Page 71 of The Girl and the Lies

From there it doesn’t take much digging to uncover that Ander has already called the insurance company to make a claim on the sizable life insurance policy Sabrina has been carrying. I now have no doubt that the persona Ander has been portraying is concealing a man who wanted his wife dead. A man tired of his marriage and enraged by the thought of being saddled with a child he didn’t want, but also aware that a simple divorce would never be an option, so he decided it would be better to get rid of her.

I spread out my notes and read through them again, trying to piece together a timeline of everything that has unfolded since the beginning of the case. The protest at the hospital comes back into my mind, the sight of the enraged people gathering at the emergency room entrance compelled by the disgust Tracy’s live post stirred up within them. I can see Ander in my mind, standing in front of them with his arms outspread, shifting his weight as he tried to hold them back from going inside. And then the sudden violent fight that broke out on the sidewalk.

It was so unexpected, such a rash and unnecessary reaction to how far the situation had escalated. But as I’m looking over everything in front of me and letting it all process through my mind, I know why he did it. And I know exactly what happened.

“This could be really serious. I think that something is going on at the Tracy Ellis Ministry headquarters that could put everyone in danger. I need you to meet me there in an hour. You know the entire building and are trained in security. This could be instrumental to the case.”

I hang up without waiting for Ander’s reply and make sure I am ready before going to the headquarters. With enough time to get there and make sure I’m inside first, I leave the house.

The headquarters parking lot is dark except for small pools of light coming from recessed bulbs near the building entrance. I park where I know my car will be readily visible, clearly indicating I’m already here, and wait for a few moments until I know everything is going according to how I arranged it.

Getting out of the car, I cross to the door and input the code I got from Tracy into the keypad. The electronic locks disengage, and I go into the building, going to the alarm console to put in the next series of numbers she texted me earlier this evening. With the alarm deactivated, I make my way to the conference room where the first company meeting I attended was held. I leave the lights off and take my place just out of sight next to the door.

Everything is still and silent throughout the building. Adrenaline has my heart beating in my temples as I wait. I watch the screen of my phone. I’ve linked it to the security footage of the cameras at the front of the building. They don’t show enough of the parking lot to have helped those who got threatening notes on their windshields, but they clearly show anyone who is entering the building. I watch until a dark figure appears approaching the door. They move swiftly, their head ducked down, but even with their faces turned away from the camera, it’s clear to see they are wearing a ski mask.

Once they’ve opened the door and come into the building, I put my phone back into my pocket and anchor my spot in the shadows by the door. I wait. I know he’s moving through the building looking for me. But he’s not going to call out for me. And I’m not going to call out for him. He’ll know I’m here when he finds me.

It takes several long minutes before I see movement at the end of the hallway. There’s just enough light coming from the emergency lights at the edge of the ceiling to show the masked man coming toward me. There’s something in his hand now. Either he had it pressed to his side when he walked inside, or he drew it out of the unseasonably long sleeve of his shirt when he came in. He looks into each room as he goes past, and I remain absolutely still as he approaches the door to the conference room. He looks inside but doesn’t see me, and he moves on down the hallway.

I step out from behind him and raise my gun.

“Looking for me?”

He whips around to look at me, then darts into the emergency stairwell at the end of the hallway. I run in after him, listening for the sound of his feet on the steps. I hear nothing and search for a light switch on the wall next to the door, but I don’t find one. There are only small red emergency lights in the stairwell, which give very little illumination and don’t break the shadows beneath the last flight of steps. Taking out my phone, I shine the light of the screen under the stairs and don’t see anything.

Putting my phone away, I start up the stairs, climbing cautiously as I look ahead of me into the darkness to see any kind of movement. I’ve reached the landing to the second floor and am considering whether to proceed on this floor and continue to search when something dark suddenly drops from the overhang of steps above me to land on the stairs behind me. Before I can turn all the way around, a hard blow to my hip makes me stagger. I grab on to the handrail to keep from falling completely. The club comes at me again, but I swing a swift kick to block it and throw my assailant off balance. Another kick to his gut forces him down the steps.

