“And this one?” she asked, walking over to the other side of the room.
Simon came to stand beside her. “This is what he called me out here for.”
Violet took it all in, frowning when she saw newspaper clippings about Kylie Walker’s death. Another was a photograph from theCoyote Ridge Gazettetaken at the funeral. It showed Kylie’s sister, Jessie, hugging her niece.
She suddenly felt defensive. “What is this?”
Simon exhaled, his attention still on the wall of crap. “Holt believes that Meredith Prescott”—he pointed to the photograph of a young woman that looked like it could’ve been taken several years ago—“didn’t run out on her daughters.”
“Kylie and Jessie?”
“Yeah,” he said absently, reading one of the articles.
“I thought she left to start a new life,” Violet said.
“That’s the story. Holt thinks her disappearance is related to a mob hit.”
Violet took a step back. “She waskilledby the mob?”
Okay. Just what the fuck was going on here?
•••••
“There’s no documentation that she’s dead,” Simontold Violet as he continued to skim the articles. “Not that Holt can find.”
He was impressed by the amount of information Holt had acquired. From the looks of it, he’d done research on the Prescott family as far back as the youngest daughter’s birth and moving forward.
Violet sounded both skeptical and irritated when she said, “I don’t understand.”
“I don’t either,” he admitted as he stepped back to observe from a distance. “That’s why he asked me to come down here.”
“You think this is a story?”
“Hethinks this is a story,” Simon clarified. “I only heard about it last week when he called me.”
“After he pissed off my cousin?” Violet snapped back.
Simon peered over at her. “Is Travis Walker your cousin?”
She nodded.
“Then, yes,” Simon recalled his conversation with Holt last Thursday. He’d been surprised to see his friend’s name on his phone, so he’d answered immediately. Holt’s adamance that something fishy was going on had Simon grabbing his suitcase—it was almost always packed for reasons like this—and heading down here.
Simon turned back to the wall and took it all in again. This was the first time he’d seen Holt’s research. For the past few days, he’d had in-depth conversations with Holt about his theory but had to delay jumping into it until he finished the last of the podcast he was working on. Now that it was complete, he had the time to dedicate to his next project. Whatever that might be.
“I think it might be worth lookin’ into more,” Simon mused. “Doesn’t mean I will.”
“Why not?”
That was something he thought he knew the answer to before he walked in to find this. Holt had already done a lot of the initial work. From experience, he knew it had taken time for him to acquire these things. Simon and his team usually spentdays, sometimes weeks, gathering enough data to form a picture. Holt had done that for him.
“I have questions,” he answered. “Plus, I need to talk to the family.”
“My cousin Travis?”
Simon turned to face her fully. “He really is your cousin?”
“Every Walker in this town is my cousin.”
