Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 120230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
His returning smile reminded me of Kaea. Not because they looked in any way similar. No, it was that charm. Paired with a wickedness that was playful rather than cruel. Kaea had never been cruel and I knew with certainty that Bea had long ago forgiven any teenage grudge she’d held against him.
Grace, however, saw only in black and white.
A loyal friend who would do anything for you. But who had no concept of degrees when it came to what she considered a crime.
I cupped my hands around the warmth of the hot chocolate, the steam bathing my face.
Leaning against the chairback and kicking out his feet, Ratene said, “You mind if I ask you a few more questions?”
“Ask as many as you want. I want the truth of what Darcie did to Bea on the record.”
“The woman you know as Grace,” he said, “she say anything to you about Judge Landis Beale?”
I’d had time, had thought this through. “No. Who is she?”
“He,” Ratene corrected. “He’s the judge who signed the papers that gave Darcie guardianship over her sister.”
“You’ve already tracked down the records?”
“It wasn’t hard with the details Grace gave us.” His eyes narrowed, and suddenly he wasn’t the good-looking man the others in the vicinity were fawning over—he was a hard-eyed cop. “Legal sleight of hand to strip a woman of her life.”
“Grace didn’t mention him. But I think Darcie maybe mentioned an Uncle Beale once.” I frowned. “At her wedding possibly.” My words were insurance against being found on the same guest list; it was unlikely Ratene would make anything of that, but I didn’t want him to have even a tiny reason to question my veracity when it came to what I knew about the judge. “I didn’t pay too much attention—it was a chance to catch up with my friends, and we mostly hung out together.”
“The judge was a friend of the Shepherd family,” Ratene confirmed. “My sources tell me he’s now gotten wind of Grace’s arrest and he’s saying she targeted him, that she’s the one who loaded up his computer with hundreds of frankly sick and very illegal images.”
I snorted. “Sounds like he’s clutching at straws. Grace is smart, don’t get me wrong, but she’d have to be a hacker genius to get into a judge’s computer.”
The trick is to commit.
Ratene’s eyes bored into the side of my skull, but I’d prepared for this. The tiredness helped. I just zoned out, my expression a blank stare at the facing wall.
“He probably is,” he said at last. “Technical experts say his digital fingerprints are all over the laptop. Plus, he has no photos or other evidence to prove he ever met Grace. Texts and calls went to a prepaid phone that’s now dead, and the number is listed in his phone directory as ‘Bianca.’ ”
Clever, clever Grace.
“His defense can still try to bring Grace up at trial, but prosecutor says the fact she’s so unstable will make that a useless argument. Plus, he’d just be calling attention to his lack of ethics in not recusing himself from the application to do with Beatrice Shepherd.”
Not a good look if Judge Landis Beale wanted the jury to see him as an upstanding citizen who’d never think of looking at such vile material as had been found on his computer.
“What does Grace say?” Because she would’ve said something; she was too clever to simply deny that Beale had been on her hit list.
“Says she planned to poison him, but couldn’t figure out how to get close enough to do it. Then she heard about his arrest and decided to leave him to fester in the mess he created for himself. No need to murder him when he’ll get brutalized in jail.”
I smiled within.
“What about Dr. Cox?” Ratene continued. “She mention him?”
I nodded. “She murdered him. Promised him a blow job, but suffocated him and sent his car off a cliff.”
“You don’t sound disturbed by that.”
“I feel numb. Doctors say I’m suffering from shock. If I am, I don’t want out of it.”
Ratene was quiet for a beat. “Yeah, I can’t blame you on that, Luna.” Several beats later. “There was money involved with the doctor, by the way. Shouldn’t be telling you, but what the hell. Darceline Shepherd gave Cox an extremely generous gift eighteen months after Beatrice was committed.”
“Patience.”
“Yes. But for Cox to wait that long, it wasn’t only about the money.”
No, it had been about Darcie’s ability to manipulate and mold people into doing exactly as she wished. “It can’t just have been the judge and the doctor involved,” I said. “Surely others must’ve questioned why Beatrice was in the facility?”
“We’ve just begun digging there.” He shot me an assessing look, then gave a short nod, as if coming to a decision. “Did you have any idea they stood to inherit two million dollars each when they turned twenty-five?”