Page 104 of Nash Falls

“Can they track his phone?”

“They tried. But no luck.”

“On the phone you said you were sitting with him when you watched the video. What did he say?”

“He denied everything, of course. But I think he was about to admit his guilt even before we saw the video.”

“What do you mean?” Rhett asked quickly.

Judith explained about what Nash had been saying before she’d gotten the call from her friend about Maggie’s posting.

“That’s so… weird. He was about to confess but then he denied it all.”

Judith shot him a look. “R-right. I didn’t think about it like that.”

“Well, probably the sudden shock of Maggie exposing him made him defensive.”

“Yes, I guess… that makes sense,” she said uncertainly.

A moment later there was a knock at the door. It was John Ramos and his partner, Carroll Summers. They both looked depressed and angry.

Judith introduced Rhett, and Ramos eyed him curiously.

“So you’re Nash’s boss?” Ramos asked him.

“I am, yes.”

“Any light you can shed on any of this?” asked Summers.

“None. I’m as stunned as everyone else.”

“No signs, no slips of the tongue?” asked Ramos. “No rumors?”

“No, everyone would describe Nash as a consummate professional above suspicion,” replied Rhett. “Including me.”

“It’s often the case,” said Summers. He turned to Judith. “So nothing with any of your daughter’s girlfriends? Any of them ever feel uncomfortable around him?”

“No, never,” said Judith. Her lips trembled. “I feel like a complete idiot.”

Rhett swept an arm around her. “It’s not your fault, Judith, he fooled everyone.” He looked at Ramos. “So he’s also suspected in the death of this other person?”

“Billy Adams,” answered Ramos. “Maggie mentioned him in her video.”

“So you think Nash killed him because she had told him about her father?”

“Seems pretty obvious,” said Summers. “And the paint on Nash’s Range Rover matched Adams’s car.”

“I guess that’s conclusive,” said Rhett.

Ramos said, “He was trying to tell me some cock-and-bull story about fake cops coming into the neighborhood on the night your daughter went missing. He said Adams told him about them. He was trying to convince me that these ‘cops’ had something to do with it. But I think your daughter might have let it slip that she’d told Adams about the molestation, so he had to get rid of him. He invented this story about the fake cops to cover his tracks.”

Rhett, who had been told by Nash about the fake cops, paled and said nothing.

Judith said, “Is there any way to track Maggie now that we know she hasn’t been kidnapped?”

“We’re working on it. She filmed the video even though she didn’t have her phone or laptop. She could have purchased another phone or laptop. Did she have her own credit card?”

“Yes, but it’s tied to our account.”