Page 43 of Beyond Her Reach (Bree Taggert #10)

Sitting at the desk in her home office, Bree felt like she’d been run over by a bulldozer.

Ibuprofen hadn’t made a dent in the pain in her face.

She’d barely managed a few mouthfuls of Dana’s shepherd’s pie, which was a damned shame.

It was one of her favorite winter meals.

A sedated Turbo was sleeping in Brody’s old crate in the living room while Luke watched TV.

She envied the dog a little. A deep sleep would feel amazing.

Matt sat in a leather chair on the other side of her desk, scrolling on his laptop.

“I backtracked through Troy’s social media account to identify the other three women he dated.

The names match the list Morgan gave us: Barbara James, Claudia Ferguson, and Candy Simpson.

Back when he was involved with them, he posted a couple of selfies of each one of them and tagged them.

From there, it was easy to match their photos with their driver’s licenses.

We have addresses and phone numbers for all three.

Do you want to call them or have a deputy ride by? ”

“They need an immediate warning.” She called each of the numbers, but none of the women answered.

“No one under the age of sixty-five answers a call from an unknown number.”

Bree glanced at the time on her phone. 10:10 p.m. “A lot of people use Do Not Disturb at night too. Let’s ride by their places, just to make sure they’re all right.” She stood, the motion and increase in heart rate pulsing in her face.

“You’re in no shape to be working.”

“I’m Ok .” Bree realized as she said the words how ridiculous they sounded. Her head felt like a sandbag, and she looked like she’d been whacked in the face with the same. Even her voice was weak, hoarse, and nasally.

Matt met her gaze with his own.

“Fine. I’ll send a deputy.” She called dispatch to send one of the on-patrol deputies to perform wellness checks on the three women.

She tried to read the email in front of her, but her eyeballs refused to focus. She blinked hard, which sent a wave of pain radiating through her face. The screen remained stubbornly blurry. “I need another set of eyes. Mine aren’t working.”

“It’s no wonder with all that swelling.” Matt rounded the desk. “Go sit in the chair. Ice your face. I’ll read your emails to you.”

They switched seats.

Matt leaned over her laptop. “Rory sent a list of all the women Troy dated via the app over the last year. There are three. He’s requested account profile details on all of them.”

“But the number of women matches the information from Troy.”

“Correct,” Matt said. “Zucco forwarded a copy of the liquor store receipt and video.”

“Let’s review the timeline for Kelly’s murder.”

“The ME says Kelly was killed between noon and six p.m. on Monday. Troy was seen at his cabin on Blackbird Lake around noon. He had plenty of time to kill her.”

“Harrison’s day is more complex,” Bree said.

“The food delivery driver confirmed that Kelly was alive at 3:05 p.m. Harrison left the trampoline park at 3:32. He says he dropped off Marina’s kids before going to Kelly’s house. He was seen at Kelly’s door between 4:06 and 4:55 p.m.”

“What time did he arrive at the liquor store?” Bree removed her ice pack. Condensation was dripping down her face.

“5:10.” Matt watched the screen. “The video of him paying for the beer is pretty clear. His clothes look clean.”

Bree’s brain hurt too much for math. “How long is the drive from the trampoline park to Marina’s house?”

“My GPS says twelve minutes, which gets him to Marina’s house at 3:44.” Matt typed. “He says he went inside, but we have no proof of that.”

“And he’s lied extensively.”

“And talked Marina into lying for him as well, so there’s no point in asking her.

Let’s say he didn’t get out of the car. According to GPS, the earliest he could have gotten to Kelly’s house is 4:09.

He didn’t get to the liquor store until 5:10.

” Matt paused. “What if he went to Kelly’s house to get his ski gear?

He and Kelly fought. He grabbed the box cutter and killed her. ”

“Which wouldn’t take long,” Bree said.

“I’d say it would be quick.” Matt rubbed his beard. “I know he was behind her, but there was a lot of blood on the floor. It appears like he’s wearing the same shoes as he’s leaving the trampoline park as when he’s entering the liquor store.”

“Maybe he has more than one pair,” Bree suggested. “Or he managed to avoid getting blood on himself.”

“But the crime did look impulsive. Would he be focused on staying clean?”

Bree’s mind chugged slowly, but it chugged. “We thought it was impulsive because the box cutter was in her kitchen and because it seems as if she let in her attacker.”

