‘She said Liam is Richard’s son,’ Ford said slowly. ‘And Angie is Liam’s mother? So . . . Richard Linden and Angie?’
‘If so, then Richard raped her,’ Thorne said harshly, remembering the look of sheer terror on Angie Ospina’s face all those years ago. ‘He treated her like she was his plaything. The timing is right, if the kid just turned eighteen. So the Lindens must have been paying her for more than her silence in refusing to testify on my behalf. They’ve been paying for their grandchild.’
‘How does Gwyn know this?’ Alec asked skeptically. ‘It seems like a huge leap.’
It did, Thorne had to admit, even though the notion made so much sense. He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. We’ll ask her.’
Ford gave a low whistle. ‘Here she comes. Gotta say, Angie is good at her job.’
Thorne could only stare as Gwyn left the salon, a cheerful smile on her face that he knew was completely forced. But Ford was absolutely right. She was gorgeous. She had been before she’d gone into the salon, though.
He opened the side door and helped her climb in. As soon as the door slid closed, the smile evaporated from her face. ‘Did you hear what I said?’
‘That Richard is Liam’s father?’ Ford asked. ‘We heard it.’
‘But we’re not sure where it came from,’ Alec added honestly.
‘What happened that we couldn’t see?’ Thorne asked her gently, because she was trembling. ‘How did you know?’
She straightened her spine. ‘It was how she looked when she talked about the boy. She said he was her nephew. But there is no way that’s the truth.’
‘You sound certain,’ Alec said cautiously, and she shot him a look so . . . hard that Thorne blinked. It was not a look he’d ever seen on her face before. Ever.
‘I am,’ she snapped, then closed her eyes on a sigh. ‘Call it intuition, but I just knew.’
‘Okay,’ Alec said slowly, but his doubt was still clear.
Opening her eyes, Gwyn pulled her phone from her purse. ‘Look at this.’ She showed them the selfie she’d taken in front of Angie’s mirror, the chair spun so that both her face and the back of her hair were visible. She enlarged the selfie, readjusting the placement so that a vertical row of photos stuck in the mirror’s edge was visible. ‘Look at the young man in these photos.’
‘Oh my God.’ Thorne immediately saw the resemblance and was taken back nineteen years. ‘Richard,’ he murmured. ‘Liam could be his twin.’ He shot Gwyn a look of pure admiration. ‘You are very good.’
Her cheeks pinked up at his praise, but the hard look in her eyes remained. ‘I kept thinking I’d seen him before, and then she said he lived in Iowa.’
Ford frowned. ‘Why is that important?’
Thorne understood. ‘Because that’s where they grow corn.’ He told Ford and Alec what Detective Prew had said about Angie going out to visit relatives in Iowa around the time of his trial, and how she’d stayed away for two years. ‘There was about six months between my arrest and my trial. If Angie was raped around the time of my hallway brawl with Richard and his friends, she’d have been showing by then. If she’d already been assaulted – and made pregnant – I can see her being afraid of the Lindens’ threats.’
‘Huh. Wow.’ Alec had pulled up his own photo of Richard from the Internet. ‘There is an incredible resemblance.’
Ford leaned over to see the photo. ‘It makes a lot of sense. Really good catch, Gwyn, but what does all this mean with respect to what’s happening now?’
‘I don’t know.’ She frowned slightly. ‘Maybe nothing. Except that the Lindens knew that Angie had had Richard’s baby. Maybe they didn’t know right away, but they did as of the time of the first loan, when she started the salon.’
‘They paid her for her silence,’ Ford said with a frown. ‘I suppose it could have been some under-the-table child support, but I’m wondering if it’s more likely that they bribed her or she extorted them.’
Gwyn shrugged. ‘Regardless of why they paid her, they did, and without publicly acknowledging that the boy is their grandson. That’s the important part, because if word got out that Angie was pregnant and Richard was the father and that he’d raped her, it would have given the police another possible suspect – Angie’s father, perhaps, or someone else in her family.’
‘But the Lindens were determined that I be found guilty,’ Thorne said slowly, mentally rearranging the puzzle pieces that had been in such disarray in his mind. ‘Enough that Richard’s father lied in court about altercations I’d had with Richard. Why?’
‘Good question,’ Gwyn murmured. ‘Maybe Linden Senior was trying to divert attention away from someone else. Rich people hate scandals.’
‘True,’ Ford agreed. ‘That would make sense if they already knew about Angie’s pregnancy.’
‘Definitely something to consider,’ Gwyn said. ‘I also wonder how many other people had a reason to kill Richard. Could Angie herself have done it, Thorne?’
Thorne shook his head. ‘Whoever did it had to have been able to physically overwhelm him, then cut him open and bash his face in. Angie isn’t tiny, but I can’t see her being physically able to do all that. Besides, the Lindens had as much contempt for her as they did for me. She was a scholarship kid too, and the Lindens never let us forget that they paid our way.’
‘Sound like real assholes,’ Ford muttered.
Thorne nodded. ‘They were. If they suspected Angie was involved, they might have turned on her then too.’
Gwyn bit at her lip. ‘Linden Senior was willing to perjure himself on the stand. That’s desperation. He really wanted you to take the fall. So I think you’re right. If he’d had anything credible on Angie at the time, he would have used it rather than risk the legal consequences of making up stuff about you. But why did he want you blamed for this crime so badly? It’s almost as if he was protecting someone.’
‘So they not only knew Thorne didn’t do it,’ Alec said, ‘but they had an idea of who did?’
‘Or why they did.’ Thorne rubbed his temples, feeling a headache coming on. ‘I keep coming back to the key ring. That is a weird thing to shove into a carved-up body. Weirder to shove into Patricia’s body all these years later. It means something. I guess the question remains: who knew about the key ring?’
‘You mean, who knew about the key ring who’s also still alive,’ Gwyn clarified. ‘The person who put it there knew, either because he was Richard’s killer,’ she said, ticking off on her fingers, ‘or because he – or she – was with Richard’s killer if he didn’t act alone. The EMTs knew, but one of them is too scared to talk and the other is MIA. The ER doctor knew, but he’s dead. The ME claimed not to have seen it, and Lucy has vouched for his integrity. The ME tech knew and he’s dead, his wife living a good life in Chevy Chase.’
Alec scowled. ‘I’d forgotten about her. I meant to run some background and financial checks but I lost the thread. I’ll get on that ASAP.’
Thorne was studying Gwyn. ‘What do you mean, “with Richard’s killer”?’
She shrugged. ‘You said his injuries were extensive. In the trial transcripts, the prosecutor used your size to insinuate you could have done it.’
‘You read the transcripts?’
She nodded. ‘That night at Jamie and Phil’s. I couldn’t sleep, and Jamie left them out on the table. Anyway, the prosecutor put forth that someone huge had to have committed the crime. Jamie countered that it didn’t have to be a single someone. It could have been two people or even more, that Richard was a punk and he treated enough people badly that there could have been others with motive. He even mentioned Angie as one of those people, because Richard had groped her in the hallway, but the prosecutor objected on the grounds that Angie had said that the groping had never happened. It could even have been one or more of Richard’s friends. Even if they weren’t there with him, they might have known why someone shoved a key ring in his gut.’