The phone pinged in my hand.
I brought it to eye level, expecting to see a text from another reporter eager for details. But it was Beau. I moaned in relief.
Bailey, so sorry. On board flight home. Someone on crew was hit by car. Ok now but nightmare.
Can you talk?
Making me turn off phone. Tomorrow. Love you.
Thank God. Knowing finally that Beau was okay and hadn’t been abducted by a resurrected arm of the Cali cartel, I succumbed to the sleep of the dead. When I woke shortly before six, I was thrilled to see another text from Beau announcing that he’d landed safely at JFK and would call me later.
After racing through media coverage of the case and answering a few of the emails that had blown up my phone, I ate breakfast in the hotel café, grateful to be in public without having to constantly check over my shoulder.
At nine Dodson called me, over the moon about both my efforts and the traffic for last night’s post, and determined for me to tape another video with Keith. Natch, he wanted to shoot on the road in front of Baker Beverage.
Keith arrived several hours later. Returning to that location didn’t pack the same emotional wallop for me as being back at Alice’s house, but it still made my stomach flip. I couldn’t forget the rage in Cody’s eyes, and running so hard for my life that I’d thought my lungs would burst.
As soon as Keith and I finished, I took my phone off silent and was surprised to see a missed call from Kelly.
“I’d like to talk in person,” she said soberly when I reached her. “Do you have time today?”
“Of course. Where and when?”
“At my house, as soon as possible. Come around to the porch on the back.”
The only hitch: I would have to return to the hotel to retrieve my car, and then drive all the way back in this direction to meet with her.
“Do you have Uber around here?” I asked.
“What? Uh, yes.”
“Okay, I’ll be there in ten.”
I had Keith drop me off at the Claiborne house instead of the hotel, and I made my way around the side of the house, shuffling through the first drop of dried leaves from a big maple in the yard. Kelly was where she’d promised to be—the screened porch, leaning into a white wicker couch with lightly faded floral cushions.
“Thanks for coming,” Kelly said. She rose in greeting and indicated with an outreached arm that I should take the matching chair across from her. She was wearing a pair of dark jeans and the burgundy turtleneck I’d seen her in two days ago. “I hear I owe you another thank-you.”
“You don’t owe me anything, Kelly. I’m just glad we finally know the truth now.”
She nodded listlessly in response.
I settled onto the chair. “I’m curious. When your sister went missing, was your first instinct that Cody might be responsible?”
“Yes and no. The whole vanishing-into-thin-air thing seemed improbable to me, but I hadn’t noticed any red flags when itcame to the marriage. Though I never warmed up to Cody, he seemed crazy about my sister, and unlike my loser husband, he reportedly kept it in his pants. Besides, once the other bodies were discovered, it let him off the hook. The fucking monster.”
“My sentiments exactly.”
“There’s another reason I called, though, something I need to ask you about.” I noticed her swallow hard. “Killian said that Shannon learned about the drugs because she went to work at Baker and started poking around there. Is that true?”
“According to Riley, yes. Shannon was helping with marketing initiatives. Quote, ‘restarting her career.’ You weren’t aware your sister was working there again?”
“One of her kids said something to me about her helping Daddy, and when I quizzed Shannon, she said she was lending a hand now and then. I figured it had to do with people on the administrative staff taking summer vacations.”
“She gave the same impression to J.J. I’ve been mulling it over and my guess is that she didn’t want to draw attention to what she was really up to. Maybe shewouldhave restarted her career one day, but in this case it was mostly a front, I think, for getting in the door again at Baker.”
“So she could snoop?”
“Right. She probably knew if she offered to assist with paperwork or man the phones, Cody would have insisted they didn’t need the help. I’m sure he didn’t want her anywhere near the place. But when she suggested doing marketing work, it was hard for him to refuse.”
