“And why do you say that?” Paige asked. In her pocket, her phone went off; it seemed Jack had finally replied, but she couldn’t check the message right now.
“You haven’t been in town… you wouldn’t have seen the way he treated her!” Rachel explained. She choked on another sob and brushed impatiently at the tears in her eyes. “He just wanted to show her off. You need to look more closely into what he was doing on the day she disappeared.”
“We have, Rachel,” Paige said. “He has an alibi which checks out.”
She didn’t mention that they had discovered that the dear senator had been “out” with another woman during the time of Cynthia’s disappearance. The discovery had been unpleasant, but it at least struck one suspect off the ever-growing list.
“He’s lying,” Rachel snarled. Her face had transformed in her fury, fierce and unforgiving. A lingering hysteria hung around her, as though she was finally breaking apart after everything that had happened. “You have to know he’s lying.”
Paige realized there was no longer any point in continuing the conversation; Rachel had convinced herself of what she believed was the truth. Paige still couldn’t decide whether the woman had actually had a hand in Cynthia’s death, but she did know that Rachel was currently unpredictable.
“The police will want you for questioning soon,” Paige said. “Be honest with them if you seriously have nothing to hide.”
She turned and walked away. Rachel didn’t stop her, but she could feel the woman’s eyes on her back as she left. Ignoring it, she pulled her phone out of her pocket.
On our way, said Jack’s text.
At least they would be able to pick Rachel up sooner rather than later. In her current state of mind, Paige honestly didn’t trust her not to do something stupid. She smiled grimly; it seemed love truly could make people do foolish things.
17
Another Clue
By the time she got home, her cheek ached. Paige scowled as she looked in the mirror, knowing that the hit would leave a mark. She guessed she couldn’t really blame Rachel, however; she had just implied that she could have killed her own lover.
Jack hadn’t sent her any further messages, so she didn’t know whether they had managed to pick Rachel up. She debated calling him to find out what was going on, but maybe he had decided to avoid her for the time being. Plus, Paige had already questioned Rachel herself, so she had no need to sit in on Jack’s interrogation, not when there wouldn’t be any new information.
After exhausting herself by looking at some old cases, she got ready for bed and slipped under the covers. She fell asleep staring at her phone, unsure whether she wanted it to chime or not.
Her sleep, in contrast to her waking state, was very peaceful. She dreamed of a little inn with a massive kitchen, beautifully bright and warm. She felt content and peaceful in that place, not harried and constantly busy with day-to-day life. As she trailed her hand over the kitchen counter, someone came up behind her. She spun around, and Jack laughed before catching her around the waist. Beaming at him, she reached up, cupping his face in her hands as she leaned toward him…
Her phone blared beside her, startling her awake. Paige blinked wildly, shaking off the last remnants of the dream she had just had. She snatched her phone off the bedside table, her heart beating too fast in her chest as she answered it without bothering to check who it was.
“Hello?” she said breathlessly.
“Paige?” her mother asked, concerned. “Are you okay?”
Paige’s shoulders slumped. She had honestly thought it was Jack. A large part of her longed to hear his voice right now, and it hurt to remember that she had dreamed of a future than would probably never be.
“Mom,” she sighed. “Sorry, I thought you were Jack.”
“Right…” Jennifer said slowly. “I was just calling to find out what your plans for the day were, but it seems like you have expectations.”
“Sorry, we found a very likely suspect last night,” Paige explained, running a hand through her hair and frowning at the knots. “So, I’ll probably be busy.”
Her mother chuckled. “That’s okay. Just don’t work yourself too hard!”
“I won’t,” Paige promised. She hesitated and forged ahead. “Mom? Have you ever had dreams about things you want but can’t have?”
“I can’t say I have,” her mother mused. “Did you have a dream like that?”
“Yes… last night,” Paige said. She swung her legs out of bed and stood, stretching. “I’ve been kind of thinking… about owning an inn. It sounds like fun, right?”
“Not the kind of thing I would have thought you’d be interested in,” her mother said, bemused. “But if that’s what you want, Paige…”
“That wasn’t all,” Paige interrupted, before she could lose her nerve. “Jack… he was there, too. Running the inn… with me…”
She trailed off, unsure. She did not expect her mother to laugh.
“That boy has been on your mind the entire time you’ve known him,” she said fondly. “I wondered how long it would take you to catch on.”
Paige blushed. How obvious had she been, even when she hadn’t realized her own feelings?
“I’m not sure what’s going on between the two of you, but you have nothing to lose by going for what you want, Paige,” Jennifer continued. “If you’re interested in a relationship with Jack, then you need to speak to him about it. The worst he can do is say no.”
Hadn’t he already, though? Except, he hadn’t exactly closed the door, and he hadn’t said he wasn’t interested. Maybe they really were due for a proper conversation about this.
“All right, I’ll talk to him,” Paige said with a sigh. “Later. Right now, I better get to work.”
The dream had left her with more questions than answers, but that was okay. It cleared some of the fog that had overtaken her yesterday; she couldn’t be sure she had been rejected until Jack actually said the words.
