Page 142 of You Betrayed Me (The Cahills 3)

A waitress swung by with a pot of coffee and filled two of the four cups waiting on the table. She asked brightly if they wanted to see a menu, but they declined.

“Okay. Sure. Sugar and cream are on the table,” the waitress said, nodding, red curls bouncing. “Let me know if you need anything else.” And she was off, coffee pot in hand, swinging toward a booth closer to the door, where three men in heavy jackets had settled.

“So what’s so important?” Mendoza asked, her iPad and phone already on the table, ready to record.

Andie blinked as if she were going to cry, then looked through the plate glass of the window. “It’s Megan. I mean, I should have called you earlier, but I was so scared, and I didn’t believe anything had happened to her, and—” She hiccupped, placed the back of her hand to her mouth, and tried to steady herself. “Bruce would kill me if he knew I was here, talking to the cops.”

“You know where she is?” Rivers asked, thinking this might finally be their break.

“No.” She was shaking her head and sniffing, looking scared.

Rivers felt his pulse tick up.

“Who’s Bruce?” Mendoza asked.

“My boyfriend . . . Bruce Porter . . . he . . . um, he had a little trouble. Drugs. But it’s all over now. He’s been through rehab, and he’s clean. Has been for six, no, almost seven months . . . well, anyway, he works for James Cahill, out at the shop. He . . . um . . .” Her voice squeaked. “James gave him a chance once he proved he wasn’t using. Just janitorial stuff at first, y’know, sweeping up and keeping track of the tools and . . . well, anyway now he does more, helps out now putting up Sheetrock or laying subflooring or whatever.” She sniffed, on the verge of tears. “And he needs the job, y’know. We both do.”

She looked absolutely miserable.

“Did something happen?” Mendoza prodded.

She squeaked, and the hand came up to her lips again as she blinked to stave off tears. “I’m just explaining that this is a very small town, and we’re all connected. Like my sister. She works here at Lucy’s. She’s a cook and . . . and . . .” Andie let out a small sigh, and Rivers noticed impatience tightening Mendoza’s lips. She looked like she wanted to rip the words out of Andie’s hesitant throat.

“Go on,” Rivers encouraged, taking a swig from his cup.

Andie sniffed again. “It’s . . . it’s what Megan said to me.” She finally lifted her eyes to meet Rivers’s. Her voice a bare whisper, she finally confided, “She said that if anything happened to her, you know, like she went missing or . . . worse . . .”

Almost imperceptibly Mendoza leaned forward.

“. . . she, um, said that it would be James Cahill’s fault.” Andie closed her eyes, and tears were visible in her lashes. “I want to say this off the record, okay?”

A little late for that.

“I mean, like, I don’t want to testify.” Swallowing and sniffing, turning the glass in her hands, she added, “Bruce and I . . . we’ve got a baby coming. Just found out this week.”

“What exactly were her words?” Mendoza asked.

“I told you.” Andie closed her eyes for a moment. “She said, ‘If anything happens to me, it’s James, his fault.’”

“When did she tell you this?” Rivers asked as his cell phone vibrated in his pocket.

“I don’t know the date, but a couple of weeks or so ago. Like maybe a week before she disappeared.”

“She was angry.”

“Oh, man, really mad at him. Again. He’d blown her off or something, and she suspected he was with another woman.”

“Did she say who?”

“I think . . . I mean, he’d

been seen with Sophia Russo. Again. Like it had happened before, and I really didn’t think much of it. Sophia works for him and, you know . . . sometimes Megan jumps to conclusions and gets all kinds of upset. That day she was really, really pissed, jabbing her arms through her sleeves, grabbing her things out of her locker in a rush. She threw her phone into her bag and was swearing. She was really mad. Like really, and she said, ‘If anything happens to me, it’s James. Okay? It’s James. He’s such an effin’ prick!’ Only she used the ‘f’ word, you know?”

“What happened then?” Mendoza asked.

“I don’t know. She was out the door and let it slam behind her. I saw her peel out of the parking lot. She nearly hit a kid on a skateboard, but luckily she missed him.”

“You don’t remember exactly when this was?”

---