CHAPTER NINETEEN

C HAPTER N INETEEN

After leaving the police station, Shannon stopped at the store for groceries, hoping to calm her mind, but it hadn’t worked. She pulled the car into the driveway, shut off the engine, and sat there, thinking about the expression on Detective Toye’s face. He thought she was guilty of murder. The notion horrified her. Innocent people were thrown in jail every day.

She lifted the groceries from the trunk of her car and headed inside. After putting away food items that needed to be refrigerated, she went to her desk in the guest room. The first thing she grabbed was the article she had printed. The one Rosella had written about the Sierra Adoption Agency. Why hadn’t the agency returned her call?

Twenty years ago, the news that her bio mom wanted nothing to do with her had been devastating. Shannon had felt as if she’d been abandoned not once, but twice. The deep-rooted rejection she had felt for most of her life was something she’d worked hard to hide from her husband and daughter. Her burden was not theirs. But she realized she would never be able to heal if she kept denying what she was feeling.

She talked to a therapist and found it helpful to learn that her bio mom couldn’t reject her personally because she didn’t know her. Shannon also came to recognize that although she had no control over what had happened to her as a baby, she could take control of her life from here on. And that’s what she’d been working hard to do. Until now.

Seeing a connection, if you could call it that, between Rosella and the agency had been enough to set off old, familiar emotions, reminding her that the woman who gave birth to her couldn’t even bother with a quick phone call. That’s all she had wanted. To hear a voice. To ask a few questions. To let her know she had a granddaughter and that she was happy. But all the anger and resentment continued to bubble and simmer inside her, making her feel things she didn’t want to feel.

Once again, she grabbed her cell and called the Sierra Adoption Agency. She left a voicemail, but this time, instead of merely giving them her name and asking them to return her call, she told them about the article Rosella Marlow had written and asked if anyone there knew who Rosella’s contact might have been.

No sooner had she ended the call than her phone rang. It wasn’t a number she recognized, but she answered, hopeful someone at the agency had received her message already.

“Hello. Is this Shannon Gibbons?”

“Yes. Who is this?”

“Mike Barilla. I understand you were one of my students before I retired from California State University, Sacramento.”

“Yes. I took a couple of your classes.”

“Wonderful. I was told you had a question for me.”

“I do. It’s about Rosella Marlow. She said the two of you were friends.”

He chuckled. “I met her once. At a convention for journalists. They were giving out awards and she was one of the speakers. I would say we were more of acquaintances, but I’m flattered she remembered me at all.”

Shannon quickly grasped, from what Mike Barilla had just told her, that Rosella had lied. “I hate to put you in an uncomfortable position, but do you remember me?”

There was a short pause before he said, “I’m sorry. But the answer is no.”

“So it’s safe for me to assume you never spoke to Rosella Marlow about me?”

A longer moment passed this time. “You sound perfectly lovely, Shannon Gibbons, but if it makes you feel any better, I can’t remember most of my fifteen grandchildren’s names, let alone my students from decades past. I hope you understand.”

“Of course I do. I thought it was odd when the Rosella Marlow called me out of the blue and told me you had given me high praise, recommending me as a potential assistant. That’s why I called you. I needed to know the truth.”

“I must confess this news baffles me. I don’t know what to say, other than to tell you this conversation between Rosella and me never happened.” He sighed before saying, “I was saddened to hear the news of her unfortunate passing.”

“Me too,” Shannon said, feeling no need to bother him with details. “Thank you for returning my call. I appreciate it.”

Once the call was disconnected, Shannon’s shoulders slumped forward. Rosella had lied about Mike Barilla praising her work. What else had she lied about?

Shannon placed the article about the agency in its own file. As she sat thinking, Caroline Baxter’s name came to mind. Ever since Janelle McKinnon said Rosella had paid Caroline to move, she couldn’t stop thinking about her. If it were true, why would Rosella have done such a thing? She logged on to her computer. Fifteen minutes later, she couldn’t find a number where she could reach her, but she had an address. Caroline Baxter lived twenty minutes away on La Honda Way in Carmichael.

