Cut and Run (Lucy Kincaid #16) - Allison Brennan Page 0,129

you killed her.”

“Stop. Stop. Let me think.”

“There’s one right answer, Mr. Clemson. That right answer is telling me the truth.”

He looked toward Nate as if appealing to him, then quickly looked away.

Nate said, “Kincaid, Ash’s crime scene unit is leaving the lab now. ETA ten minutes.”

“I didn’t kill her. I didn’t even know the woman was dead!”

“But you picked up someone at the house.”

“I-I—”

“The same person you let use your property to access the house. There is no fence, only natural barriers, along the property line. Easy enough to walk between two trees and end up in the backyard. Waiting for Victoria to come out. Or calling her and asking her to come out. But the killer didn’t leave the same way. Maybe because if the blood trail went to your house, you would be questioned and the killer knew you were a weak link.” Lucy slapped her hands on the photos she’d put in front of him. “This is what happens to weak links.”

“I didn’t know,” he said. “I swear to God, I didn’t know. She came to my house at ten that night and said she had a problem to take care of, and to pick her up at ten thirty. I did. I didn’t see any blood. I didn’t see anything. I took her home.”

Her.

“How did she get to your house?”

“I don’t know. Uber, maybe? A friend? I didn’t ask. She just came. And I owed her.”

“Who.”

“I-I—” He looked down at the last picture Lucy put there, the bones.

Nate said, “Ash’s ETA is four minutes.”

“Tell me, or when Ash gets here you don’t get my help with the AUSA. This is an FBI-SAPD joint investigation, and the SAPD already has Melissa Randolph on notice. She’s cooperating. She’s safe, in Chicago. You’re here, in San Antonio. Tell me who you picked up the night Victoria Mills was murdered.”

“Faith. Parker.” His voice was a squeak.

“Faith Parker Monroe?”

He nodded.

“How do you know Mrs. Monroe?”

“She’s my lawyer in another matter…” His voice trailed off.

“Would that matter have to do with a large gambling debt you owe to her husband?”

He was shaking and sweating, his eyes pure panic. “She said she would take care of it if I let her go through my yard and then picked her up.”

“Why would Faith want to kill Victoria? Was she worried that Victoria was going to turn state’s evidence against her husband? Against her?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t ask. You don’t ask that woman questions. I— Well, she said she couldn’t use her car because she didn’t want her husband to know where she was and he was, I guess, possessive. I don’t know. I swear to God I didn’t know she was going to kill that woman.”

“Did you know Victoria Mills?”

“No, not personally. I mean, I know the family. Her brother.”

“Which brother?”

“Simon.”

“How?”

“He, um, well, I-I need to know I’m not going to jail. And that you can protect me. These people—I-I just got in over my head. I was getting out of it. Faith was helping me, I just needed to do this one thing and I didn’t think it was a big deal, I didn’t know she was going to kill anyone.”

“This is how we’re going to handle this,” Lucy said. “You’re going to come with Agent Dunning and myself to FBI headquarters. You’re going to give your statement, sign it, and I’m going to talk to my boss. If you give us something that convinces us that your life would be in danger, my boss is a reasonable woman. She’ll do what she can to put you in protective custody. If you lie to me about anything, all bets are off and you’ll be immediately arrested as an accessory to murder.”

She stared at him until he looked down, but he couldn’t avoid looking at the photos on his desk. She picked them up and put them back in her folder. “Simon Mills?”

“He’s Harrison’s partner. He ran the business here, Harrison ran it in Chicago until something happened, I don’t know what, and they closed down Chicago and came here. That’s how I met him and Faith. They run things a lot different than Simon. Simon was much more forgiving of, you know, losses.”

“Why did Stanley Grant confess to killing Victoria?”

“I don’t know. I swear. Faith doesn’t talk. She only tells you what you need to know. When I said SAPD was talking to me, that they might have seen my car, she said to tell them I had drinks with Melissa Randolph