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The realization of what this news meant settled in Kerri’s gut like a bucket of hardened concrete. “The only person I told about Sue and the anonymous girl was the LT. He must have talked to someone else. Maybe the chief. For sure Sykes and Peterson.”
“Probably,” Falco agreed.
“Somebody one of those people spoke to had Sue taken out.” Kerri recognized she sounded like a conspiracy theorist, but she’d learned a difficult lesson last year. One Sadie Cross had warned she had been too naive to see at the time.
And she had been. Kerri had always felt she recognized the good guys from the bad ones. She had accepted that certain people, like her superiors and fellow detectives, were good guys, because that was the expected thinking. She’d been taught to trust the uniform, the titles of those in charge of making and enforcing laws. But she had been wrong.
People, no matter the position they held, had secrets. Sometimes those secrets were terrible things they had done or were doing.
But the idea that the Cortez girl and her family were in a position to make some event like this happen felt ludicrous.
She says she’s a princess.
Tori’s and Sue’s words reverberated inside Kerri.
“What’s the missing student’s name?” Kerri needed a starting place. She could talk to the parents. The girl’s friends. She suddenly needed to go. To do something. Anything but sit here and suffer this dread swelling into her chest.
“Violet Redmond. Only child. Lives in Mountain Brook.”
Kerri cleared her mind and focused on the logical steps that needed to be taken. “Any change in our case?”
“Nothing new that I’ve heard this morning. I planned to pay Naomi Taylor another visit to explore the idea of Walsh being a drug user. We both know it’s a dead end, but we can’t ignore it.”
Kerri reminded herself to breathe. “It’s a setup to discredit him, no question,” she agreed.
“They—whoever they are—want this tied up.”
Kerri forced her brain to focus. Too many possibilities were bombarding her at once. “I’m certain Walsh’s family will be up in arms. The father must be livid.”
From what she’d found on her internet searches, the man was a perfectionist. He wouldn’t have anyone believing such a thing about his only son. It made no sense. The mother’s words echoed in her brain.Find who did this. Don’t be distracted or fooled by theatrics.
“No question,” Falco said.
“I want to visit Naomi with you.” Kerri turned to her partner. “I can talk to the Redmond family later this afternoon.” Whoever was investigating the girl’s disappearance would be all over the family this morning. Kerri had stepped on too many toes already.
Falco nodded. “I’ll meet you there.”
When he would have climbed out, Kerri put a hand on his arm. He turned back to her. “Thanks, Falco. I appreciate you having my back in this.”
“It’s what partners do.”
Taylor Residence
Eighteenth Avenue South
Birmingham, 9:00 a.m.
“It all happened very fast,” the older woman said.
“Ms.Taylor,” Kerri asked, “are you certain you’re not hurt?”
“I’m fine, really. This nice young man stayed with me until I calmed down.” Naomi smiled in the direction of the thirtysomething who sat on her sofa.
Tim Barton claimed he had been walking by and had seen the intruder slipping around to the back of the Taylor home. He had rushed to the front door and started knocking to warn the lady of the house about the potential trouble. After hearing a scream, he had burst through the door, splintering the wood around the dead bolt, forcing the intruder to retreat out the back door—the same way he’d broken into the house.
Kerri and Falco had arrived only minutes after the perpetrator disappeared. Their first clue that something was amiss was the damaged front door standing open. They had hurried inside to find Taylor being attended to by an alleged neighbor and Good Samaritan.
“You didn’t get a good look at the intruder?” Falco asked the lady.
