Neither Bethany nor her own intuition gave her a clue as to which one.
Logic, however, dictated that it was Jada. Led on by Bud Traynor. Perhaps he even knew as he alternately seduced and terrified Bethany that night on the phone. Perhaps he’d planned it with Jada ...
All the speculation in the world wouldn’t nail either of them if Max couldn’t find that damn rolling pin.
The door to the garage creaked as she opened it. The stair gave a little beneath her foot as she stepped down. The quiet was preternatural. The houses on either side of her waited, as if they were entities in themselves. A breeze sighed beneath the door at the back of the empty one-car garage. A washing machine and dryer stood against the house wall, a trash can and recycle bin near the rollup door. Cleaning solvents, mysterious boxes, and an assortment of household tools lined shelves along the far wall. Next to the stairs, a forlorn bag of cat litter tilted to one side.
Where the hell was Kitty Kat anyway? Next door, roaming the streets, or hiding, confused and frightened because she couldn’t find her mistress. She certainly wasn’t in the garage.
At the back end of the wall separating the two houses was a door. A way for a murderer to move seamlessly to safety without anyone knowing.
She didn’t have to try the knob to know it was unlocked. It was always unlocked. More proof that Jada was the one who’d brutally murdered her sister. Or Virginia had done it. No, Max still leaned towards the girl. That first day, Jada had used her keys on the house, entering through the front door. What other reason could there have been but to direct suspicion away from herself?
Virginia Spring’s garage was stacked floor to ceiling with furniture, boxes, bags, suitcases. As if the woman anticipated vacating for greener pastures at any moment. No wonder the cars were parked on the drive. Bethany, on the other hand, had never intended to leave.
Max inched through a small aisle between a sofa and a highboy. Definitely too tight for Bethany, perhaps a squeeze for Virginia, but a piece of cake for Jada to fit through.
The kitchen door, too, was unlocked. Max had expected no less. Again, the quiet inside unnerved her. Someone, or something, was waiting for her. Damn, as soon as she’d gotten in, she wanted out.
The sun streamed down through a skylight onto the white tile counters, the enamel range top sparkled, and the floor seemed unnaturally clean for white linoleum. The room smelled of pine. Appliances lined the countertop, a mixer, toaster, Crock-Pot, can opener, and microwave. Implements hung from racks on the wall. Everything had a place, and there was only one empty spot. The one where the rolling pin should have been.
The swing door into the dining room stood open, casting a swath of light across the table and one chair. The curtains were obviously closed in the front room, all else out there was dark. And silent? Max imagined she could hear breathing. As if the house itself were alive. She shivered with the same sense of dread she’d felt in Bethany’s small living room that first day.
Shaking off the sensation, she started opening the column of drawers next to the stove. Virginia kept an abundance of cooking tools. Max couldn’t even define the uses for many of them. A drawer overflowed with tea towels of all colors and varieties from serviceable cloth to daintily embroidered.
She stopped a moment, a horrible thought striking. Would a killer really be stupid enough to keep the murder weapon? Even if Jada was that dumb, would she put it back in the kitchen for Virginia to find?
No. It was probably hidden at the bottom of her closet in her bedroom upstairs.
Finding merely another bottomless pit of kitchen doodads, Max slammed the third drawer. She should be searching upstairs, in Jada’s room, Jada’s bathroom, Jada’s anything. Max didn’t make a move towards the door. Instead, she bent to open that last drawer.
And stared down at the gun Walter Spring had used to kill himself.
Chapter Thirty-Five
For a moment, Max’s heart stopped in her chest. Psychic imprints glowed on the handle and on the barrel. Pain, anger, sorrow, fear, the whole gamut assaulted her. She couldn’t separate them, as if they’d all been there at once, no linear progression driving Walter to his end.
She wanted to scream. She wanted to run. She wanted to touch it.
A thousand questions without answers tumbled through her brain.
“I kept it for protection.”
Max shrieked and jumped back. Stumbling, she almost went down, but caught herself at the critical moment.
Virginia stared at her from the open doorway, her expression bleak, her eyes a sad brown. “Bud told me I’d find you here, but I didn’t believe him.”