“There are no big cash withdrawals over the past month.” Kerri ran her finger down the column again. The larger debits from the account were payments for utilities and other services. Insurance. The house, the business, the vehicles they owned were all purchased outright. No mortgages. No loans.

“Maybe she’d been saving up over the course of several months.” Falco used his thumbs to tap out a few beats on the steering wheel. “Stashing a little away here and there.”

“Either that or there’s a bank account we don’t know about.” Kerri closed the file. “With this kind of money, there are likely accounts all over the world.”

“But would Ben Abbott give his new wife access to all of them?”

“No way to be certain, I suppose.”

Falco tugged at the collar of his starched shirt, which had likely started to chafe. “We know she didn’t register the car. She didn’t want her husband or anyone else to know about it.”

“The fact that she secretly bought the car only a few days before she disappeared does not lend credibility to her being a victim.” Kerri felt confident Falco understood there was no way to spin this other than the way it was.

“Obviously she had access to money we can’t track, and she had wheels that no one knew about,” Falco agreed.

“It’s time to seriously consider that Sela Abbott was either involved, or she had some plan in the works that may or may not have contributed to what happened.”

“We need the results back on the blood found in the bed with the husband,” Falco said. “The lab stuff is all taking way too long. Didn’t the chief put a rush on all this?”

“He did,” Kerri relented. “But he wants the t’s crossed and the i’s dotted. The lab is likely repeating all tests just to make sure there are no mistakes.”

She was grateful Falco didn’t point out that he’d been leaning in the direction that the wife was involved all along.

“The chief of police is keeping tabs on this,” Falco said aloud—to himself, no doubt, since he was aware Kerri already understood as much. “This goes as high as you can go in Birmingham. The top of the top. The department wants no mistakes.”

“Daniel Abbott’s son is murdered.” Kerri picked it up from there. “It’s all over the news. Talk show hosts and investigative reporters are doing the same thing we are: tossing out scenarios. Did the wife do it? Did she take a big chunk of his fortune and disappear? Was she having an affair, and her lover did the killing, and then the two of them disappeared?”

“Hey.” Falco glanced at her. “We didn’t talk about that one.”

Kerri rolled her eyes. “Because it isn’t plausible. None of it is, really. She’s taken the mother with her everywhere her whole life. Why kill her now? Why kill anyone? Take the money and disappear. The killing was completely unnecessary if those sorts of motives were the ones driving her.”

He grinned. “Makes for a great headline, though.” His lips eased down into a flat line. “Unless she was afraid of him,” her partner suggested. “Maybe she knew he would hunt her down if he wasn’t taken out.”

“But what about his daddy? She had to know Daniel Abbott would do the same thing. He isn’t going to sit idly by and allow her to get away with killing his son—his only heir. If we don’t get this case solved, he’ll hire private investigators to find her or whatever there is to be found.” Kerri chewed at her lip. The man had been damned calm in that interview. “Maybe he already has.”

“I see what you’re saying, Devlin. When you get down to the nitty-gritty, this little plot was a no-win situation for her either way.”

“Which would suggest she had no idea this was coming. Getaway car aside, she could be a complete innocent in the murders. Maybe dead already. What do we know about Sela Abbott since she moved here?” Kerri silently mulled over the meager details.

“She’s very good at separating rich people from their money,” Falco pointed out.

“For a good cause,” Kerri qualified.

He nodded. “Everyone believes she’s like an angel. A saint. Except maybe her mother-in-law.”

“And Suzanne Thompson.”

“But the mother-in-law,” he countered. “Pulling one over on her would be the true measure of her ability to deceive. If we go with the scenario that the wife is somehow involved with something that accidentally prompted the murders, why would she go to the trouble to so completely fool all the other people around her,” Falco ventured, “and not the woman closest to her? The one who really mattered to her new husband? Why would she let that happen? She fooled her husband, so we know she possesses the necessary skills.”

Kerri turned to him. “It’s far more difficult to fool a mother,” she argued. “The old saying that mothers have a kind of intuition is true, I think.” She mentally flipped the coin and looked at the other side. “Then again, maybe she doesn’t care what Mrs. Abbott thinks of her. Maybe Sela doesn’t like her either. Allowing her to see what she was doing may have been part of the fun.”

“She wouldn’t be the first new wife who loved sticking it to her MIL.”

This was true. Kerri had never had to deal with the in-law thing. Her husband and his family weren’t close at all. She’d only met them once. Even after Tori was born, there had been no relationship. Since it had always been that way, she hadn’t questioned it. Maybe there was a reason Nick and his family didn’t get along. Maybe she should make it a point to learn what that reason was.

“We should go to lunch,” Falco decided.

Kerri’s stomach rumbled. She turned to her partner. “Can we pick up Chinese or something and go to my place so I can check on Tori and bring her lunch too?”

“Sure thing, but does it have to be Chinese? Way too many MSGs or whatever. How about Mexican? There’s this place I love. I swear it’s to die for.”

Made no difference to her. “Mexican it is.”

As he drove away from the Walmart, Kerri decided that she needed to speak to Suzanne Thompson again. If Sela Abbott wanted her mother-in-law to understand things were not as they should be, she may have wanted Mrs. Thompson to be aware as well. Taking into consideration the property dispute, it made an odd kind of sense. All Kerri needed was the why. This was, of course, simply another working theory. They had several, and not a single one rose above the others, which meant they had to keep digging and turning over rocks.

By Monday she intended to talk to Theo Thompson with or without approval from the chain of command.

The one true negative they had encountered regarding Sela Abbott had come from the Thompsons. The Thompsons were angry over the property purchase.

It wasn’t much, but it was all they had that actually pointed to any sort of motive.

21

2:00 p.m.

Crestwood Inn & Suites

Crestwood Boulevard

Jen leaned toward the dingy mirror and reapplied her lipstick, then used her fingers to fluff and arrange her tousled red hair. What a dump he’d chosen as their meeting place. Things with Theo were really going downhill fast.

She felt like a whore. He ignored her, canceled on her, and then he showed up for a quickie?

She was a whore, and she wasn’t even getting paid.

In the mirror she watched Theo buttoning his shirt. He was using her. Why did she keep pretending otherwise? Diana was right. She should just end it and start over.

The end was bound to happen sooner or later. Why prolong the agony?

She turned to face him. “I’m sick of this.” She surveyed the shabby room. “This is not what I want.”

Her eyes burned, and she blinked back the tears. She would not cry for this bastard. She had cried enough over men in the past. Tears never changed a thing.

Damn Theo Thompson. He didn’t deserve her tears. She turned her back on him. Couldn’t bear to face him any longer.

“Sweetheart.” He moved toward her.

She watched his advancement in the mirror. No matter that she wanted to be angry with him, her heart skipped a beat. He was so damned handsome. So smart and rich to boot. He was everything she had ever wanted. Her eyes closed as she thought of the way his skin smelled. She’d never been with a man who smelled as delicious as he did.

“You don’t need to worry. When this election is behind me, you and I will have the life we deserve. I made that promise to you, and I’m standing firm behind it. Please don’t give up on me yet.”

“How can I keep believing the same story over and over?” She whirled to face him. “I want a family.”

She could have bitten off her tongue for saying out loud the words she had held inside for so very long.

Too late now.

He looked as startled as she felt. “I had no idea.”

A new fear crept into her heart. He didn’t want this. She could hear it in his voice. He’d had his family. Raised a brilliant, overachieving son and an equally talented daughter. At forty-six why would he want to start all over?

But she hadn’t had those things. Why should she give up everything she wanted just to make him happy? This relationship had been one sided from the beginning. It was time she counted as much as he did.