Page 70 of Buried Too Deep

Phin wished he didn’t have to because it wasn’t good. “I got camera footage from one of your neighbors. The van that parked here on Friday wasn’t the same one that was parked in front of Medford Hughes’s house. That one was a white panel van. The one in your driveway was a white minivan, also a rental. The driver was in your house for two hours. A ball cap hid his face.”

“Bold,” Val murmured.

Cora frowned. “He knew I wasn’t home.”

Because he’d bugged her purse.

Phin hesitated, hating to have to tell her this part. “We saw the same van in your driveway two other times, both during the day. Each time a man got out, a cap hiding his face, stayed in your house for between one and two hours, then left. Twice he came at night and he walked up to your house and went through your back gate. The first time was the day after your father’s body was identified. He stayed less than five minutes that first time. That was probably when he bugged your purse.”

Cora shuddered, her face growing pale. “He was here five times. Twice when I was asleep.”

Phin’s arm tightened and she leaned into him. “He won’t get in again,” he vowed. Even if he had to camp out in her house every night. She would be safe.

Her hands trembled as she wrapped them around the cup of hot tea. “I know,” she whispered so faintly that he almost didn’t hear it.

“We’ll keep you safe, Cora,” Burke assured.

“I know,” she said again, then lifted her chin. “I can’t do anything about those break-ins now. I can only move forward. Is there any good news? Please say yes.”

Phin squeezed her hand, proud of her. She was tough. He hoped she’d find the next bit to be good news, but he didn’t think she would. “Antoine found out about Twin Falls.”

Antoine turned one of his three laptops around so that Cora could see the screen. “This is Alice VanPatten. She was Alice Bergeron when she lived near Twin Falls, Idaho.”

“The wife of the man who was killed?” she asked. “Her husband’s name was Jarred Bergeron. Did Alice remarry?”

“She did, ten years ago,” Antoine said. “But she relocated to Baton Rouge only a few months after her husband was killed.”

“Which was two weeks before my father died.” Cora frowned. “She moved just an hour from New Orleans? That doesn’t sound like a coincidence, even though he was dead by then.”

Antoine shrugged. “I don’t think it is a coincidence, but I can’t explain it yet. For a while, she was a suspect in her husband’s death.”

Val took the seat across the table, cradling her own cup of tea. “I thought the ME ruled it an accidental death. A hunting accident.”

“At first, they did,” Antoine said. “Then Alice was under suspicion because she’d filed a police report claiming domestic abuse six months before he died. She claimed she’d left him, but he’d come to her parents’ house to bring her home, threatening to kill them if she didn’t comply.”

“And then he’s dead,” Cora murmured. “Why didn’t they suspect her parents?”

Antoine pulled his computer so that his screen faced him again. “They had an unshakable alibi—they were in church. Alice also had an unshakable alibi. She was seeing a man in a hotel room in Salt Lake City, two hundred miles away. The hotel confirmed that she’d been seen going up the elevator.”

Cora straightened beneath Phin’s arm, but she didn’t move away. “Was the man’s name Jack Elliot?”

Antoine shook his head. “John Winslow.”

Cora covered her mouth with her hand, a tiny whimper escaping her. Phin thought this might be a bigger blow than an intruder invading her home.

“He used my mom’s last name,” she whispered. “Were he and Alice having an affair?”

“I don’t know,” Antoine said compassionately. “But soon after she was cleared, she sold the property in Idaho and moved to Baton Rouge. I found her address. She’s an interior decorator. She married Richard VanPatten ten years ago. They have a four-year-old son.”

Cora was silent for a long, long moment. Then she lifted her chin once again. “I want to meet her. I want to find out if my father killed her husband. And why.”

“We figured you would,” Burke said. “Val’s going with you as your bodyguard. Antoine and I will stay here and keep searching the attic for anything your father or mother stored that’s pertinent. Phin, you’re on window security.”

Cora turned to Antoine. “Have you reviewed all of the disks you found?”

Antoine nodded. “I did. There’s nothing on them that looks out of place.”

“And nothing that matches any of the receipts Molly logged last night,” Burke added. “She entered all of them into that spreadsheet of hers. None of the names, places, or dates lined up with his client files. Based on what your mother copied from your father’s computer, all of his clients were in New Orleans.”

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