Nate’s expression softened. “If he’s smart, he won’t take too long.”
“But until then, we need to deal with the problem at hand,” Cam said. “The weather is supposed to break this afternoon. Our suspects will likely leave as soon as they can. We have today to figure out what we can about them. I have interviews with all three siblings set up this morning, and we should be getting our initial reports on each sometime today.”
“I’m working on that,” Gemma offered. “I can tell you that the younger sister’s socials are full of really good bags and absolutely no intellect at all. She’s serious about being an influencer, but I’m not sure she knows what the word means. The surviving brother is a frat-boy nightmare just waiting for a sexual harassment complaint. Sonya is the only serious one. She heads one of the divisions of the company. From what I can tell she travels a lot. Her socials are full of pictures from different sites she’s visited. She was recently in South Africa. No significant others for any of them, though Kendall seems to be working her way through all the minor European royalty she can get her hands on.”
“Sonya’s the one I’ve talked to the most.” She liked the other woman, which was why it had hurt to have Sonya point the finger her way. “She’s stable. She seems to take care of the group. From what I overheard, they all have jobs with the company, but she and Brock were higher up than the others.”
Was Michael downstairs having breakfast with Trina? Was he talking to her and realizing it wasn’t so bad to reconnect with the people he’d known?
Was he still in love with the woman he’d asked to marry him?
“I have to think this is about money.” Nate stared at the bag of white powder. “I’m going to have to take this to the lab.”
“And you have to tell them where you got it.” She wasn’t going to put Nate in a bad position.
“Or he could flush it down the toilet and it will be like it never happened,” Ty countered.
This was why they hadn’t immediately come here the night before. Ty had wanted her to think about what they did, had hoped sleeping on it would change her mind about turning the substance in.
She’d always known they would do the right thing. “It might tell Nate something important.”
“Absolutely,” Nate replied. “It could tell us a lot about where they bought it or stole it from. I know Gemma’s worried that the CBI is going to zero in on Lucy and not look anywhere else, but I disagree. I would be far more worried about local law enforcement being lazy than the CBI. They’re good investigators, and they’re used to dealing with complex cases.”
“They’ll also listen to Nate,” Cam added. “And me. We’ve got experience with federal law enforcement, and we both have contacts in the bureau. I agree with Nate. It’s not the best-case scenario, but we can work with CBI agents. And they will see that the timeline is problematic. Lucy would have to have had this on hand when she met Brock. She’s got no priors and no history of violence. Why would she have this hanging around? I’m afraid whoever did this overplayed their hand here.”
“Yeah, it’s better to leave things open when you’re trying to get away with murder.” Gemma had her blonde hair up in a bun. “It’s better to make things confusing than to try to make a direct line to the person you’re trying to set up because that means you’re leaving clues. Clues like who could have put that in Ty’s bathroom. Clues that lead to people we can talk to. Like the maid who cleaned Ty’s apartment yesterday morning. The one I have on camera going in at eleven a.m., eight hours before Brock Foster died, but after the rumors about Lucy moving in would have made the rounds.”
“My service isn’t until today.” Ty moved forward in his seat. “The staff apartments are cleaned in rotation every two weeks. Mine is today. She would have been working the odd numbered apartments yesterday. Evens are today.”
“Then she was confused.” Gemma turned her laptop so everyone could see it. Sure enough, there was a young woman pushing a cart down a familiar hallway. The cameras covered both ends of the hallway. Ty’s apartment was close to the elevator, so it was easy to watch the door come open. Michael exited first, holding it for her. His lips curled up in an intimate smile as she came through the doorway, followed by Ty.
They hadn’t even noticed the woman with the cleaning cart.
Ty reached for Lucy’s hand as they’d turned toward the elevator on their way to their respective work shifts. He’d brought her hand up to his lips, and Michael had taken the other hand in his.