The sound of the doorbell startled her. She wrote the address down on paper, tore it loose, and shoved it in her pocket. Praying it wasn’t the detectives, she went to the door and peered through the peephole, relieved to see Chloe. She opened the door and Chloe rushed inside. Shannon followed her into the kitchen. “What’s wrong?”

“Everything,” Chloe said.

“Have a seat. It’s my turn to make us tea.”

Chloe pulled out a stool and took a seat while Shannon filled the kettle with water and set it on a burner. “Tell me,” Shannon said. “What’s going on?”

“It’s about Wesley. After Dianne remarked about Wesley being on Rosella’s payroll, I tried to log on to his computer. I never go into his office or snoop through his things, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it. And to be perfectly honest, that’s all bullshit. I did get into his phone a few years ago to read his texts. He was having an affair. I threatened to leave him, and he promised to change. I thought he had.” Her head dropped. “I’m so fucking gullible.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I never should have taken him back.”

“It could happen to any of us,” Shannon said. “We can’t go following our spouses around every day. We have to trust the people we love.”

“I know,” Chloe said. “I know. But it guts me to think he might be up to his old tricks.”

“You’re not one hundred percent sure he’s messing around?”

“I don’t have any proof. Not yet. But I do know all the signs, and I haven’t been paying attention. Wesley has been running again, something he did the last time this happened. He also started seeing a chiropractor once a week. I called the chiropractor’s office this morning, and they had no record of Wesley Leavitt. His next appointment is Monday afternoon. I’m going to follow him.”

“I’m sorry, Chloe. If you want someone to go with you, I’ll tag along.”

“Thanks, but I think I should go alone. Who knows what will happen if I catch him red-handed?”

Shannon met her gaze, concerned.

“I’m kidding,” Chloe said. “I know we just met, but I swear, I’m not a violent person. I’ve spent well over thirty minutes before, trying to save a spider. I’m good.”

Shannon paled.

“What’s wrong? Is it something I said?”

Shannon shook her head. “The thing with Wesley got me thinking about what Rosella said about everyone in the neighborhood having a secret ...”

“What about it?” Chloe asked.

“For starters,” Shannon stated matter-of-factly, “if we’re going to do this thing—”

“What thing?”

“Investigate Rosella’s murder, remember?”

“Yes, okay. What does that have to do with Wesley possibly cheating?”

“Hear me out. If we’re going to take this investigation seriously, we need to start thinking outside of the box. We need to think creatively and consider any and all possibilities.”

“Okay,” Chloe said, her features blank.

“That means we , but mostly you , since you know these people much better than me, can’t let personal connections cloud our judgment.”

Chloe appeared to relax. “I understand,” she said. “Please go on. Tell me your thought process as far as Wesley is concerned.”

“For a moment, let’s go with the theory that Wesley is cheating.”

Chloe nodded.

“And now imagine Rosella knew Wesley was cheating.”

Another nod. “Go on,” Chloe said.

“If we tie that information together with what Dianne said about Wesley making payments to Rosella ...”

“Then blackmail would be a definite possibility.”

Shannon nodded.

“Anything else?” Chloe asked.

“Yes. We need to talk about Caroline Baxter.”

Chloe raised a brow. “You really think Rosella paid her to move?”

“I have no idea, but the only way to possibly find out is to ask Caroline Baxter herself.”

“How are you going to find her?”

“I already did. She’s living in Carmichael. I don’t have a phone number yet, but I have an address.” Shannon handed Chloe a mug of tea. “There’s something else I wanted to share with you. Wait right here.” A few minutes later, she returned with the pile of random notes she’d scanned and printed. She set a pad of paper and a pen on the counter, too.

“What’s all this?”

“Before we decided to work together, I was holding back,” Shannon said. “On Monday, when I met Rosella for the first time, she sent me home with an envelope stuffed with all of this. Rosella was obviously a notetaker, a maker of lists, the kind of person who jots things down on a whim ... on napkins and receipts and whatever else they can get their hands on.”