“But she knew Harrison was coming over, so she let him in to get his ski gear.” Matt followed her train of thought. “Maybe he knew she’d have tools on hand. He was aware of the renovation project.”

“So he could have planned it, and it still wouldn’t look premeditated.”

“Yes.”

Maybe the smack on the nose had shaken something loose in Bree’s brain, because a new thought suddenly occurred to her. “I feel like we’re spinning our wheels trying to prove Harrison or Troy killed these women. What if it wasn’t either of them?”

“Who are you thinking, Jeff Burke?” Matt asked. “I could see anger, jealousy, and general impulsiveness getting the best of him with Kelly. We’ve seen him erupt into violence. But why would he kill Janet? Did he even know her?”

“I wasn’t thinking of Burke.” Bree checked the time and reached for a bottle of ibuprofen on her desk. She downed two with water. “Who else benefits from Kelly’s death? Indirectly anyway?”

Matt tapped his forehead. “Marina Maxwell. But wasn’t she with her kids when Kelly was killed?”

“Harrison said he dropped off the kids around 3:44 p.m., and we know from the food delivery driver that Kelly was alive at 3:05. Does that give her enough time?” Math was downright painful.

Matt shook his head. “Considering the distance between Kelly’s house and Marina’s, even if Marina killed her at 3:10, she didn’t have much time to drive home and make sure she wasn’t wearing any blood before Harrison and the boys got home.”

He was right. That timeline was implausibly tight.

Matt swept a frustrated hand across his skull. “Do we agree that the murders are linked?”

“Both women were killed in the same manner. Both women knew Troy. Having two very similar crimes committed in the same week would be a coincidence beyond belief.” Bree knew in her bones that the murders were connected.

Matt propped his elbows on the desk and dropped his head into his hands. “Yet it doesn’t seem as if any of our suspects could have committed both murders.”

Wait. Why hadn’t she seen it before?

“What if one person didn’t kill both women? What if the murders are connected and were also committed by two different people?”

Matt’s head snapped up. “Two people working together? Like a team? Harrison and Marina?”

“She and Harrison started dating when he was still married to Kelly. Marina told us the same lies that Harrison did in his interview. We assumed he called her and coached her about what to say, but what if they planned the whole thing together? She would have known exactly what to say. She was pretty good with a knife in the kitchen too. Think about it. Kelly’s death solves all her problems too.

Harrison can sell Kelly’s house, collect the insurance money, and give Marina the happily ever after she thinks she deserves. ”

“So, they set up Troy?”

“All the pieces fit.” But were there other ways to put them together? Bree’s head ached with the effort. “They thought they’d planned it so well, we’d arrest Troy immediately, and they’d be in the clear.”

“But we didn’t.”

“No. Maybe they didn’t expect us to arrive at his place to search so quickly.

We surprised whoever was in the Porsche, and they did the only thing they could.

They tried to evade us. Maybe crashing the car was an impromptu plan B.

Or maybe they intended to crash the car all along.

Who knows? Either way, one could have been behind the wheel while the other waited at a predetermined location. ”

“Then when we didn’t arrest Troy right away, and continued to pressure Harrison, they thought they’d better shore up his defense.

Create a second murder that he couldn’t have committed.

Marina killed Janet while Harrison was at the station being interviewed.

His alibi for Janet’s murder doesn’t get any better than that. ”

Bree’s brain sorted through the evidence, all the pieces sliding into place.

She met Matt’s gaze. “Tomorrow morning, we bring Marina in for a follow-up interview. We go hard on her lying to us about Harrison’s timeline, and we use the threat of potential felony charges for making a false statement.

We might even be able to push an aiding and abetting charge.

Except that any decent attorney would say she was mistaken about the time Harrison dropped off her boys on Monday.

Harrison’s lawyer already argued exactly that.

We need evidence, not just a theory, no matter how good that theory is. ”

Matt stood and stretched. “But guilt can make a person very uncomfortable, and she might slip up. Harrison kept jabbering long after he should have shut his mouth.”

“Marina seems smarter, but we won’t know until we bring her in and apply some pressure.” Bree shifted her jaw. Even her teeth hurt, but the ibuprofen was starting to kick in. “Tomorrow, we should have the forensics report on Janet Hargrave’s murder. We’ll review it, then bring her in.”

“We need to know where Marina was when Janet was killed.”