Gone Too Far (Devlin & Falco #2) - Debra Webb Page 0,102

a .22.”

Sadie glanced around, spotted a handwritten note on the closed toilet lid. Based on the notes she had seen on the kitchen bulletin board and at McGill’s desk, the handwriting was the vic’s.

Falco leaned Sadie’s way, reading the note along with her.

I fucked up. Got in too deep. I loved Leo but he found out about the money. I had to do it to stay out of jail. His friend was there. I had no choice . . .

Sorry.

“All tidied up in a neat bundle,” Falco commented.

“Looks like”—Sadie stood—“you can close your case now. How nice is that?”

Falco chuckled, a dry growl. “Yeah.” He pushed to his feet. “When were you here?”

Sadie glanced at the woman in the tub. “Around one in the afternoon on Wednesday.”

“Caldwell said she was at work last night until closing, which means this,” Falco surmised, “happened in the past twenty or so hours.”

Sadie shifted her gaze from the bathtub and the body in the water. “I’d say in the past four or five hours. No way she’s been in that water overnight or even all day. You know the shit that happens when a body has been in water that long.”

Falco nodded. “Let’s have a look around. Tell me anything that looks different than when you were here on Wednesday afternoon.”

They moved through the second floor one room at a time. In the bedroom turned office, it was clear what the killer had taken.

“The computer is missing.” Sadie walked over to the desk. “It was here. I pulled the info I gave you from it.”

Falco scrubbed a hand over his chin. “Good thing you were one step ahead of whoever ordered the hit.”

“Yeah.” Sounds and images from the hours she had spent between the sheets with McGill whispered through Sadie’s head. “I’m thinking now if anyone had spotted me coming or going on Wednesday, she would have been dead before today.”

“There would likely be signs of an interrogation as well,” he reminded her.

No signs of interrogation. Didn’t make Sadie feel a hell of a lot better.

“Don’t forget,” Falco added, “McGill made her own choices. You didn’t do this to her; she did it to herself.”

Maybe.

“I guess you have to call this in.” Sadie started backing toward the door. “I should go. See you later, Falco.”

Sadie was out of here. She had shit to do. Otherwise the damned voices were going to take over.

Cortez Residence

Eleventh Avenue South

Birmingham, 10:30 p.m.

She should have brought something stronger than coffee.

Sadie screwed the lid back on the thermos and tossed it into the passenger seat of Heck’s shitty yellow car.

She stared at the Cortez home. There were no outside lights. Just the moonlight sifting through the trees, spotlighting the house in an eerie glow. The windows were like boxes outlined in gold. The curtains blocking most of the interior lights caused a gold-colored edge to encircle each one.

The girl was in there. Isabella. Maybe it was Sadie’s inability to maintain a coherent thought between the blasts of voices from the past intruding in her head, but she was pretty much convinced at this point that it was her.

They’d had trouble with the girl. She’d remembered Eddie telling her how the behavior problems had started at age five. Before her death, the girl’s mother had refused to allow any sort of real discipline. Eddie had blamed himself and his father mostly. She was the only grandchild and spoiled completely. Everyone, the staff, the guards—they all spoiled her, were enchanted by her.

She was the perfect angel. As entertaining as any child movie star.

Except when she didn’t get her way or failed to receive all the attention. Then she became cruel and violent.

Eddie refused to try the medication route. His thinking was that the child would outgrow the tantrums.

All those pieces of memory had sifted through Sadie’s brain the last couple of hours as she sat here watching the house. The words, his voice, had slid over her as if he’d touched her. She shivered even now. Shaking off the sensation, she focused on the house. Her mind conjured up the images from inside . . . the masks, the crosses, the drawings Devlin had shown her. All far too familiar.

Now, if this Alice was in fact Eddie’s daughter, she was up to far worse than tantrums.

But the big question still hung like a flashing caution sign in Sadie’s brain. Why send her to Birmingham?

Why not keep her hidden away as they had before?

Made no sense. Sadie closed her eyes and dropped her