“Anyone including Mrs. Finley?” she asked, brow cocked.
“No, not her.” I showed her. “Finley was here by the guest rooms in the west wing. She’d have had to walk past three different cops to get to this back staircase in the east. I doubt that all three of those cops were her nephews.”
She hummed, agreeing. “So, who was in the right place to get to these stairs without anyone seeing?”
“Unless someone’s lying about where they were—and I can’t confirm or deny that because Officer Davis refuses to give me the detailed charts of everyone’s movements—that leaves Mr. Layton with a clear shot from the library to the stairs—”
“The same man who was just murdered,” she burst out. “Murdered for a reason.”
“No question. He did something or he saw something—we know that for sure now.”
“Well, if he did it, going and stabbing himself in the spine for it is a weird fucking thing to do,” Courtney said. “So that leaves him seeing something he shouldn’t have. Who could he have seen at that time?”
“No one,” I cried, throwing my hands up. “The only ones there were a bunch of cops and R—” I broke off, realization catching up and strangling my wayward tongue.
But it couldn’t stop Courtney’s.
“Rhodes,” she whispered, pointing to his name on the floorplan. “Rhodes, whose office is right next to the entrance to this staircase. Rhodes, who could’ve hidden anything he wanted in his office.”
A roaring sounded in my ears. “No.”
No, no, no! Not the sweet, loving man who jumped between me and a bear, and laughed with Lily while they made terrible cookies. That man couldn’t hurt anyone.
He couldn’t hurt me.
“Babe? Babe? Sarah,” she half shouted, snapping me out of it. “I’m not saying that he did it, but we’re doing this for a reason. For the reason thatyou gave Mr. Layton—the poor man. If all the physical evidence is gone, the only thing to look for now is a liar.
“Rhodes said he went up to his office to get a new client contract, so if that’s what he did, we can prove it,” she insisted, shaking me. “Because he’ll have a copy of that contract in his office. A signed anddatedcontract. We’ll go up, find the contract, and rule him out. Then we’ll focus on all the other liars.”
“Yea— Yes,” I seized, my shoulders loosening. “It’s not like Rhodes worked that day, so a contract signed on the same day as the party proves what he told me. He didn’t lie to me.” I took off, rushing to the same back staircase. “He didn’t do this.”
Courtney chased me all the way upstairs to Rhodes’s office. He didn’t keep it locked, leaving us no barrier to get inside.
“This was my father’s old office,” I confessed. I took in the shelves filled with dusty tomes, the ancient Persian rugs, and the massive oak desk placed beside the rear window. “Never knew why he needed it since the only job he had was inheriting wealth, but I know I was never allowed in here growing up.”
“Not even after he died?”
“Omma locked it up after he died. No one went in. Not even the housekeepers.”
“That’s kind of sad.”
I fixed somewhere over her shoulder. “She had her reasons.”
“Right.” She clapped, snatching me out of the past. “You check his desk. I’ll check these file cabinets.” Courtney glanced at her phone. “And we have to be quick because I’ve got to open the bakery.”
“Got it.” I crossed to the desk, snatching the drawer handle and bending over to—
I froze.
“Sarah?” Courtney prompted when she noticed I hadn’t moved. “What’s wrong? Are the drawers locked?”
“It doesn’t matter.” I didn’t recognize my own voice. “I don’t need to open them.”
“What? Why? Have you decided to take him at his word?”
“Why would I do that?” Rage burned me, shaking my voice. My vision blurred staring out the window. “He’s a fucking liar.”
THAT NIGHT, LILY ANDI were in the kitchen making dinner. She was the cutest little thing, standing on the stool with her tongue sticking out as she intensely concentrated on grating the cheese for the beef chili.