Chloe picked up a piece of paper and raised it higher, holding it at different angles as if that would help her decipher what it said.

“There’s no shortage of slapdash scribbles,” Shannon said as she went through the pile, muttering to herself. “Most of it makes little sense to me, but maybe I’m not looking at it through the right lens. I need to take my time. Organize the notes chronologically or by relevance.”

“Oh my,” Chloe said, reading some of the scribbles aloud. “Becky and Holly were both dating men when they met! Why would Rosella care?” Her eyebrows arched upward. “Did she tell you what she wanted you to do with all this?”

“She handed me the envelope and told me it would help me to get started. I was beyond excited to be leaving, so I didn’t question her on its contents.”

“She really did want you to know every little thing about all of us. I probably knew her better than anyone, and I just can’t wrap my mind around all of this.” She pointed at one of the pages, and Shannon leaned in to get a better look. “Look at this,” Chloe said. “I am C’s best friend, but she’s not mine; C has never had to work hard for anything; C’s daughter better stay away from Daniel.”

Shannon didn’t know what to say.

Chloe’s face reddened. “This is confusing, and admittedly worrying at the same time. Ridley and Daniel were friends. I had no idea Rosella had a problem with my daughter hanging out with her son. But you know what?” Chloe slapped the palm of her hand on the counter. “I should have known. Just like I should have known every-fucking-thing else going on around me.” She shook her head. “Have you shown anyone else any of this?”

“I handed it all over to Detective Seicinski this morning.”

“But you took copies of everything first,” Chloe said with a wink. “Brilliant.”

“Before you showed up, my plan was to go through it all and see if there were any clues pointing to Rosella’s killer.”

“Let’s do it,” Chloe said as she grabbed half the pile and dug in.

Shannon took a seat on the stool next to Chloe, grabbed the rest of the papers, and started reading.

“Some of this is straightforward, but a lot of it isn’t,” Chloe said a few minutes later. “Maybe we should look for patterns, keywords, or references that could be relevant to the case.” She chuckled. “Listen to me. Some might accuse me of having watched too many true crime shows.”

Chloe was taking this all seriously, which made her a good partner. “That’s a great idea,” Shannon said. “When I skimmed over the notes the first time, I noticed Rosella had mentioned Jason Abbott multiple times. We could try to sort by people, too.”

As they went along, they worked together, analyzing, talking, and trying to make sense out of every scribble. Hours later, Chloe sighed. “This isn’t going to be easy.”

“Look how far we’ve gotten,” Shannon said. They had three stacks of papers. “This stack”—she rested her hand on the smallest pile—“represents information that needs further analysis.” She moved her hand to the next. “This stack also needs to be revisited and scrutinized with fresh eyes at another time. And the last stack,” she said, pushing it to the side, “is garbage.”

“It’s daunting,” Chloe said. “We can’t eliminate anyone as a suspect at this point. I find that mind-boggling.”

“This is why so many cases go unsolved. Interpreting evidence isn’t easy. But it’s way too early to even think about giving up. We have to be methodical and open-minded if we hope to uncover the truth.”

“I have to go, but this is a start,” Chloe said, gesturing toward the stacks of paper. She reached into her bag and pulled out a new stack of papers. “Here are some flyers Dianne made for the BHOTB event to hang around the neighborhood—if you get bored,” she said with a snort. She studied the interior of Shannon’s house. “Maybe next time I come, we can get some of these boxes unpacked.”

Shannon smiled.

“Should we get together again tomorrow?” Chloe asked.

“Sounds good.” Shannon walked her to the door.

After Chloe left, Shannon went back to stare at the pile of papers needing further analysis. Maybe they would get lucky. She purposely didn’t tell Chloe about the cold case crisis in the United States. The number of unsolved murder cases was high, reflecting an epidemic of failure to hold some of the vilest offenders accountable. Investigators needed to be patient, persistent, and leave no stone unturned if they wanted a fighting chance of solving a case. All she and Chloe could do was give it their best effort.