17
“Look at this!” I said, handing Reed the article after he stowed away his phone. “Recognize anyone?”
He’d have to be blind to miss it.
Reed scanned the article, his gaze paused on the image. His eyes widened, and he tipped his head slightly to the left. “That’s Samantha.”
“Yes! What is Selene’s sister doing standing next to the condo developer Lisa hated?” It was a rhetorical question since I knew he didn’t know either.
“And the same developer who tried to buy this home from her,” he added while reading the article. “The image caption says it’s his daughter.”
They had a lot of beef, and her son was dating someone related to him.
“Either Selene and Samantha lied about being sisters or Casey is dating the daughter of his mother’s mortal enemy,” I said, moving a half pace around him. The walking did help with the thinking a little.
“Was dating,” Reed threw in, still reading.
I stumped over a step. “Oh, right.”
Images of Casey’s dead body sent my brain into a recoil. I’d probably never forget what he looked like lying on the stone pathway. I shivered.
“Where did you find this?” Reed asked.
He handed back the article, and I carried it to the small kitchen table in the front part of the home. “Hidden in the back pocket of Lisa’s purse.”
“Where was Lisa’s purse?” he asked. He’d swapped out his black polo shirt for a baby blue colored T-shirt. Just like his work polo, his arm muscles stretched the fabric in all the right places.
I leaned up against the table, trying to get a better look at his full image to take it all in. He didn’t care about any of the important stuff.
“In the closet.” I waved my hands in the air between us. “That’s not the important part.”
He lifted one shoulder a little higher than the other. “Shouldn’t the police have her purse if it was on her that night?”
“Who knows? We have to stick to the facts in front of us, and this just blew up the entire case. It’s the smoking gun.”
Too bad we didn’t have an actual smoking gun, but since no one was shot, I guess it wouldn’t actually be that helpful.
“How exactly?” Reed asked. From the furrow of his brow, he hadn’t come to the same conclusions as me.
I did the hand wavey thing again. “Clearly, Lisa saw the photo in the article and recognized Samantha.” It was a wonderful photo of her. Anyone would recognize her, even with the low newspaper quality image. “Lisa put the pieces together just like we did. Well, I did.”
He smirked at my correction, but I still didn’t get the feeling he followed my logic.
“Don’t you see? Lisa wanted to meet Casey that night to tell her son he’s dating a housing hussy.” It all made perfect sense.
“Okay, but,” Reed said, drawing out the word but like he didn’t quite buy my theory. There was always a skeptic. “Why meet at the bar where Selene works?”
That was the beauty of Lisa’s plan. The perfect cherry on top. How did he not see?
“To catch her off guard, obviously.” Lisa was a mastermind. A horrible thought hit me. “Do you think Selene got Casey to put her name on this home before he died? What if she planned on taking out the entire family?”
We had to do something to stop her. Well, actually, it seemed she was out of Boyd family members to kill. But she shouldn’t be allowed to inherit this home if she’s the one who killed both Lisa and Casey.
“My word,” I said and put my hand around my neck to clutch invisible pearls. “We’re staying next to a serial killer.”
I didn’t know how many people you had to kill before you got the serial killer title, but it seemed fitting in this situation.
Reed stayed quiet. Of course, he wasn’t that worried. He got to walk around with a gun.
