’t you, Ms.Moore?”
“I told you—it’s Ms.Vitanen.”
“We won’t know that until we get the DNA back, so let’s stick to what we know. The necklace?”
She flopped against the back of the chair and shrugged. “I told you I saw it there.”
“I don’t believe you. When you told me about it, you changed where you’d seen it. And you wouldn’t look me in the eyes. The necklace had no dust on it.” He leaned forward. “And you know what else it didn’t have? Anyone else’s fingerprints. Yours were the only ones on the stone.”
Her chest squeezed, and heat burned her cheeks. “You don’t know how Jon Dunstan treated me. It’s not right.”
“So he needed to pay for it by going to jail for something he didn’t do?”
When he put it that way, it seemed a little ridiculous. “Everyone gets away with stuff. Sometimes justice has to be served.”
“How’d you get the necklace?” He slid a can of soda across the table to her.
She popped the top and took a sip of lukewarm Pepsi. The sweet bubbles gave her courage. “I stole it. It was in Sean’s glove box along with a jumble of other jewelry. I didn’t think he’d miss it.”
“How do you know Sean Johnson?”
“He’s my cousin.” She shrugged. “Well, he’s Mother’s nephew. He didn’t tell you?”
“He’s deceased.”
The words hit her like a boulder. While he wasn’t her blood cousin, he was the closest thing to family she’d had left. And he’d been kind to her. This also meant the cops had no idea of what he did and why. Neither did she, for that matter.
She shifted on her chair. “I didn’t know it was important when I took it, but when I heard Annie describing the missing necklace, I knew it matched the one I had. I realized I could make Jon pay.”
“So you had the necklace before you saw the photo in the newspaper and realized it was tied to a murder?”
“I’ve had it since he came to help me with Mother’s estate. Such as it was.”
“Which was when?”
“December. She died on the second, and Sean came the next day.”
“What was your mother’s name?”
“Becky Johnson.”
