Page 76 of False Evidence

He nodded. “In one of the Christmas boxes.”

“A saw or an axe?”

“Both are in the garage.”

She felt a little fluttery as she looked out the window. “It’s starting to snow again.”

He grinned. “Then we should go sooner rather than later. The hill will get slippery with accumulation.”

It sounded magical, but they had another problem. “Carrying Gemma uphill in snow won’t be easy, and I don’t have boots for her. Even if I did, she wouldn’t have the energy.”

“They had those baby backpack thingies at the store where I got the crib and all the other paraphernalia. I figured walks in the woods would be fun, so I got one.”

That fluttery feeling intensified. A walk in the woods in the snow on Christmas Eve with her daughter and the love of her life for the purpose of cutting down a Christmas tree? It was the stuff her fantasies had been made of, once upon a time.

She leaned sideways and kissed him on the cheek. “That sounds amazing.”

He kissed her back, but instead of going for the cheek, his lips brushed over hers. Then he tilted his head toward Gemma. “Your kid deserves a real Christmas.”

“Holy shit.” JT stared at his phone, his heart pounding as he reread the text.

“So, you know I’m not anti-swearing in any way,” Lex said, “but hearing a toddler swear isn’t cute to me, so I try to watch my words now that she’s talking.”

“Oh. Fu—I mean da—I mean…” He grimaced. “Gosh. Sorry.” He glanced at the toddler and was glad to see she was absorbed with watching some kids’ show on PBS that Lex had put on while they checked in with Raptor before heading out to cut down a tree.

“It’s fine. Just a reminder. I make mistakes all the time. But I’m trying. So what did you read that’s swear-worthy?”

“I sent a message to my contact at Raptor asking them to look into Kendall’s suicide, given that you were pulled over after leaving Kendall’s house. I was wondering if Officer Corey Williams was part of the investigation into her death. He wasn’t, but they found a different connection between Williams and Kendall. And you.”

He held up the phone so Lex could see the screen. “Williams was one of the two Montgomery County police officers who responded to your 9-1-1 call when you lived with Kendall. The ones who didn’t report that Russ Spaulding assaulted you right after being released from jail.”

Alexandra’s face paled. “Holy shit.”

JT raised a brow and glanced toward Gemma.

She shrugged. “It’s appropriate.” She stared at the text on his phone. “It can’t be a coincidence. But I honestly haven’t thought about him in years. I don’t remember his face at all. Pretty sure I never heard either man’s first name, and I completely forgot their last names. I never spoke to them again after that day.”

The text had included both names: Corey Williams and Tom Lindberg.

“I’ll ask Raptor to look into Lindberg, find out where he is now. Now I have to wonder if it was Williams who made the evidence against Spaulding disappear. The prosecution was handled by Anne Arundel County, while Williams worked in Bethesda for Montgomery County. But as a cop, he could have gotten access to the evidence room. It was easier back then.”

JT felt sick as he considered the possibility. Russ Spaulding had escaped prosecution because the evidence against him disappeared before the case went to trial. Drake had then pushed for JT to rehire the prick, claiming Alexandra had set the whole thing up to land herself a rich boyfriend.

If JT could have fired Edward Drake, he would have then, but no, the man remained a thorn in his side until seven and a half years later, when he was arrested for murdering JT’s grandmother along with smuggling and money laundering.

The man had died in prison a few years ago.

JT had not felt an iota of grief, but now he wished Drake were alive to answer questions. He’d never connected Edward Drake to Russ Spaulding’s attempt to drug Alexandra, but that was because the man’s corruption hadn’t been revealed until years later.

Drake had been livid at Spaulding’s firing. Brent Forbes had escaped the same fate only because Drake protected him and there had been no proof Forbes knew what Spaulding had planned for Lex.

Forbes still worked for the company, but he’d never been promoted above midlevel. That he was bitter was an understatement. JT’s response when HR passed on his grievances was always the same.“He’s welcome to quit.”

But he hadn’t, and JT made certain he never moved up in the ranks. He didn’t balk if a supervisor wanted to throw him a bonus, but those were capped.

JT had never trusted Forbes after the holiday party sixteen years ago, but his animosity had deepened when he learned Kendall hadn’t broken up with him as she’d claimed. She’d secretly continued seeing him after he’d brought the man who’d intended to rape Alexandra into their shared apartment. Lex had been so busy with school and seeing JT when she could that she didn’t find out until a weekend when she was supposed to take the train north to NYC, but JT had to cancel at the last minute due to a work emergency. She returned from the train station to find Kendall and Brent having sex on the couch.

JT had purchased the townhouse in Georgetown after that. Lex had stayed with Lee for several weeks until the house closed. She then lived in the townhouse for three years, moving out when she called off the wedding. She and Kendall had slowly rebuilt their friendship in those intervening years, and she’d moved from JT’s place back to Kendall’s.

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