Fatal Burn (West Coast 2) - Page 126

“One day he’s with us and acting as if nothing’s wrong, the next he’s gone.” She snapped her fingers. “Just like that.”

“How does someone just disappear?”

“Good question. Ask Jimmy Hoffa’s family,” she snapped, then pushed herself off the ottoman and into the chair. “I wish I knew what happened,” she admitted. Looking out the window to the dark landscape and the reflection of her own image showing in the glass, she said, “I wish he was here.”

“There was a life insurance policy on him. You’re the primary beneficiary.”

“The company never paid me.”

“Yet…It’s still pending, right?”

“I suppose.”

“And you got the lion’s share of his estate?”

She nodded. “Neville wasn’t married, had no children.”

“But he has a twin brother, an identical twin brother, and you said they were extremely close. They used to play tricks on everyone, trade identities.”

“You think he should have left everything to Oliver.”

“I’m pulling threads, Ms. Flannery.”

Shannon ducked her head. “I don’t know why I’m the beneficiary, Detective. Maybe Neville knew Oliver was going to join the priesthood,” she said, having asked herself the same question over and over again. “Neville wasn’t particularly religious. I don’t know. All of my brothers are extremely protective of me, they always have been. I’m the only girl and the youngest.”

“Number six.”

“What?”

“The sixth child.”

“That’s true,” she said and felt a little change in the air, something shift. The hairs on the back of her arm lifted.

“The same number on the symbol that was left here on your porch, and in the middle of the star design we found at the fire that killed Mary Beth Flannery.” Paterno reached into his pocket and took out two pages of paper, each with a drawing on it. He handed them to her. The first drawing she recognized, as it was the shape of the burned birth certificate, the second—a star missing a point, with numbers and broken lines—was new to her.

“You think the six represents me?” she asked, dumbfounded. “What does that mean?” She didn’t wait for a response. “If I’m six, what are the other numbers?” she asked, trying to follow his logic and feeling a chill as cold as death. “Members of my family?”

“Possibly.”

“But why the broken lines…? Why would I be in the middle of this thing?” she whispered, staring at the pages as if in so doing she could solve the mysteries of the universe, or at the very least, of her own life and the lives of those closest to her. God, it was creepy. “I don’t get it. Where did this come from?”

“We found this image in two places at Mary Beth Flannery’s house. One scribbled on the mirror in what we think is lipstick, the second on the inside flap of a backpack left at the scene. Travis Settler has ID’d the bag as belonging to his daughter. Your daughter.”

“What?” she whispered, her lungs suddenly tight. Oh, God, no. She couldn’t bear to have Dani even remotely connected to Mary Beth’s murder. “I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I. Yet,” he said, then, as his cell phone rang, he stood and whipped the flip phone from his pocket. “Paterno,” he said quickly after placing the phone to his ear. “Yeah…No…” A quick look at his watch. “I can be there in about fifteen. Yeah, just wrapping up here…Got it.” He snapped the phone closed and, pointing to the pages still clutched in her fingers, said, “I think that’s about it for now. You can keep those.”

As if on cue, Rossi rose.

“Is there anything else you want to tell us?” Paterno asked.

“No…Well, yeah. I don’t know if this has any bearing on anything, but my brother Oliver thought he saw Brendan Giles in the congregation last Sunday.”

Paterno frowned, his thick eyebrows slamming together to become one intense line. “Did he talk to him?”

“No.” Quickly Shannon related what Oliver had told her.

“It’s probably a mistake,” Rossi finally said.

Tags: Lisa Jackson West Coast Mystery
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