“I’m so sorry,” Rose said.
I swallowed hard. I didn’t want to get sidetracked. “But the reason I’m here, the reason I wanted to speak with your mom, is about that flash drive.”
Rose looked at me expectantly. “I don’t understand. What does a flash drive have to do with anything?”
I explained to Rose that I had contacted the firm a few weeks ago. “That’s when your father told me they’d found some irregularities in my husband’s work—”
“What kind of irregularities?” Rose asked.
“I don’t know. Your father wouldn’t tell me. But when I told him I found a flash drive I thought had belonged to my husband, your father wanted it. He was quite insistent that I give it to him.”
“And did you?” she asked.
I hadn’t planned on lying to her, but with Kathy glaring at me as if I was the one who’d murdered Brian, I didn’t want to admit the truth. “I gave him a flash drive but, apparently, it wasn’t the right one because your father called me a few days later and asked me to look again. I told him the one I gave him was the only one I found, and it was after that conversation that your father showed up at my house. He wanted to come inside and look for the flash drive himself. He seemed very agitated.”
“Agitated?”
“Stressed. Very stressed. So I let him search.”
“And did he find what he was looking for?”
“I don’t know. He looked through some boxes my husband had stored in the closet and there was a flash drive in there, but I don’t know what was on it. I offered to let him use my computer to check, but he just took the flash drive with him and left.”
Rose turned to Kathy. “Mom, did you know anything about this?”
“No,” she replied. “Your father’s business was your father’s business. I didn’t interfere.”
Rose turned back to me. “I don’t understand. Why are you telling us this?”
“Because I don’t think your father’s death was an accident.”
Her forehead wrinkled and her eyes widened. “What do you think happened to him? You think someone pushed him overboard to get a flash drive?” Rose’s tone told me how ludicrous she thought my suggestion was.
“For what was on the flash drive. Or, more likely, what wasn’t on the flash drive.”
Rose glanced over at Kathy. “Mom, are you listening to this?”
Kathy turned away from the window and folded her arms across her chest. “I think you need to leave.”
I stood up and directed my words at Kathy. “The reason I’m here is because I think whoever killed Jonah killed Brian too. If we went to the police together—”
“The man who murdered your husband is dead,” Kathy said. “I don’t know why—”
“Wait,” Rose said and stood up too. “Your husband was murdered?”
“Yes.” She’d probably assumed they died in a car accident. Most people did.
“But the man who did it is dead,” Kathy said. “So he couldn’t have killed Brian.”
“The man who pulled the trigger is dead,” I said. “But whoever ordered him to do it is still alive.”
Rose shifted her gaze from me to Kathy. Her voice cracked when she spoke. “Mom, was Daddy involved in something he shouldn’t have been?”
Kathy crossed the room and held her daughter’s face in her hands. “Of course not, darling. Your father was a good man.”
Then Kathy wiped away Rose’s tears with her thumbs and turned back to me. “I don’t know if you’re having some sort of mental breakdown or you’re just delusional, but I want no part of it. Brian fell off his boat and drowned. You need to leave this house now and never contact us again.”
I stared into Kathy’s steely blue eyes. She knows.
Chapter 39
I hurried down the block to where I’d parked the car. As soon as I was inside, I called Aunt Maddy. I knew I sounded hysterical, and I didn’t care.
“You need to calm down,” Aunt Maddy said.
“But she knows,” I cried. “She knows and she doesn’t care.”
“Just breathe,” she said. “Are you okay to drive?”
“Yes.” Breathe in for four, hold for four, breathe out for six.
“Then come straight to my house. I’m closer and we’ll figure out what to do next.”
Aunt Maddy must’ve been watching for my car because as soon as I pulled into her driveway, she opened the front door.
“Don’t be mad,” she said when I reached her porch. “But I called Dr. Rubenstein.”
“Why would you call Dr. Rubenstein? I told you I was taking a break from therapy.”
