Page 64 of Little Stolen Memories

“He didn’t offer you anything because it would have given you a reason to stay longer. Going off of what you said about him, I bet he wanted you out of there.”

“I thought the same thing. As soon as he handed her the water, he said they had some errands to run. I was in and out in less than twenty minutes.”

Simone’s short visit deserved a followup, one I planned on doing myself. Even if it didn’t further the case, I was concerned about Valerie’s odd behavior. I wanted to get her alone and see what she might say when Ray wasn’t around.

“I’d like their address,” I said.

“Why? You thinking about stopping by?”

“It crossed my mind.”

Simone reached for her phone, pressed a few buttons, and said, “I just sent it to you. Oh, and there’s one more thing I want to add. After I left their house, I started thinking about Valerie’s father. I wondered if he was still alive.”

“Is he?”

Simone nodded and said, “I had Hunter do a search for him. It was easy because it turns out the house Ray and Valerie are living in is owned by him. His name is Hugo, and he lives in a retirement community in San Luis Obispo. He was sharp as a whip when I spoke to him.”

“What did you talk about?”

“I told him I’d just been to see Ray and Valerie to talk to them about the investigation. He told me he doesn’t have much contact with his daughter.”

“Did he say why?”

“Hugo didn’t give me much in the way of details, except to say the fallout between him and Valerie was Ray’s doing. He mentioned something about Ray driving a wedge between them. He said he missed his daughter, and he worried the car dealership wasn’t being run by her like they had discussed when she took it over. He said if he was younger, he wouldn’t allow it, but he feels he’s too old and too tired to deal with the stress of it now.”

With Jackson dead, and Hugo pushed to the side, Ray had swooped in, taking over the company and lining his pockets along the way. Greed was a good motive for murder, but was it enough of a motive for a mass murder?

On the one hand, it didn’t seem realistic.

On the other, there were certain types of people who would do anything to get ahead—including getting rid of anyone who stood in their way to get there.

CHAPTER 27

Ty Conroy had followed in his father’s footsteps, becoming a biology teacher at the local high school, the same school his father had taught at twenty years earlier. I arrived just as classes had ended for the day, and I found Ty in his classroom, tidying up his desk.

Ty was a tall man and heavyset, with a receding hairline he was struggling to hold on to even though he’d already lost the fight. His shirt, an ill-fitted, short-sleeved button-up, had once been white but now it had a gray tinge to it like it had been washed with a load of darks too many times. And while it appeared he’d tried tucking it into his black trousers at some point earlier in the day, it had come halfway untucked, with baggy areas flapping over the top of his pants.

He didn’t see me when I first walked in, but I saw him, reaching into the top of his desk drawer and pulling out a silver flask. He twisted off the cap, bent his head back, and took a long, hearty swig, wiping his mouth afterward as he breathed out the stress of a long school day.

He slid the flask back into the drawer, closed it, and turned, startled to see me standing there, eyeing him with curiosity.

I flashed him a big grin and said, “I feel like this is where I’m supposed to say it’s five o’clock somewhere. I mean, not here … but somewhere.”

Here it was three o’clock, not that it mattered.

School was out.

His students were gone.

Who was I to judge the man for taking a wee gulp of liquor if he needed one? I had no idea what kind of day he’d had, or week, or year, for that matter.

“I’m … uhh, sorry,” he said. “I didn’t see you come in.”

I swished a hand through the air. “It’s all right. Take another swig if you need one. Sip, sip away.”

I almost laughed after I said it, but he hadn’t so much as cracked a smile. He hadn’t found my quip as funny as I did, it seemed.

Ty moved a hand to his hip and asked, “Do I know you?”

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