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“Uh-oh.” He closed the file in his hand. “This sounds ominous.”
She held up the keys to the Cagle property. Downey had told her to keep the keys for as long as she needed them. “Maureen Downey has been taking care of the Cagle house all this time. She felt she owed Louise that much, and there were apparently some residual earnings from Louise Scott specials that sold to other papers or networks. Plus, she had invested in the paper, so there’s that.”
“Did you find anything?” He removed his reading glasses and placed them on the file. “Or was everything packed up?”
“The whole house is just as the Cagles left it.” Finley hesitated. “Except for the kitchen. All the food products were removed. Trash. That sort of thing. Otherwise, their clothes—it’s all there.”
His eyebrows reared up as he leaned back in his chair. “Weird. But interesting.”
“I went through the entire house. Did a thorough sweep.” She had checked out the detached garage as well before she left. Nothing out of the ordinary there. All three of the family vehicles had been parked inside. Looking over Lucy’s car had sent an icy streak rushing through Finley’s blood.
Who had Lucy gone to meet that night?
That person was the key to everything.
“I didn’t find anything. At first, I was confused because I didn’t find a home office in the house. For someone like Louise Scott, that seemed unlikely. But then I found her office in a smaller building behind the house. The husband had one too. I found his in the finished upstairsover the garage. He had a man cave complete with a very large pool table up there. The family vehicles were on the main level—including Lucy’s car. There was also a good-size safe room—the kind for tornadoes, only bigger than any that I’ve seen before. It was open, so I checked it out too. Nothing there but the typical survival stuff.”
“I’m sure the residence was gone over thoroughly by the police after the murder.”
“No doubt. I didn’t really expect to find anything, but oversights happen.” She nodded slowly. “Oddly, I did find something in Louise’s office that I didn’t expect.”
“A map to where she’s been hiding all these years?” He grinned.
“Funny.” Finley told herself to relax, but she’d been humming with frustration since leaving the property. “No, I found her case board on Lucy’s murder. Complete with an extensive timeline and endless articles, notes, and images of people.”
His eyebrows shot up in interest then. “I hope you photographed everything.”
“I did. Honestly, I was surprised Downey didn’t mention it to me. It’s been so long maybe she forgot about it. Though I don’t see how. Then again, Ray Johnson didn’t seem to know or had forgotten that evidence from a murder had been tucked away in one of his warehouses.”
“Until we have no other choice, we’re assuming he didn’t know it was there,” Jack reminded her.
“Anyway,” Finley went on, rather than debating the point, “the only thing new I found on the case board was a reference to afollowerthe week before Lucy’s murder, but there was no additional clarification.”
“Did we miss that somehow, between your research and what Houser gave you?”
“No. This was the first suggestion Lucy had a follower.” She took a breath. Couldn’t put the rest off any longer. “As I was going through Louise’s desk, I found a stack of business cards. One of them was yours from your days with your former partners.”
He made a surprised face. “Really?”
Then he made a mistake. He picked up his glasses and settled them back into place and fiddled with the file he’d laid aside when she arrived.
“What aren’t you telling me, Jack?”
He looked over his glasses at her. “She may have gotten one of my cards at the firm. All the partners had cards handy in the lobby.”
“But she didn’t have a card from any of the others,” Finley pointed out. “Only from you.”
He removed his glasses once more. Tossed them aside. “All right, already. She came to me just before Halloween that year. She felt the police weren’t doing all they could. I warned her she was expecting too much. They can only find what’s left for them to find. If there’s no evidence, no clues, they can’t make them up. They just have to keep looking.”
Finley felt certain Jack had been a bit more diplomatic, but she got the picture. “How did she take it?”
“How do you think? It wasn’t what she wanted to hear, but it was the truth.”
Sadly, it was. Finley wanted to be relieved by Jack’s answer, but it was too soon. There was more. Unquestionably.
“Why did she come to you and not one of the other partners?”
He shot her a look. “You have to ask?”
