verify this. It feels crazy.” Bree called Dana. “Could you open the murder book? Find a picture of Holly with her sister as kids. Would you take a picture of it and send it to me?”
“Sure,” Dana said. “Anything else?”
“No.” Bree ended the call and waited. A few seconds later, her phone beeped. She stared at the image on her screen. Next, she called the sheriff’s station. A deputy answered. “I want you to access the video recording of the interview with Shannon Phelps. Stop at the spot when she signs the Miranda acknowledgment, take a photo of the screen, and text it to me.”
She lowered the phone.
“What are you thinking?” Matt asked.
Bree turned her phone screen to him. “Here’s the photo Mrs. Phelps gave me.” In the picture, two little girls sat across from each other, drawing. “Shannon is the younger, smaller child.” She pointed. “She’s holding her crayon in her left hand.”
Her phone beeped, and she downloaded the picture of Shannon’s interview that her deputy had sent.
“She signed with her right hand,” Matt said.
Bree nodded. “It’s not Holly lying in the morgue. It’s Shannon.”
Matt drew back, shock widening his eyes. Then he tugged on his beard. “That explains so much.”
“Holly was going bankrupt. Angela had called the IRS on Paul. She was hoping he’d go to prison. What if Holly was guilty too? She’s the one who transferred the money to the dummy corporations. What if she was also blackmailing Paul and stealing from Beckett Construction?”
“By killing her sister and switching places with her, she avoids all penalties, financial and criminal. She takes over her sister’s life and starts fresh with a nice bank account and business.” Puzzle pieces fell neatly into place in Bree’s mind. Not all of them, but enough.
“But her mother would recognize her.”
“She hasn’t seen her mother since before she killed her sister,” Bree said. “Remember, she said she had a cold. Plus, her mother’s vision is terrible.”
Matt shook his head. “A mother would still know her own daughter.”
“But would she turn her in?”
“What about Owen? He’d recognize his own wife, and wouldn’t he be mad if he knew his wife was abandoning him to their bankruptcy?”
Bree remembered their original interview with Owen. “He and Shannon hated each other. Maybe she was hoping to avoid him. Or maybe he knew about the plan.”
Matt frowned. “Did Holly kill Paul, or did Angela do that?”
“I don’t know. Could have also been Owen.” Bree could see any of those options working. “Angela didn’t have an alibi for Paul’s death. Holly, masquerading as Shannon, was at the vet with the dog. Owen didn’t have an alibi.”
Matt froze. “I know why Holly took my sister. Shannon adopted her dog through Cady’s rescue. Cady met her just a few months ago.”
Horror curled inside Bree’s chest, wrapping its fingers around her heart and squeezing. “Your sister would know she wasn’t Shannon. Until now, we haven’t met many people who personally knew Shannon. They look enough alike to fool someone who didn’t know either of them well. Shannon worked for herself from home, so she has no coworkers and no boss. She wasn’t close to her neighbors. She didn’t seem to have many friends either.”
“Cady said she was very shy.” Matt looked devastated. “We have to find them. Where would she take her?”
Bree met his eyes. “I can only think of one place. The same place their father died. The same place Holly tried to fake her suicide.”
“The bridge.” He headed for the front door, Brody at his heels.
Bree hurried to keep pace with his longer legs. “I hope we’re right.”
“We don’t have anywhere else to look,” Matt said.
Outside, they ran for the SUV. Brody didn’t wait for his ramp. He leaped into the back seat.
Bree fastened her seat belt. “Do I call for backup now, or wait until we confirm they’re at the bridge?”
“What if we’re wrong? What if Holly took Cady somewhere else?”
“I’ll call in a BOLO.” Bree used her radio to put out the alert. “Since we’re operating on our guts, it’s better to have the deputies looking for Shannon’s vehicle than sending everyone to the bridge.”
She set down the radio mic. Her deputies were searching the county for Shannon’s Ford Escape. If she called them all to the bridge, they wouldn’t be actively searching.
She’d wait. If they found Holly and Cady at the bridge, then she’d call for backup.
Her belly cramped. Holly had killed her own sister and left her in the trunk of her vehicle until she