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Finley’s cell vibrated with an incoming text.
Nita.
Sent the reservations to your email.
Finley sent a thank-you and took a long, deep breath.
Whatever Roberts had seen, it had to wait. Finley needed to prepare for her trip to Atlanta.
Her cell vibrated again, this time with an incoming call.Tad.She wasn’t sure of his last name. She didn’t even know if Tad was his real first name. But he had resources for looking into credit card accounts. She’d asked him to check on the spy-shop receipt.
“Hey, did you find anything for me?”
“It’s not what I found but what I didn’t find that’s important.”
“Go on,” Finley prodded.
“The credit card in question was only activated in July of this year, and it has never been used at the spy shop on Fesslers Parkway. The receipt is a fake.”
Finley wanted to be surprised, but somehow she wasn’t. “Thanks, Tad. Bill me.”
“Already did. Until next time, Fin.”
The call ended.
“What are you up to, Winthrop?” Finley muttered.
Not murder, Finley suspected. More likely she was covering up something else or covering for someone else.
Finley sent Jack a text with the update.
At this point both Marsh and Winthrop were on Finley’s and Jack’s shit lists.
His response came immediately.If we found it, Ventura will find it.
Exactly.
Whatever the game here, even Jack Finnegan couldn’t keep Winthrop from a murder charge if she kept leaving such easily traced tracks.
24
The Widow
8:00 p.m.
Pettit Residence
Penrose Drive, Brentwood
Ellen surveyed the dining table and smiled. Though she would prefer to be home, Laney’s was the next best thing. Large enough, understated elegance. Her friend’s china was vintage, a set she had inherited from her mother, who had inherited the twelve-place setting and the matching serving pieces from her own mother. Something British from the nineteenth century. Laney had a thing for vintage pieces.
Ellen preferred new. She’d dealt with enough used stuff as a child. Used clothes—donated by people from the church her father had insisted they attend.
How else will we eat, girl?he’d demanded.
He had been right, of course. God knew he wasn’t going to work, and her mother was far too frail to do anything. The church and its members were always providing for her poor family. Bringing food. Dropping off clothes.
The bastard who’d sired her had stolen what he could. When his efforts fell short of providing for his wife and child, he’d used the church to fill the gaps. Once her mother had died, he had used Ellen.
