Page 62 of Whispers Left Behind

“Detective Aspen? This is Roger Stowe. You’ve been trying to reach me?”

“Yes,” Kinsley replied as she exited her Jeep. “Thank you for returning my call. I’m investigating a homicide, and I simply need confirmation that Gage Baird met with you last Wednesday. Your name and number were given to me as the third party of a business deal.”

“I wish I could supply one for him, Detective Aspen. Unfortunately, I was mugged a couple of hours before our scheduled meeting. I’ve been laid up in the hospital with a broken leg, a punctured lung, and a fractured collarbone. I was just released today.”

Kinsley closed the distance to Alex’s Camaro before opening the passenger side door. She pulled the phone away from her ear once she had settled in the seat and pressed the speaker button.

“I’m sorry to hear that, Mr. Stowe.” Kinsley reached out and shut the door to trap the heat. “Were the police able to arrest the individuals responsible?”

“Individual. One. And not to my knowledge,” Roger replied bitterly. “I hope they find that son of a bitch soon, though.”

“Did you at least speak with Gage Baird last Wednesday?”

Alex pressed the dome light overhead. It wasn’t long before he pulled a small notebook from the console, along with a pen. He quickly jotted down a question.

“No, ma’am. I reached out to Gage today to reschedule our meeting, but I haven’t been able to get ahold of him or his grandfather.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, how much money did you have with you at the time?” Kinsley asked after reading Alex’s note.

“I usually don’t have any cash on me when conducting those types of meetings, but I’ve been doing business with some wagyu breeders lately. Those straws tend to sell for a pretty penny. We deal with wire transactions mostly, but I had a customer who paid cash that morning.”

Why had Gage lied about his alibi?

Kinsley thought back to the first time she spoke with Rachel’s brother. He had mentioned the Fallbrook Killer before following her from the porch to her Jeep. It was then that he had brought up his grandfather’s past gambling history. Why would he have done so if he believed Gantz was responsible for Rachel’s death?

“Mr. Stowe, did you happen to mention this meeting to Mr. Baird?”

The long pause gave Kinsley her answer.

Alex pulled his phone out from the inside pocket of his suit jacket. He exited the car to allow Kinsley to finish the call with Stowe. She asked a few more follow-up questions before wishing him a speedy recovery. Once their conversation had drawn to a close, she remained seated while reconsidering the facts of the case.

“Is it possible that Gage murdered his sister?” Kinsley asked in disbelief after Alex had rejoined her in the car. “He is the one with the gambling problem, isn’t he?”

“That’s the theory I’m working with, too,” Alex said as he held up his phone. He hadn’t closed the door, and all the heat had been extracted in seconds. “I just got off the phone with Crosby. I had him go back a few months in Gage Baird’s phone records, and a number popped up. He spoke to someone for threemonths straight every Sunday morning. Crosby is running the number now.”

“Killing a sibling just to hide a gambling addiction, though?” Kinsley shook her head in astonishment. “That’s…well, extreme.”

“Is it?”

“Shut the door,” Kinsley directed as she leaned her head back against the seat. “We can’t go inside until we make sense of this.”

“Zayn is dying from lung cancer. He told you himself that he hadn’t expected to make it this long, and what if Gage was under the same assumption? What if Gage has known all along that his grandfather was dying? What if he had planned to sell the land after the old man’s death to pay off his debts?”

“A bookie only waits so long,” Kinsley whispered while tapping her phone on her thigh. Alex hadn’t bothered to shut his door, and she was getting colder by the second. “I just…Rachel was his sister, Alex.”

“Not every sibling has close bonds like you do with yours, Kin.”

“That would mean that Gage staged his own accident. There were no skid marks. No paint markings on his vehicle to suggest that someone else ran him off the road. He expected his brakes to give out on that turn, but he hadn’t anticipated the crash to be so severe. He was going to claim that someone ran him off the road, too.”

“The hospital probably put Gage’s clothes and personal items in one of those bags. What are the chances that the knife he used on his sister is among his belongings? Kin, we need to resubmit those warrants.”

Kinsley had been staring at the front entrance of the hospital while going over their options. Had she been looking anywhere else, she would have missed the sight of Louise Baird exiting the glass doors.

The woman came to an abrupt stop.

Since Alex hadn’t closed his door, the dome light overhead illuminated their presence. Kinsley met the woman’s stare. Something in her body language had Kinsley reaching for the handle of the passenger door.

“Alex, look. Is she...damn it! I think Louise knows Gage killed Rachel.”

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