He lands hard on the floor, and I come down on him, pressing my knee to the center of his chest as I train my gun on his head. I reach with my free hand and wrench the ski mask off, pulling the blond wig with it.

“Doesn’t that feel better, Jesse?” I ask. “I think it’s a little too hot for all this.”

He struggles on the floor, but the combination of the fall and my pin keeps him from getting up.

“Don’t worry, you aren’t the only one. Officers should have already gotten to Carla’s house to arrest Ander. She called him over there to see her tonight because I told her to. I knew when I called him to come here, it would give the two of you the opportunity you’ve been waiting for. When I was found dead at the headquarters after receiving one of the threatening notes, the police would look at my phone and see Ander’s number. But Carla would give him an alibi. And I’m sure he’s making sure that there is some kind of time-stamped recording or some other evidence to back it up. He’d explain that I called to tell him I thought something was going on at the headquarters, but he had already committed to going to Carla’s house and didn’t think he should be involved in my investigation. Leaving you to come here and stop me from getting any closer,” I say.

I hear heavy footsteps coming toward us, and I shout to them, “In the stairwell!”

The door opens, barely missing Jesse’s head, and four officers swarm in. They’ve been waiting in the back parking lot, giving me just the amount of time I asked for before they came inside. I move away from Jesse and let them flip him over and cuff him before yanking him to his feet.

“Be careful. My leg,” he complains.

“He fell down the steps pretty hard,” I tell them. “You’re going to want to have him seen at the hospital.”

They drag him out, and I follow, encountering Detective Fuller in the hallway.

“Exactly like you said it was going to happen,” he says.

“Yep,” I say. “The two of them have been working together from the beginning. When Carla broke up with Jesse right around the same time that Ander found out his wife had gone behind his back to take out her IUD and might already be pregnant, it created the perfect storm. They met through Gideon and somehow ended up finding kinship in their misery as their lives spiraled out of control. They already knew that people had major problems with Tracy Ellis and her ministry. She received death threats and hate mail regularly. All they had to do was latch on to that.

“With Gideon figuring out the affair between Jesse and Carla, he knew he would have to go. But it would be far too suspicious for Gideon and Marshall to both be killed as well as Sabrina Ward. There would be easy links between Ander and his wife, and Jesse and his roommate and lover’s husband. It had to look like there was no possibility they were involved. So they worked together. They concocted the plan to send out the threats and wait for a while to act on them. Then Ander killed Gideon and cut Jesse so that he was obviously not the one who did it. That was the only attack that involved a knife.

“Then Jesse lit Ander’s mother’s shed on fire and killed Sabrina while Ander was very visible to a variety of law enforcement. Ander attacked Marshall while I was on the phone with Jesse. I believe he would have attacked Carla too, if she had been home. I don’t think he would have killed her, but the fact that she wasn’t home saved her from being injured to further the narrative. The planned attack on Mila was to shift the focus away from that group. I believe they could have killed others just to keep their tracks covered. Including me.”

The detective puts out his hand to shake mine. “Thank you, Agent Griffin. I’m glad you were here.”

“I have to admit, they were pretty meticulous in their planning,” I tell the family as I sit down on the couch beside Sam and rest my head on his shoulder. “They really paid attention to details to make sure that people saw the crimes the way they wanted them to. Like Ander knowing his wife had the fitness tracker bracelet that she always wore. He knew that would record her heart rate and pinpoint the time of her death, which would completely exclude him. No one would be able to suspect that he could have killed her before he left the house to go to his mother’s if they had proof she was still alive until a time when he was talking to police in the next town over.

“Then making sure that he was seen on his camera picking up the mail after the note was dropped off. They checked the fingerprint on the seat adjuster, and it came back to Jesse. He cleaned off every other surface in the car but didn’t think about that one little knob.”

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