Page 18 of One More Chance

“Here it is,” Maizie said.

Jax washed his hands and came over, drying them off on a kitchen towel. He tossed the towel beside her phone on thecounter and stood beside her, one hand braced on the edge of the tile.

She leaned against his side and watched. A woman with dark hair, who looked a whole lot like her, entered the kitchen carrying bags of groceries. Actually, that was all of the bags she’d had in the trunk of her car. The woman never looked at the camera, keeping her head turned away as if she knew where it was and intentionally avoided it.

She moved around the kitchen, putting things away with efficiency.

“I carried all that?” Her arms had been as heavy as the rest of her when she loaded it all into the trunk.

“Looks like it.”

“I couldn’t get it in the trunk all at once. I had to load one or two bags at a time, and I switched off hands.”

“Why would someone pretend to be you just to put your groceries away?”

Kenna looked at him. “You don’t have to say it like that.”

A tendon in his jaw flexed.

Maizie said, “Maybe we don’t know why, but we know what happened.”

Kenna looked at the phone, even though she couldn’t see Maizie. “What do you mean?”

“Look at her shoes.”

The screen shifted, and the image zoomed in on the woman’s feet. “Heeled boots.”

Maizie asked, “Do you even own a pair of shoes like that?”

“Nope.” She looked at Jax.

All his attention remained on the computer screen, a frown drawing his eyebrows together. Even if he hadn’t entirely believed her, she still valued the fact he was here.

She gestured at the screen. “That isn’t me.”

He said, “Maizie, scroll it back.”

The woman moved around the kitchen with Jolene standing at the edge of the image. The cat was clearly not happy. Probably why she’d ended up in the hall closet—this woman got so tired of the cat that she stuck her in there.

“I can tell by the way she’s moving that isn’t you. Not just because you move more slowly than that now.” He pointed at the counter. “What is all that?”

Maizie asked, “Are those papers?”

Sprawled across the surface of the counter, some of them ripped and rumpled. The Kenna impersonator had set the groceries on top. “The cold case file.” Kenna looked around. “Where is it?”

“She unpacked the groceries and then turned off the alarm. Making it look like you got home.” He looked around as well.

She got up to pace a little and think and take her can to the trash. Which turned out to be the answer. “The papers are here.” She tipped the trash over so he could see the torn pages of his file along with the grocery bags in the trash. “They wanted to deceive us, but they didn’t focus on the details.”

Jax folded his arms across his chest. “Someone was in this house.”

From the phone still on the counter, Maizie said, “The cat shredded the file after you guys left this morning. Jolene must’ve been mad because she went right for those papers and destroyed them. After she was done, the motion alerts stopped, so the camera doesn’t record anything else until that woman came home.”

“And there’s nothing showing when I actually got here?” Kenna tried to think.

Jax said, “Exterior cameras should’ve shown movement if you were brought in later.”

“Checking.”

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