Page 113 of Take Your Breath Away

“I guess because he comes to me for advice.” He smiled, fancying himself as someone with great wisdom. “He was wondering what he should do. He was all agitated and mixed up and everything. I never heard him like that.”

“Was he angry?”

“Not angry. He was trying to figure out what to do. This lady wouldn’t answer his questions.”

“So what did you tell him?”

Cam shrugged. “I said he should go back there and get her to talk to him.”

“Did you, now?” Hardy said.

“Yeah. Why? That a problem?”

When Detective Hardy got back into her car she took a moment.

While solving DiCarlo’s murder looked like a slam dunk—Tyler admitted being at the house and there was a witness who saw the bloodied kid leaving the scene—there were still plenty of questions. If DiCarlo was, indeed, the woman captured in the surveillance video, why did she want anyone to think she was Brie Mason returning after a six-year absence?

Why pretend to be Brie?

Was it some sort of cruel trick? To make Brie’s family think that she was still alive? What was to be gained by that? Why raise a family’s hopes that way?

The thought had crossed her mind earlier that Andrew was behind this, that he’d hired someone to pretend to be Brie in the hope that it would persuade Hardy he had never killed her. The trouble with that theory was, why now? Brie’s disappearance was effectively a cold case. While it was always in the back of Hardy’s mind, she hadn’t had a fresh lead to follow in years.

Pretend to be Brie.

What had DiCarlo’s next-door neighbor said? Candace was part of a community theater group. So she’d be a natural at playing a role, assuming an identity.

She got out her notebook to see whether she’d written down the name of the theater group. She had. The Stamford Players.

Then she got out her phone, opened up a browser, and Googled the theater company’s name.

Up came a website for the Stamford Players. They had a new production set to open in a couple of weeks, just like the neighbor had said. Something called The Casual Librarian. There was information about ticket sales, who would be appearing in the production—there was a headshot of Candace DiCarlo—and then information about the play itself, that the playwright and the director were one and the same.

Albert McBain.

“Holy shit,” Hardy said under her breath.

Forty-Eight

Andrew

“Well?” Matt said with more than a hint of impatience. “Is it her?”

I needed a minute to pull myself together. I wiped my eyes with the back of my arm to clear away some dirt. My hands were black with moist soil. Slowly, I got to my feet, and used the shovel to help prop me up once I was standing.

Six years of never really knowing. Assuming the worst without confirmation. But here it was. I had no doubt that this was Brie. Admittedly, I was basing my conclusion on the necklace and a few wisps of desiccated fabric that looked like a nightgown she often wore, and someday, maybe, if Detective Hardy were to find Brie’s remains and do a DNA test, we’d have one hundred percent certainty.

But I didn’t need DNA test results. I knew in my heart and in my gut that this was Brie.

I also knew the odds were solidly against Hardy ever having the opportunity to find these bones and conduct any forensic tests. The more likely possibility was that I would be directed to dig a second grave and plant myself in it.

Avoiding that outcome was the current priority. I would have to grieve Brie, confront the trauma of digging up the woman I had loved, at a later date, given the opportunity. So, as I was getting to my feet, I had to consider any possible way to stall, to buy time.

Matt was starting to look annoyed that I hadn’t answered his question. “It’s her, right? You wouldn’t get that broken up over some stranger.”

“No,” I said.

Matt’s mouth opened. “No? What do you mean, no?”