She would have to talk to him soon, then. After all, she couldn’t live in this limbo forever.
As she pulled her first file of the day toward her at the desk in her tiny office, her phone rang again. This time it was Jack, and Paige drew in a deep breath before answering it.
“Everything all right, Jack?”
“Hopefully,” Jack said, sounding almost giddy with excitement. “We’ve arrested Rachel Horne for the murder of Cynthia Johnson.”
“What?” Paige exclaimed, straightening. “How did that happen? Weren’t you just going to question her?”
“We did,” Jack assured her. “We picked her up at Beverly Beach State Park yesterday, probably not long after you left. She came with us quietly, saying that she was prepared to tell us the truth.”
“So?” Paige demanded when he paused. “What did she tell you?”
“She claimed that she last saw Cynthia at the inn on Monday night,” Jack said. Paige could hear the sound of rustling papers. “Cynthia left late in the evening, and Rachel never saw her again. When she got wind of a search for Cynthia, she rushed to join. She said that she had been searching herself, but hadn’t made much progress, which is unsurprising considering the remote location in which we found the body.”
“So, since you’ve arrested her, you’ve obviously found something that contradicts her version of events,” Paige guessed.
“Damn right we did,” Jack said, and Paige could almost hear his grin. “We got a warrant to search her room, and we just so happened to find two pill bottles.”
“Pill bottles… you found the medication that killed Cynthia?” Paige asked. “In Rachel’s room?”
“Yes,” Jack said, pleased. “A doctor had prescribed them to her, after all. Of course, Rachel denied having ever seen them before, but they were hidden at the back of the cabinet in the bathroom.”
Paige sat back, shocked. Was this it… the truth that they had been chasing all week?
“Do you have a theory of what happened?”
> “We genuinely believe it might have been an accident,” Jack explained. “We don’t believe Cynthia took the pills herself, since she likely knew her own allergies, but there’s a chance Rachel procured them, gave them to her, and panicked when Cynthia reacted badly. Cynthia died before Rachel had the chance to get help and, not wanting to be accused of murdering her deliberately, Rachel dumped the body at the state park.”
It all fit neatly together. There was an answer for everything. Something didn’t feel right, though, and Paige couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was. It wasn’t just about the conviction in Rachel’s eyes yesterday as she said she would never have hurt Cynthia.
If it truly was an accident, it meant that Rachel had still technically told the truth; she would never have gone out of her way to hurt the one she loved. What had occurred was unfortunate, but could have been much simpler if Rachel had admitted it from the start instead of leading them on a wild goose chase.
But Rachel had genuinely believed Robert Johnson had murdered his wife; Paige had seen that conviction in her eyes as well. Could she have rewritten the truth of the event in her own mind or had she actually done nothing wrong?
The evidence proved she had been involved somehow in Cynthia’s death. Still…
“Were there any fingerprints?” Paige asked.
“She wiped both bottles clean,” Jack said. “I’ve sent them both for analysis, to make sure they contain what they’re meant to, but it looks like this case is closed. Paige, your help was invaluable. I can’t thank you enough.”
“No worries, Sheriff,” she teased. “You know where to find me if you need me again.”
He laughed and they hung up. Paige smiled, feeling a little lighter; it seemed like their relationship hadn’t been damaged by what had happened. Now that the case was over, she would be able to find the time to talk to him, too.
It seemed impossible that they had reached a conclusion to the case, and a very unexpected one at that. Paige abandoned her file and leaned back in her chair. She couldn’t help but feel that little, niggling doubt. Something wasn’t quite right in the story Jack had proposed. She felt like she was missing something, but she couldn’t think what it was.
Could Rachel have actually done it? The further they had looked into it, the more likely it had seemed. If she had done it on purpose, she had a possible motive. If it was an accident, she had the means. As the person Cynthia likely spent the most time around, it would have been easy for her to slip Cynthia those pills.
She cast her mind back to the prescriptions. Antidepressants and narcotics. The fact that Cynthia had been prescribed these at all said a lot about her mental state. She probably wouldn’t have told too many people.
Then, just like that, Paige recalled that she had known about them herself. She straightened and cast her mind back to the day Cynthia had told her about them, to a conversation she barely remembered. Cynthia had only just been prescribed them and Paige had asked whether she was taking them.
“No,” Cynthia said shortly.
“No?” Paige asked. “Why not?”
“I don’t need them,” Cynthia replied, crossing her arms and looking away. “Look, I know I’m not in the best place right now, but I don’t need them. I locked those things away in the cupboard and left them there. I don’t plan on taking them.”
“Does your husband know about them?”
“No, confidentiality means that the doctor can’t tell my husband what medications he actually gave me,” Cynthia said, shaking her head. She hunched her shoulders. “I did tell Avery about them and he was very worried. Worried enough that he might have told my sister, for all the good that will do.”
“At least you know that they’re there if you need them,” Paige said with a nod.
“I won’t. Those things will never see the light of day.”
Paige grabbed her phone and was out the door before she even realized it, barely pausing to snatch her coat off the hook. She pressed the phone to her ear, her heart pounding loudly.
