20

The next day, Piper was at the office, feeling restless. She contemplated revisiting her pending cases at the GAL, but she didn’t want to seem like she was trying to micromanage from a distance. With nothing else to do, she immersed herself in summarizing her interviews with people who knew Sophie Grace.

Piper had interviewed several teachers, the principal, and some of Sophie’s peers, but few seemed close to her. Her main task was ensuring Sophie’s safety, a complex job given teens’ ability to hide their emotions. Spotting the warning signs was crucial, since their outward behavior rarely reflected their inner thoughts.

Piper couldn’t ignore the physical threat to Sophie either. If the killer thought Sophie could identify them, she was in danger.

Her phone rang. It was Lazarus.

“Hey,” she said.

“I found him.”

“Who?”

“Paul Grace, Sophie’s father. Thought you might wanna join me to have a chat with him.”

“I do. Where can I meet you?”

“I’m outside.”

Paul Grace lived nowhere near where she thought a tax attorney, or apparently former tax attorney, would live. Across the border into Utah, at the base of swooping canyons and mountains.

Concealed behind trees and boulders, cabins were scattered throughout the area, all enveloped by dense pine forests.

“Looks like we got a hike,” Lazarus said as they stopped in front of a trail leading up.

It was a tranquil day, cloudless and blue. A faint haze hung over the valley from desert dust kicked up from strong winds.

They almost missed the first cabin because it was concealed by dense foliage. Rows of trees surrounded the home, almost entirely blocking it from sight.

“Can I ask you something? What do you know about Judge Dawson?” Piper said as they continued up the trail, a breeze blowing through the pines and creating a soft whisper.

“Like what?”

“Like her husband.”

“You wanna know if there’s any evidence she killed him?”

“Just making small talk.”

“No, you’re curious, be honest about it. No, I don’t think she killed her husband.”

“Why?”

“I caught a body once that they were going to clear as an ulcer that caused the vic to bleed to death. Judge Dawson read the autopsy report and found an error in the way the ME tested the ulcer, and we had the vic examined again. Turned out his wife had been feeding him crushed glass in his food for weeks and the ME missed it, and she picked it up in five minutes of reading a report. She’s too smart to push him over a balcony and be the only suspect.”

“How’d she even read a report on a pending case?”

“I showed it to her.”

By his response, Piper could tell this wasn’t an area he wanted to discuss further.

“That’s the cabin,” he said.

The cabin sat back from the trail but was visible. Unlike the previous one, it had fewer trees around it. The roof was worn, but the rest of the cabin looked fairly new.

Before they even reached the door, it opened and a man stood there with some fishing gear and a camo hat.

A few similarities in facial structure, but other than that, Sophie had gone toward her mother.

“Who the hell are you?” he said loudly.

“Easy, partner,” Lazarus said. “You Paul?”

“You from the county?”

“I’m police.”

“Hmm,” he grunted. “What you want to talk to me about?”

“How ’bout the murder of your wife and son?”

“Ex-wife. And I wasn’t anywhere near there. I haven’t been to the city in five years. She got the house and everything else. I didn’t want any of it. And I told her to leave cities because the country’s gone insane. But she didn’t listen.”

“You’re gettin’ worked up pretty good, Paul. You got yourself a temper there.”

“I never laid a hand on her. She made all that up to get more in the divorce. But I didn’t care, I let her have all of it. I sold everything, bought this cabin, and keep the hell to myself. Now I got things to do.”

He tried to brush past them, but Lazarus blocked his way. The two men glared at each other.

“Thing is, Emily was shelling out some serious money for the best alarm she could get. Someone had her spooked.”

“I don’t know anything about that. And you know I didn’t have anything to do with it because you’d have the handcuffs out right now if you did.”

Lazarus didn’t respond.

Piper said, “Have you talked to your daughter?”

They exchanged a glance, and the anger in Paul’s eyes started to dissipate. He swallowed hard and cast his gaze downward. “How is she?”

“She’s alone.”

He was quiet a long time.

“Everyone’s alone,” he finally said before pushing past them and heading farther up the trail.