“Maybe,” Grace said, not sounding at all convinced of that. “He agreed to the GSR test. What about you?”
The muscles tightened in Shane’s jaw, but he finally nodded. “I’ll be tested, too.”
“Good. Then, go to the police station and one of the deputies will take the swab. The results come back like that.” Grace snapped her fingers. “And you might be surprised at how hard it is to wash off gunshot residue. A shower and change of clothes usually aren’t enough.”
Shane stood in silence for a couple of seconds before he nodded and walked away, heading to his car. Jennifer, however, didn’t budge. Not until her brother had driven away, and then she came up the porch steps toward them.
“Did, uh…are you sure someone killed my mother?” Jennifer asked. “Are you sure she didn’t take her own life?”
Those questions seemed like giant, waving red flags, and none of them jumped to respond. Grace hadn’t said a word about a suicide note being found in Yvette’s car, but maybe Jennifer hadn’t needed to be told.
Maybe she already knew.
“Did she take her own life?” Jennifer repeated. Her hands trembled while she wiped away more tears.
“Why do you think that?” Grace finally asked.
Jennifer didn’t give a quick answer. She squeezed her eyes shut a moment, and a sob made its way from her throat. “Because I think Mom was considering it. Ending things,” she added in a hoarse whisper. “She was depressed. Or something. I think she was using drugs.”
“Did she say that or did you see her use them?” Grace pressed.
Jennifer shook her head. “No, but something was off this past week or so. She left rambling messages about when she’d lost custody of Shane and me. In one of them, she said this place was evil, that the people here basically stole children from their loving parents.”
Good grief. Addie had to bite back the anger and frustration over that. Yes, mistakes could and did happen in the foster system, but Mellie had worked hard for the children in her care.
“You didn’t mention any of this during your interview,” Grace reminded Jennifer. “Why not?”
For a second, Jennifer got the deer-caught-in-the-headlights look, but she shook it off. “I, uh, didn’t remember until now.” She paused and glanced around as if to make sure no one else was listening. “I think someone’s trying to kill me,” she whispered.
“Who?” Grace demanded.
“My brother, I think,” she admitted after wiping away more tears. “I believe Mom told him about the change in the will. Hewas the one pushing for it. Him and Elijah,” she added, her voice dropping to a whisper again.
“Has Shane done something specific to make you think he might want to kill you?” Grace asked.
Again, no quick answer, but Jennifer took out her phone and handed it to Grace. “I recorded Shane. And, no, I didn’t tell him I was doing it, so I guess that’s not exactly ethical.”
“It’s not,” Grace agreed, but she took the phone. “What’s on the recording?” she pressed.
“Just listen to it,” Jennifer insisted. “And when you’re done, maybe it’ll be enough to arrest my brother for murder.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Judson sat in the makeshift office area that Addie and he had set up in her bedroom and checked to see if an update of Jennifer’s recording had arrived on his laptop.
It hadn’t.
But he knew something like that could take time. It wasn’t just the accessing it from her phone but having the lab techs do thorough tests to make sure the recording didn’t contain a virus.
And that it was real.
With all the advancements in AI, it was getting easier for people to do realistic fakes of such things, and Jennifer had a motive to do something like that. Well, she had motive if she wanted to cut her brother out of any inheritance from their mother, and a half a million was plenty of motive for her to want to do exactly that.
Since he didn’t yet have the recording, Judson moved on to the latest report from the CSIs while he did some multitasking. He was keeping an eye on the twins, who were now asleep and listening for Addie in the shower. Thankfully, Addie was taking her time in the bathroom, and he hoped it was helping to ease her knotted muscles as it’d done for Judson when he had finally been able to wash off the remnants of Yvette’s blood.
Now, listening to the water running and hearing her move around in there, he had tried not to think of Addie washing away blood. Tried not to think of her fighting the images of a womanbeing gunned down in front of her. Part of him wanted to go into the bathroom and try to soothe her. To check and see if she was all right.
But that would be playing with fire.
