She drove slowly past his house. It was Saturday, and the weekends he had to work he usually had a babysitter for Wendy or took her to her friend’s house for a sleepover. Today maybe he took her there early. No one was home.
Feeling bold, she went inside. She had a key—he’d given her one more than a year ago—and looked around. Nothing seemed out of place. Yet...
She walked into Wendy’s room. She had a purple suitcase she kept under her bed for when she went to visit her bitch of a mother, visits that Wendy’s mom canceled more often than not.
The suitcase was gone.
Something was wrong.
Not necessarily. She could have brought the suitcase to the sleepover.
She sat on Wendy’s bed and dialed the kid’s cell phone. Wendy answered. Okay, that was good. If Steven had said anything to his daughter, she wouldn’t have answered Rachel’s call.
“Hey, Wendy, I came by the house to take you for ice cream, but you’re not here. Are you at Ginger’s?” Ginger was her weekend babysitter. “Maybe you can call your dad and ask if I can pick you up?”
“Oh, no! I love ice cream. But I’m at my grandparents’ house. My grandpa came to pick me up because Daddy has to work all weekend, and Grandpa got tickets to a baseball game, and I love baseball so I get to stay the whole weekend.”
“That sounds like fun.” Rachel forced her voice to be light and happy when she was awash with dread. Steven was never spontaneous. His life was orderly, and he kept Wendy’s life ordered as well because of her unstable mother. If Steven’s dad wanted to take Wendy to a ball game, he would have planned it days, or weeks, in advance. Something had happened... Something had forced Steven to change his habits. That couldn’t be good.
Rachel’s life was crumbling around her. She could practically see the pieces at her feet.
“Next weekend, okay?” Wendy said.
“Sure, we’ll make it a date. Bye.”
Rachel sat on Wendy’s bed for a long minute. She had to get in front of this. Fix it.
First, Steven couldn’t have any evidence. If he did, he would have already arrested her. Also, he couldn’t have evidence because she was too smart. There was no evidence for him to find.
Plus, conflict of interest. They had been dating for nearly three years. She could claim—and she would make it believable—that he was persecuting her because she’d broken up with him. She could easily lay an electronic trail. She’d have to be careful, though. Tell one person, maybe, that Steven wasn’t the upstanding citizen everyone thought he was. Plant doubts. Create conflict. It had worked for her in the past, it could work this time—but she had to be doubly careful because Steven wasn’t stupid.
Plus, she had to deal with Regan Merritt and that asshole podcaster.
Everything they said about Candace was theory and conjecture. But on the subject of Adele, that was something Kim Foster would be able to speak to. And no doubt Kim would throw her under the bus to save herself, if the police talked to her.
After everything Rachel had done for her, Kim would betray her—of that, Rachel was certain. Rachel would lose her job, her beautiful condo, her life at Sigma Rho. She could destroy Kim, but mutually assured destruction would still mean Rachel lost everything.
She might go to jail. That was not okay. She should not go to jail for an accident.
First, she had to start laying the groundwork to discredit anything Steven claimed to find about her. Then she would figure out what to do about Kim.
She walked into Steven’s small den and logged in to his computer. For a cop, he wasn’t all that security conscious. Rachel had learned all his passwords just by watching him. She would simply send herself a couple messages from his email, then respond, then have him threaten her, something like that.
She sat there and thought about how best to do it. Maybe she should have the supposed Steven send emails to a few people that would help discredit him, not just to her. Inappropriate emails, to divide and conquer.
As she was about to execute her plan, she realized his work email could also be accessed from his home computer. This was even better: she could find out exactly what he knew about Candace’s death.
She opened his work email.
As she read, her stomach tightened.
Steven had been removed from the case.
His boss had sent him an email this morning.
Effective immediately, you are removed from the Candace Swain homicide investigation. Please turn over all notes and files to Senior Detective Brian Hernandez as soon as possible, and call me to schedule a meeting to discuss, today if possible.
Her stomach flipped.
Why was Steven being removed?
Her face heated. Regan-Fucking-Merritt.
That bitch must have talked to someone higher than him, had him removed from the case. The whole conflict-of-interest bullshit that was supposed to protect Rachel was now a problem.
How did she become a suspect so fast? No one knew anything about Candace!
She rubbed her eyes and tried to figure a way out of this mess.
Maybe she was overthinking it.
She continued reading through his emails. They were meeting at the station today at four. That was in ten minutes.
Only one other email jumped out at her. It was from Detective Hernandez.
I asked Regan Merritt to sit in on the meeting since she found the journal; CCSD put a hospitalized student in protective custody as a possible witness. Student is in coma. Prognosis 50/50.
Journal? What journal? Taylor said she had destroyed Candace’s journal... Had she lied? Did she have it? Had she given it to Lucas Vega? To Regan Merritt?
And how did Regan know that Nicole was the caller about the truck? Dammit, Nicole should have died. If she regained consciousness, she could implicate Rachel.
Rachel could feel the noose tightening around her neck. Nicole could destroy her. She should have died! If she’d died, none of this would be happening... Damn damn damn! How could she have survived that dosage?
All thoughts of creating problems for Steven vanished. She had more important things to address. Rachel left the cop’s house, drove directly to her condo.