Page 59 of Tangled
“I wouldn’t have thrown it away, not sleeping pills…” Her voice trailed off as soon as she realized what she was saying. “It’s ingrained in me not to throw medicines away, not down the toilet, not in the garbage. I always take them to the pharmacy to dispose of. Even over-the-counter ones. If that bottle had been sitting there when I cleaned her apartment, I would have put itin the bag with the other medicines that I took away with me.” She studied the picture again. “But it wasn’t. Not by the time I got to Gracie’s place. Someone else took it, didn’t they?”
“If you’re certain you didn’t pick it up, then yes,” Jessica said.
“I didn’t,” Scarlett said, the memories of that day clearer now that she was focusing on it. “She had four pill containers in her bathroom. Two prescription, and two over-the-counter supplements. There was nothing on her bedside table.”
“Which lends credence to Jessica’s theory about how Gracie died,” Sabina said. “Someone put a fentanyl pill in with her sleeping pills, then managed to dispose of the bottle after she died. How’d they get into her apartment, though?”
Scarlett frowned, recalling her conversation from the night before. “Brad and I talked about how the police report made a point of noting that her door was locked when they arrived. We wondered if someone had been able to get access to a key. We were thinking in terms of using it to lock up after they left, making it appear as if Gracie had been alone. But if someone got hold of one, they could use it to get in, too.”
“Was Gracie the kind of person who’d have multiple copies of her keys floating around?” Jessica asked.
Scarlett shook her head. “Definitely not. She was much too cautious to do that. But her sister might have one,” she said before proceeding to tell them about Luz.
“I can’t see how Luz would get pulled into this, though,” she continued. “Not many people knew she was Gracie’s sister. And it wasn’t as if the two women saw each other often. Itispossible that Luz could have been manipulated. But again, someone would have had to make the connection between the two, first.”
“Still worth looking into,” Jessica said with a pointed look at Sabina.
Sabina wagged her head. “We have some contacts in LA. Luz isn’t our usual sort of target, so I’ll see if we have anyone whomight be able to step in and find her. Someone who’d have the skills to talk with her when they do.”
The doorbell rang, and Sabina glanced at her in question. Scarlett shrugged. She’d been living with Brad for less than two weeks and she’d heard the doorbell more times than she’d heard it in the ten years living in her flat in LA. At this point, she wondered if it would be easier to give the family keys to the place.
Sabina smiled, as if reading her thoughts, then rose and headed to the door. A beat later, Ava walked in, carrying her computer.
“I was going over a few updates to the security system with Andrea and thought I’d pop by,” she said. “How you all doing?”
Scarlett answered, then offered to make her a cup of coffee. By the time she brought the mug to the table, Sabina had introduced her to Jessica and was catching her up on the reporter’s theory about how the fentanyl made it into Gracie’s body and the existence of Luz.
“I haven’t seen the crime scene pictures,” Ava said, fingering one of them and sliding it in front of her. “Viewing Gracie’s video files was quite enough for me, thank you very much.”
“I’ll want to see all of those as well,” Jessica said.
Sabina nodded as Ava slid another picture in front of her. “We’ll get everything up on a secure site, then give you access. We’ve been making headway on the code in the book from Sussurri, but you may be able to decipher the clients more quickly than we’ve been able to. So far, we’ve identified a number of power players from a variety of industries—from film to politics to business. Actually,” Sabina said thoughtfully, “if you could focus on the identities of the clients, it would free us up to focus on identifying who’s behind the organization as a whole.”
“Not a problem. I’ll start on that tonight,” Jessica said. “Tell me more about why we think the Wolf might be working on the same side as us—”
“Although probably to a different end,” Sabina said before relaying Katz’s activities, including his meeting with Scarlett and the information he’d left for her on Petrov’s body.
When Sabina finished, Jessica nodded. “Okay, so I have a better picture of the Wolf and Sussurri. And we believe Simms hired Petrov, although I know you’re working on firming up that position. So that leaves—”
“Derek Rathwell,” Ava said.
“Exactly,” Jessica replied. “What do we know about him other than he’s a cop and a heinous human being?”
“No,” Ava said, drawing their attention. In front of her was the picture that had caught Brad’s attention the night before. “Derek Rathwell,” she said, sliding the image over and pointing to the reflection in the mirror. “He wasn’t assigned to the case,” she said. “I’d like to know what he was doing at the crime scene.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“Curiouser and curiouser,” Jessica said, pulling the picture in front of her. “This is thecop that Gracie caught on video assaulting her, right?”
Ava nodded, wiping her fingers on her pants as if even touching a photo of the man contaminated her.
“Eight years on the force, has never sat for the detective’s exam, mediocre record, and recently married to a trust fund baby,” Jessica mused.
“And of the four people we were initially looking at for Gracie’s death, the only one whohasn’tappeared in Mystery Lake,” Sabina said.
“Because he knows—or believes—the blackmail evidence is gone? If we’re onto something here, his presence at the scene might also explain the missing pill bottle,” Jessica said more to herself.
“Grabbing the pill bottle would be easy, but do you think he’s the one who erased the files from her phone?” Scarlett asked. “It sounded like however it was done was more complicated than just deleting a file. Would he have the skills?”
