was desperate to prove he couldn’t have done it. She says they were together all week.”
“All week?” Matt picked up half his sub.
“What were they doing for a whole week?” Bree swallowed and reached for her water bottle.
“Um. She said they’d been apart for months, so they had some catching up to do.” Todd blushed.
“Oh.” Matt grinned.
Todd cleared his throat. “Anyway, she swears she was with him 24/7, and they left her apartment only once. She had a bunch of food delivery receipts. I checked with the manager of her apartment complex. They have surveillance cameras in the parking lot. He gave me a copy of the videos for the past week. Noah’s car arrives last Thursday. The only time the vehicle moves is on Sunday for about two hours. Chloe said they went for coffee and stopped at the grocery store. She didn’t have receipts, but she showed me the payments on her credit card app. The surveillance video confirms what time they left and came back, and their cars stay put until today.”
Bree set down her water bottle. “So, Noah didn’t do it. His girlfriend’s statement and the videos give him alibis for both murders.”
“Do we release him?” Todd asked.
“Not yet.” Bree took another bite of her sandwich and chewed thoughtfully. After she swallowed, she said, “I know the coincidence would be huge, but is there any possibility that Holly and Paul were killed by two different people? Holly was choked, and Paul was shot.”
“A very slim one.” Matt’s instincts told him the crimes were related. “The victims knew each other. They were engaged in something that required a late-night phone call a couple of months ago and a more recent visit from Holly to Paul’s house. And there’s the green clay found in Paul’s garage and Holly’s trunk. So, we have a link between the crime scenes as well.”
Bree’s lips flattened as she considered his points. “Can those correlations be explained in another way? Is it possible that Paul killed Holly, then Angela or someone else killed Paul?”
“Angela says he didn’t play tennis,” Todd said. “Noah confirmed it.”
“He has a court on his property. Paul could have picked up traces of clay without playing the game,” Bree argued. “Maybe something blew onto the court and he went to retrieve it. Or one of the landscapers could have walked on the court and tracked clay to another place, where Paul picked it up on his shoes.”
“It’s possible.” But the explanation didn’t sit well in Matt’s gut. “Why would he kill Holly?”
“Don’t know yet.” Bree shrugged, then winced and rubbed her injured arm below the bandage. “It doesn’t seem Paul was concerned about hiding his affairs any longer. He was open about them. How do we explain the two different methods of killing?”
“Holly was a small woman, easily overpowered by a stronger woman or man,” Matt said. “Paul was not a small man, and he worked construction. He might have been carrying some extra weight, but he was still strong.”
“Right. I just wanted to make sure we’re not making invalid assumptions.” Bree rubbed her forehead. “On that note, I’m going to do the press conference now. I want Owen and Shannon to feel secure enough to talk about Holly and Paul’s relationship. We need more evidence on Angela Beckett.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“Last night, Paul Beckett was shot to death at his home.” Bree faced the press and gave a quick recap of the crime. “Today, his son Noah Beckett has confessed to the murder. I cannot comment on the validity of the confession, as we are still investigating.”
Video cameras whirled, flashes went off, and reporters fired questions. Bree nodded toward a tall man in the front.
“Sheriff, did Noah Beckett also kill Holly Thorpe?” he asked.
“We don’t have the answer to that question yet.” Bree pointed to another reporter. “This is still an active investigation.”
A woman asked, “Are the deaths of Holly Thorpe and Paul Beckett related?”
“We are looking hard at the possibility that they were killed by the same person,” Bree said. “But at this time, we cannot confirm that.”
The blonde woman followed up. “Didn’t Holly Thorpe work for Paul Beckett?”
“Yes,” Bree said. “There is a definite link between the victims. But we need hard evidence to connect their deaths as well.”
“So, Noah didn’t confess to killing Holly Thorpe?”
“No, he did not.” Bree summoned patience, then took three more questions and ended the press conference. The ibuprofen she’d taken before the press con had barely made a dent in her pain.
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