He jogged around the side of the house and looked through the garage window. Empty. He returned to the front step. “Her car isn’t here.”
Bree stepped back and scanned the front of the house. “Now what?”
Matt paced while Brody watched him. “If Cady was here, Brody would know.”
Bree’s phone rang, and she pulled it from her pocket. “It’s Dana.” She answered. “Hey. I’m putting you on speaker. Matt is here.” She pressed a button and held her phone between her and Matt.
“I found several more fake payable accounts,” Dana said. “In addition to the two owned by Paul’s sons, two more are owned indirectly by Paul himself. You’ll never guess who owns the last one.”
“Who?” Bree asked.
“Shannon Phelps,” Dana said. “About thirty thousand dollars went into that account over the past year.”
Matt looked up at Shannon’s house. “Holly did the payables. She must have known what Paul was doing. What if she was blackmailing him?”
“That would explain her late-night phone call and the brief visit to his house,” Bree said.
“We already suspected Paul liked to buy people with envelopes full of cash,” Matt added.
Bree frowned. “Maybe Holly decided that wasn’t enough. She really liked to spend money. Maybe she started funneling some money to her sister.”
“But why use her sister?” Matt asked. “Why not just put the company in her own name?”
“Too easy to trace.” Bree shook her head.
“So, was Shannon in on it?” Dana asked.
Matt turned back to the house. “She must have been. But why would she have taken Cady?”
A few seconds of silence ticked by.
“Do you have anything else for us, Dana?” Bree asked.
“No,” Dana said. “I’ll call you if I do.”
“Thanks.” Bree lowered her phone. “How does all of this translate to Shannon killing Holly?”
“I don’t know.” Matt resumed his pacing. “Shannon had an alibi for Paul’s murder.”
“Maybe Angela killed Paul.”
“But why would Shannon kill Holly?”
Bree grimaced. “Shannon was angry that Holly wanted their mom to go into hospice. We learned that the very first time we talked to her.”
Matt glanced back at the house. “We know Cady called Shannon. Maybe she remembered something about her. Something incriminating.”
“What could Cady know?”
Matt shook his head. “I don’t know, but I don’t have time to analyze all the data. Cady is missing. I’m going into that house to see if Shannon left any clues of where she was going. You don’t have to come with me.”
It was a gamble. They had no probable cause, other than the fake account in Shannon’s name collecting money from Beckett Construction. But they had no way to connect that activity to Cady’s disappearance. But Matt didn’t care. He’d do whatever was necessary to find his sister.
Bree stared at him. “We’re doing this together.”
“Are you sure? You could get sued.”
“Cady is more important,” Bree said. “I’ll take my chances.”
“The alarm will go off.”
“And the alarm company will call my department.” Without hesitating, Bree pulled her flashlight from her pocket and used the handle to break a small window near the front door. She reached in, unlocked the door, and opened it.
They both halted, waiting for the alarm to sound. Most security systems allowed only thirty seconds to a minute to turn them off.
But they heard nothing. Matt looked for the alarm panel. The lights were green. “She didn’t turn on the alarm.”
“If she’s the one who killed Holly, then she doesn’t have a reason to be afraid.”
“The break-in here and doll in the sink were fake,” Matt said.
“It’s possible she wanted to throw off the investigation. If that was her goal, I’m sorry to say it worked.”
He led Brody inside, making sure the dog didn’t step on broken glass.
Bree drew her weapon, and they swept through the house. Brody’s presence made the search quick and easy. He’d been trained to clear rooms, and he could sense people who were hiding.
Back downstairs, Bree stood in Shannon’s kitchen, her gaze scanning the room.
“I’ll look in the home office.” Matt walked toward the small study.
“Wait.” Bree picked up a framed photo of the two girls with their softball bats and balls on the shelf. She looked up at Matt, her gaze stunned. “I’ve figured out what was bugging me about Shannon’s last interview. Now everything makes sense.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Bree shoved the picture at Matt and pulled out her phone. Nerves roiled inside her. She wavered between horror at what she was thinking and exasperation that she could have missed something so basic.