Then there was Stefanie, with whom Jasmine felt a kinship. Jasmine had learned that she was the one to discover Mia’s body. Was that what had brought Stefanie to the compound, before Kenneth sent her away?
Jasmine knocked on the front door, and a follower named Eva opened it. In her early twenties and rail thin with long, stringy blond hair and big blue eyes, Eva asked, “Are you looking for Kenneth?”
“Yes,” Jasmine said, second-guessing if it was truly a good idea to approach him directly about Mia.
“Come in.” Eva smiled at her. “He’s in his office with Siobhan and Juan.”
“All right.” Jasmine walked alongside Eva on dark hardwood flooring and past farmhouse furnishings in an open-concept layout, knowing that there was never any wandering around the house alone unless you were part of Kenneth’s inner circle, which she wasn’t.
Eva knocked on the door, and a voice gave her permission to open it. She looked at Jasmine and said, ill at ease, “You can go in now.” Eva added, as if feeling it might be needed, “Good luck.”
Jasmine smiled softly at her, replying, “Thanks.”
When she walked into the big office, which had a largepicture window and wooden furniture, Jasmine spotted the three people huddled around each other conspiratorially.
Kenneth broke away and approached her. He asked in a friendly tone, “How can I help you, Jasmine?”
“I was wondering if I could talk to you about Mia?” Jasmine replied tentatively.
“Of course.” He looked over his shoulder at Juan and Siobhan, who was a dark-haired, dark-eyed beauty in her mid-twenties, tall and shapely, and told them, “Leave us.”
Juan glared and Siobhan pouted as they walked past her. Once they were out of the office, closing the door behind them, Kenneth peered at Jasmine and asked with an edge to his voice, “So, what’s on your mind?”
Jasmine suddenly felt tongue-tied as she contemplated where to go from here.
Chapter Nine
In his home office, Mason Sawyer sat on a well-worn, high-backed black leather ergonomic chair at an L-shaped walnut desk that had a small filing cabinet attached to it. His dog, Hopper, sat lazily nearby, rejecting the opportunity to roam free on the ranch.
Spread across the desk were case files from his investigation into the murder of Lynda Boxleitner two decades ago. Though he’d stepped away from police work since retiring—after an injury and his wife Alyssa’s death made it too difficult to remain on the force—Mason had never quite been able to rid himself of information on Lynda’s mysterious death. It was as though, deep down inside, he believed that he might need to come back to it again once the case was reopened.
He wasn’t sure if that was official or not, but Mason believed that his son was hell-bent on clearing up his present-day death of Mia O’Dell by poisoning case in conjunction with the cold case death of Lynda Boxleitner.
Mason felt obliged to do his part to the extent he could as a retiree. He thought,It’s the least I can do in trying to help Campbell piece this together, if the deaths were connected at all. Not to mention having another crack at solving Lynda’s murder long after the fact—once and for all.
But as of yet, he saw nothing while going over the investigation notes, witnesses, evidence and whatnot that he hadn’t seen twenty years ago.
All roads still seemed to lead back to Wendell Braison as the most likely culprit in Lynda’s death. But that hadn’t been nearly enough to make an arrest, much less get a conviction and prison sentence.
But what if I’d been wrong in pursuing Wendell?Mason asked himself, lifting a can of beer and taking a sip. What about Kenneth Braison? Had he overlooked him? Though Kenneth was twentysomething at the time and fully capable of killing Lynda, his alibi of being in Boise when the murder took place had held up. On the other hand, Wendell—who was thought to have been romantically linked to Lynda and manipulative in controlling her and his other followers—was sketchy in his own alibi. But did that make him guilty of murder?
And could Kenneth have pulled a fast one by faking his whereabouts at the time of Lynda’s death?
What am I missing?Mason mused, going through the files again. Could another Braison Family member be at the center of both deaths?
Or were Lynda and Mia’s poisoning not connected by time? And perpetrated by one or more persons outside of the Family?
When Hopper suddenly got to his feet, Mason snapped out of his reverie as Sally entered the office. She was carrying a plate of oatmeal cookies, his favorite, and said, “Thought you could use a break with some fresh-baked cookies…”
Mason grinned. “That, I could.” He watched as thedog ran up to her, seeking to get a cookie or two himself. “Looks like Hopper feels the same.”
“I guess he does.” Sally smiled while tossing the dog a cookie, which he caught in midair. She sat the plate on the desk in an empty spot. “So, how are we doing here?”
Mason almost hated to saynot so good. He had filled her in on what was happening after Campbell paid them a visit. She had been nothing but supportive in his desire to assist his son in reopening the investigation that came with his biggest regret as a police detective.
“Still a work in progress,” he settled on telling her. “Could be that I’m only spinning my wheels, going nowhere fast. But it’s just as possible that there may be something here that could be a means to one end or another—”
Sally seemed amenable to whichever way this went, kissing the top of his head. Mason was left to wonder if he could ever be satisfied with never knowing who ended Lynda’s life—or why?
