Page 127 of Good Girls Lie

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Ford doesn’t plan on falling asleep but when her phone rings, she realizes it’s almost dawn. Rumi lies next to her, curled on his side, a hand on her hip. They’ve never spent the night together. She quite likes waking up with him in her bed.

She rolls over and answers the phone. It’s Melanie, and her voice is shrill with panic.

“Ford? Ford? You have to come, right away. There’s another dead girl.”

74

THE TRAIL

Kate hasn’t slept. She and Tony have been combing through the files as Oliver sends them from Scotland Yard.

Money is always the trail to follow. Kate isn’t an expert, but she has done a few classes in forensic accounting. Between her and Oliver, they’ve uncovered at least fifty thousand skimmed out of the Carrs’ accounts with no traceable landing spot.

There are payments made to The Goode School, too, though those stop as soon as the family dies.

They break for a snack. Oliver is on speakerphone.

“I have a theory,” Kate says. “The impostor was close to them, no doubt. Someone who worked for the family, most likely. She saw a chance to inherit a massive fortune. She killed the Carr family, took Ashlyn Carr’s place, and bolted to America to await the estate. All she has to do is go to this fancy-schmancy school for a few years, then get through college, and she inherits everything.”

“It’s hardly the first time something like this has happened. But where is Ashlyn Carr’s body?”

“Drag the lake on their estate. I bet you find it there. This is a sick, twisted person we’re dealing with.”

“Hold on.” Oliver is back a few minutes later. “All right. We’re reopening the investigation into the deaths, effective immediately.”

“Good. There might not be evidence in the house, but I bet somewhere on the grounds.”

“Have you arrested this child at the school yet?”

“No, not yet. Trust me when I say she has no way out. Marchburg is tiny, she tries to run and we’ll hear about it. How did y’all miss the money siphoning the first time around?”

“Easy. Accounting did a cursory pass through the financials, but they were looking for impropriety on behalf of Damien Carr, illegal payments and the like. Finding nothing that stood out, and no evidence to the contrary, they called the files clean. The estate was to be left to the daughter, but she didn’t stand to inherit without a degree, and she had to be twenty-five. It’s inviolable. No one thought she killed them. Why would she? It was easy to accept the double suicide theory. The daughter walked in and found them, called 999. The records are very clear.

“And the headlines were lurid. You have to remember, this was a man who had been above reproach for his entire life, and terribly private, too. Someone sent a compromising story, with photographs of Carr and his lover, to the press. The scandal cost him a very important position in government. He was, by all accounts, devastated.”

“Enough to kill himself? It feels so odd, Oliver. That he would kill himself...and his wife would be so upset that she shoots herself?”

“Yes, but I know that timeline was investigated because you’d think he would kill her, then himself, right? But her fingerprints were on the gun, and his on the pill vial. And the pièce de résistance... He’d been dead at least an hour before she shot herself. The coroner’s court kindly ruled it death by misadventure so the estate wouldn’t be damaged.”

“Are there no other relatives?”

“The son, but he, too, died. There’s been some scuttlebutt in the rags about an illegitimate daughter, but no one’s confirmed that. I do think it was someone close to the family. Someone who knew they could all be annihilated and get away with it.”

“So, this girl manages to disappear the daughter’s body, steps into the scene, calls for help, poses as the grieving daughter all the way through the funerals and conversations with the lawyers, then jets off to America to live a life of privilege here in Marchburg. And no one’s been the wiser since. Amazing. Simply amazing.”

“Quite.”

“What about the IDs? Passports and the like?”

“She has a visa from the American government to study in Virginia. No credit cards, she’s been operating on a cash basis. But we have her coming into the country under the Ashlyn Carr passport on August 25.”

“Term started the day after. Okay. Timeline fits. Hey, did they have staff? They’re supposed to be this super rich family, right?”

She can hear him rustling his papers. “I believe... Yes, they did. A small staff, the only live-in was a cook, Dorsey Throckmorton. There’s an address in Yorkshire.”

“Can you capture the photo of the Ash who came through customs and show it to her? See if it’s the girl she knows?”