“Paige?” Jack asked when he picked up, surprise evident in his tone.
“Are you in the office?” she demanded.
“Yes,” Jack said. “Why?”
“Stay right where you are. We need to talk. We’ve got everything completely wrong.”
18
The Final Truth
Jack stared at Paige, barely able to believe what she had said.
“You think Rachel is innocent?” he repeated.
“Those pills shouldn’t have been in Rachel’s room. It’s impossible,” Paige said impatiently. She paced back and forth. “I can’t believe I forgot, but about a week and a half before she disappeared, Cynthia told me about that medication. She got them from her husband’s shady doctor—you should really look into him—and she promptly locked them away. She said she had absolutely no intention of taking them.”
Paige stopped and looked at him, eyes blazing. Jack wondered, vaguely, whether it was wrong of him to feel attracted to her at this moment.
“So, it’s impossible for those pills to be anywhere other than her house,” Paige pressed. “And it’s even more impossible for that medication to be in her blood!”
“She might have changed her mind,” Jack pointed out.
“Then why would the pills be in Rachel’s room?” Paige countered. “You knew Cynthia; she was a very proud, private woman. She wouldn’t have taken the chance someone else would see them, and I doubt she would have been the sort to show weakness in front of Rachel. Also, why would Rachel have needed to give them to her if she was taking them? No, if Cynthia were taking them, she would have taken them on her own, at her house. Rachel couldn’t have gotten to them there, and if she did, then we’re looking at premeditation, which you’ve already said is unlikely in her case.”
“I doubt Rachel would have ever been to Cynthia’s home,” Jack mused. He shook his head. “I can’t rule out anything right now, though, Paige; anything is entirely possible.”
“Then isn’t it possible that I’m right?” Paige pled. “Cynthia told me she never intended to take that medication, that she had locked it away with no intention of ever seeing it again. I really don’t think she would have changed her mind in a week and a half.”
Jack couldn’t really see Cynthia changing her mind so quickly, either. She was a very stubborn woman; even if she had come to the realization that she needed to take that medication, she still would have held off taking it for a very long time.
“All right, did anyone else know about the medication?” he asked. “Senator Johnson?”
Paige shook her head. “She said the doctor would have told her husband that he had treated her, but wouldn’t have told him what he prescribed. According to her, he never saw the prescriptions. Anyway, we’ve already proved that it was impossible for him to have done it.”
Jack grimaced. The senator’s confession to carrying on with an affair while his wife was being murdered had been disgraceful. It seemed that both Cynthia and Senator Johnson had sought comfort outside their relationship.
“So, no one knew about it?” Jack asked, a little frustrated. “That would mean she took them herself, but we’ve already determined that someone else was involved.”
Paige opened her mouth to reply, but the phone rang and cut her off. Jack snatched it up.
“Yes?” he snapped.
“Sheriff Lewis, this is Dr. Brown from the staff at Newport. I’m just calling with the results of the DNA test you ordered yesterday,” said the dry voice of the lead forensic investigator at Newport, the one who tested all evidence that they found in Otter Rock since they couldn’t support their own forensic unit.
“Yes, what did you find?” Jack asked.
“The DNA you found on the camera does not match the DNA found under Cynthia Johnson’s nails,” Dr. Brown said.
Doesn’t match? Jack stared at Paige, who listened to his side of the conversation curiously. If the DNA didn’t match, then it meant that
Rachel, at the very least, wasn’t the one Cynthia had tried to fight off.
“Thank you,” he said before hanging up.
“What was that about?” Paige asked.
“The DNA under Cynthia’s fingernails didn’t match Rachel’s DNA,” Jack said, shaking his head. “Either she had an accomplice, or Rachel told the truth.”
“I think she told the truth,” Paige announced. “Cynthia told me that the only people who knew about the medication were Avery and perhaps Cecilia.”
“Cecilia?” Jack asked, confused. “I thought they didn’t get along?”
“She said that Avery might have called her in case something went wrong,” Paige said. “She didn’t believe putting Cecilia on standby would have helped, though, since there was no love lost between the two of them.”
“So, at the very least, Avery knew about that medication,” Jack pronounced slowly.
His brow furrowed. He didn’t like the direction this was leading. He shook his head and stood, snatching up his hat.
“I think we need to find out more about this,” he said. “If Avery knew about the medication, he might be able to tell us about it. You coming?”
“Naturally,” Paige said, grinning.
However, when they entered Cecilia’s apartment to ask to speak to Avery, they found it completely empty. Paige would have been less worried about this if they hadn’t discovered, in Cecilia’s bedroom, evidence of hurried packing.
“Avery isn’t home, according to Senator Johnson,” Jack said tersely, hurrying into the room. “Do you think he might be with Cecilia?”
“Probably,” Paige answered.
She didn’t like the picture that this was painting. Avery hadn’t even been on the list of probable suspects before now, but the fact that he had run said that he knew more than he had let on. Cecilia, too, became more suspicious by the minute.
Secrets of a Small Town Page 11