Page 81 of Capturing You

His eyes narrowed, but he said nothing, just returned to eating.

Fine.

She did the same.

It was hard to stay annoyed with someone who’d made such a delicious meal. She added a little soy sauce and stirred it into the noodles.

“I’m investigating Charles Ballentine.”

Her gaze lifted and met Ford’s. She didn’t ask, just hoped he’d keep talking.

“It’s not that I don’t trust you, it’s just that I don’t usually talk about what I’m doing. I tend to work alone.”

“Really? Because you seem like such a people-person.”

He swallowed another bite, then set down his fork. “I believe he knew his killers, so I thought if I could figure out who he was doing business with, maybe I’d be able to follow the clues to what he was into that got him killed.”

“You don’t think it was random?”

“Why him? Why this house, this family? There was a reason for it.”

“But the police?—”

“Didn’t care that much.”

That had her back straightening. “You think a triple murder wasn’t enough to get their attention?”

“I think…I think maybe one of them was involved.”

“In murder?” The second word came out too loud and too high-pitched.

If he noticed, he didn’t remark on it. “It’s just a theory. The cops searched the place, but they found nothing.”

“How do you know what they found?”

“I have a copy of the police report. It’s very thin.”

“Okay, but if clues were hidden in hiding places, then they were, you know, hidden.”

“You found one yesterday.”

“I knew they existed. If the cops didn’t, then they wouldn’t have known to look.”

“But Charles’s mother knew about them. She’d lived in the house for years. She told the police, but still they didn’t find anything. They should’ve worked harder to unearth them. Instead, they decided early on that it was about the robbery.”

“I didn’t realize anything was taken.”

“Grace’s jewelry. Most of it was pretty commonplace—valuable, but not worth killing over. But she had an antique ruby necklace worth a couple hundred grand.”

“That could motivate some people to kill.”

“I don’t think it was about the necklace. The house was filled with valuables that weren’t touched. I think one of the killers grabbed her jewelry box because…why not? Why not take that after they’d taken lives?”

“Was anything else stolen?”

He shrugged. “There was nobody left to say.”

“The little boy?—”