Page 179 of State of Denial

“It was, but I stayed close. There’s a room down here they never went near. They didn’t know it existed.”

“Show me,” Freddie said.

They followed Isaiah to a hallway that had a number of closed doors. Inside one of the rooms was a door that connected to a small space that had an air mattress on the floor. Here, they found all the personal effects that had been missing in Isaiah’s room at the facility that was his official home. There were photos of him with the Blanchets taped to the wall, along with Capitals and Washington Feds posters.

“How did you get in?” Freddie asked.

“They never changed the code on the basement door and rarely used the alarm. If the alarm was on, I still got a notification on my phone from when I lived here.” He gave them a wary look. “I know how this must look to you, but I loved them. I wanted to stay close to them.”

“Were you here the night they were killed?”

Isaiah hesitated before he nodded.

“Did you see anything?”

“I got some of it on video.”

Freddie felt light-headed at hearing that. “Why didn’t you call for help?”

“It went down fast. Like, so fast it was over before it began. I was so scared. Like, more scared than I’ve ever been.”

“But you had the presence of mind to record it?” Gonzo asked, stealing Freddie’s next question.

“It’s the weirdest thing, but I have no memory of starting the video. One minute, I was watching through a crack in the dining room door, and the next minute, she was dead, and I was so scared they’d find me next. So I came downstairs and hid until all the people stopped coming.”

“Did you recognize the people who killed them?”

“Nah, I never seen them before.”

“Show us the video,” Freddie asked.

Isaiah pulled his phone from his back pocket and sat in an upholstered chair. Freddie, Gonzo and Matt surrounded him as he pushed Play on the video that showed Gia Cortez confronting Liliana Blanchet as she came in from outside, carrying grocery bags. Liliana was shocked to find Gia standing in her kitchen, holding a gun, and dropped the bags.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“Your husband let me in.”

“No way he’d let you in here.”

“It’s funny what happens when a man’s life is threatened.”

“What do you want?” Liliana asked in a trembling voice.

Gia pointed to the ceiling. “Wait for it…”

The pop, pop, pop of gunfire had Liliana screaming as she ran toward Gia.

Gia pushed her back.

Pascal appeared in the kitchen, holding another gun.

“End her,” Gia said.

“What did you do to my babies?”Liliana shrieked as she tried to get the gun from Pascal.

The gun went off, but Liliana didn’t even flinch. That was probably the bullet that had ended up in the crown molding around the kitchen ceiling.

Pascal pushed her off him.

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