I raised an eyebrow at her soot-smeared face.
She held up her hands; they were as filthy as the rest of her. “I’m just saying, for one hundred grand, you expect a person to be professional. Thank you, by the way, for not puking in my car. See? Neat,” she added, gesturing to me, as if my ability to avoid vomiting on her upholstery should be a bullet on my résumé. My dark laugh brought tears to my eyes, and I wiped them with my sleeve.
Vero put the car in gear and eased us back onto the road. “Did you get anything from Bree’s desk?”
“I found her name and address on her time card and a few odds and ends she left in a drawer. Her last day of work was the twenty-sixth of October.” Vero threw me a meaningful glance, probably thinking the same thing I was. Steven hadn’t been entirely forthcoming aboutwhenhe’d laid Bree off. Which meant he probably hadn’t been honest aboutwhyeither. “How about you? Did you find anything in Steven’s books?”
“I didn’t have time to read them, but I took a bunch of photos of his transactions over the last few months. And I snapped some pics of the bills in his inbox. We can go through them at home. Maybe we’ll dig something up.” At my wince, she shrugged. “Sorry. Bad pun.”
A siren wailed in the distance. Vero checked her rearview mirror and I turned in my seat. Red-and-white flashing lights flickered through the trees behind us, racing toward the farm. There wasn’t likely to be much left standing, but at least Steven hadn’t been sleeping there—or worse, passed out drunk on the sofa in his office—when the fire started.
“You think the cops will talk to the security company?” Vero asked.
I thunked my head against the window, clapping a hand over my eyes. The fire marshal would need a day or two to collect evidence. And the police would need time to obtain a warrant to talk to the security company. But Steven… he could request a report from the security monitoring service within a matter of hours. He could pass that information along to the detectives if he wanted to speed up the investigation. “The record of my conversation with the security company will lead them right to Bree.”
“If she didn’t hireEasyCleanto roast Steven, she doesn’t have anything to worry about.”
“What if she did?” I still wasn’t convinced Bree was entirely innocent. “I need to talk to her before the police do. Steven’s hiding something. He lied about the reason he fired her, and as far as I can tell, she hasn’t been back to the farm since; all of her personal stuff is still sitting in a file drawer. If she was upset enough not to go back for her things, then maybe she was angry enough to pay someone to kill him.”
“You seriously think she’s responsible for this?”
“I don’t know, but if she is, I need to convince her to call off the job before the police have a chance to arrest her.”
CHAPTER 16
My cell phone rang early the next morning as I pulled my minivan onto a dirt lane through a winter-gray farm. The frosted fields were lined with fences and dotted with cows. “Hey, Georgia,” I answered, my voice bobbing with the frozen ruts in the road. “Did Delia make it to school?”
“I just dropped her off. I’m on my way to work. I left Zach at your place with Vero. Did Steven call you?”
“No, why?”
“Someone made a bonfire of his sales office at the farm last night.”
“What do you mean?” I tried to infuse the question with a reasonable degree of surprise.
“The trailer’s gone. Someone burned it down.”
“Wow. Do they have any idea who it was?”
“The fire marshal’s still there. My contacts at Fauquier PD won’t have his official report for another couple of days, but all signs point to arson. They’re putting a couple of detectives on it. That’s all I was able to get out of him.”
Those detectives would likely be here in a matter of hours. “Will you let me know if you hear anything else?”
“I’m all over it,” Georgia assured me. “In the meanwhile, you should call Steven’s attorney. Ask him to suspend visitation until the investigation is wrapped up. This was no accident, Finn, and I don’t think the kids should stay at Steven’s place until we know what happened.”
“I’ll handle it. Thanks, Georgia.” I disconnected, slowing the van as a sprawling farmhouse came into view. Its crisp white siding dripped with icicle lights, and garlands dressed the rails of a wraparound porch. I parked alongside an ivory Lincoln Continental and a red Volkswagen bug I recognized as Bree’s. Hugging my coat around me, I climbed the porch steps and rang the bell. Wispy hot glue webs trailed from holly berries and sleigh bells on a homemade wreath on the door. Warm smells oozed from the house when the door swung open—spiced apples and bacon, the rich scent of cinnamon rolls wafting from the oven.
“Hello.” The woman who answered bore a striking resemblance to Bree. Her smile was polite but uncertain, as if she was struggling to place me. She wiped her hands on her jeans, leaving a patch of tiny dish bubbles to dissipate into the pale blue denim.
“Hi, I’m looking for Bree. Is she home?” I peeked over her shoulder into a wide, inviting foyer adorned with country landscapes and quaint hand-painted crafts. I had looked up the address on Bree’s time card, only mildly surprised to find her still living at home with her parents. I’d known that Bree was enrolled in community college from scouring public records, but it wasn’t until I was standing in front of her mother that the age gap between us felt quite so wide.
“Oh, of course!” She held out a hand, her short nails stained with Christmas-colored craft paint. “I’m Melissa. Would you like to come in…?” She inclined her head, waiting for me to offer my name.
“Finlay,” I said, taking her hand. It was warm, still damp from washing. Her lips thinned as she registered my name.
“You’re Steven’s wife.”
“Ex-wife.” My mouth pursed as I corrected her. The “ex” had always held a sour bite coming out.
