Sherry groaned. “I said I didn’t want to talk about him—”
“It’s important,” Ethan interrupted. “Please. I just need to know if he was ever there.”
Silence for a long time. “Yeah. I didn’t live at New Hope like a lot of the other staff, so once or twice Hank dropped me off at work when my car was in the shop. And yeah, he did that recently. Now you’re thinking Hank saw Zadie and got obsessed with her or something.”
Ethan jumped right on that. “Could that have happened?”
“Maybe,” she conceded. “Yes,” Sherry amended several moments later. “Hank was an arrogant SOB who treated women like dirt. If he put the moves on Zadie and she resisted him, he could have killed her.”
Ethan frowned. “Any reason you didn’t tell the cops that before now?”
“Yeah, because I haven’t had time. I just got off the night shift at the cleaning service where I work. Also, nobody’s asked me about him. I only heard about Hank’s death about an hour ago because I’m not Hank’s next of kin,” she added. “Our worthlessfather has that privilege. He’s the one who messaged me with the news.”
Now that Grace knew about Sherry and the link to New Hope, she would almost certainly want to do an in-person interview with the woman.
“Is that it?” Sherry snarled. “Because I gotta go.”
She didn’t wait for Ethan’s response but instead ended the call. Ethan texted Grace to give her the update just as Livvy pulled to a stop in front of New Hope. The minute or so that it took him to do that gave Livvy some time to think and process everything that Sherry had just told him.
And now she had to wonder if Hank had acted alone.
Maybe he had become obsessed with Zadie, and since Sunny and Zadie were identical twins, that could explain why one was dead and the other had been attacked.
But while that theory worked, it didn’t feel right to Livvy.
Apparently, it didn’t feel right to Ethan either. “Hank could have met Chloe or Franklin on one of the visits here to New Hope,” he said the moment he’d fired off the text to Grace.
“Yes,” she agreed. And that was yet something else they could bring up to Chloe and her brother.
They got out of the cruiser, but before they even rang the bell, a woman in a housekeeper’s uniform opened the door. Livvy recognized her from the photos they’d gotten of the current employees, and this was Veronica Baskar.
“I saw you drive up,” the woman said, stepping back for them to enter. “Are Dr. Franklin and Chloe expecting you?”
“They’ll need to talk to us,” Livvy settled for saying.
A sliver of dread went through Veronica’s eyes. “I’ll let them know you’re here. You can wait in the parlor.”
Since they knew the way, Livvy and Ethan headed there while Veronica went toward the stairs. They had only made it a fewsteps when Livvy heard something she definitely hadn’t wanted to hear.
A gunshot blasted through the house.
Chapter Ten
Veronic a shrieked, and the woman did an about-face, running toward them. Ethan had no doubts that what he’d just heard was a gun going off, and he took hold of Veronica’s arm. So did Livvy, and they pulled her into the parlor and behind the wall.
Both Livvy and he drew their guns.
Waiting and listening.
The shot had definitely come from inside the house, but he hadn’t been able to pinpoint it. He didn’t want either of them to go charging through the place when they could be gunned down. Still, they couldn’t stay put either.
Not when someone’s life might’ve been at stake.
Livvy took out her phone, and he heard her call dispatch to report a shot being fired. Good. It meant backup would soon be on the way. As far as Ethan was concerned, it couldn’t come fast enough.
Because they might be inside with a killer.
“What was that?” someone shouted. Not Chloe but a woman, and Ethan glanced at Veronica since she would likely know who it was.
