Chapter Ten

Bree watched from the window as Nathan drove away. She’d kept back because she hadn’t wanted him to see her watching him and conclude that she was longing for him or anything like that. She just wanted to make sure he was gone and away from the house. She didn’t want any of their suspects under the same roof as Gabriel.

“All right,” she heard Duncan say after he’d finished his latest call. The third one he’d gotten since delivering the whispered bombshell.

There’s been a murder .

Other than assuring Bree and the others that it wasn’t a family member or one of the deputies, that was all Duncan had been able to tell them. He’d then dismissed Nathan, basically telling him to get the heck out of there, and then had started the calls. Luca and Slater had done the same, and even though Bree didn’t know the specifics, it was obvious some things were happening in the investigation.

Duncan repeated his “all right” as if trying to gather his thoughts, and he slipped his phone back in his pocket. “About two hours ago, a hunter reported finding a dead body in the woods not too far from the burned-out cabin. Not on the grounds but about a quarter of a mile away. According to County Deputy Morales who arrived on scene, cause of death appears to be a single gunshot wound to the head.”

That gave Bree a jolt. Even though that wasn’t the exact way her father had been murdered, it still gave her the flashbacks.

“Any indications it could be a suicide?” Luca asked.

Duncan nodded. Then, shrugged. “Deputy Morales says it’s set up to look that way. The gun is in her hand and positioned more or less the correct way if the shot had been self-inflicted, but Morales believes the position of the body is off. He says it looks staged to him.”

Staged would equal murder as far as Bree was concerned.

“The county sheriff’s office had copies of the sketches done by the police artist,” Duncan went on. “The ones that the two witnesses said were of the woman they saw driving the silver truck when Sandra would have been captive. Anyway, the responding deputy says he believes the dead woman is the one in the sketch. So, it could be Tara or her sister, Shannon. I’ve tried to call Tara, but she’s not answering.”

If the dead woman was indeed Shannon, then it was possible she was the one who’d kidnapped Sandra. Sandra had said the woman who’d held her had had phone conversations with someone and appeared to be getting instructions. The person giving those instructions could have been Shannon’s boss, and he or she might not want Shannon around to spill anything incriminating.

“She didn’t respond to a text I sent her earlier,” Luca pointed out.

Duncan scrubbed his hand over his face and seemed to consider that a moment. “Try to contact her again. If she still doesn’t answer, I’ll have the Austin cops go to her place and see if she’s there. For now, call Manny and see if knows where she is. Find out, too, if he knows Shannon, and it’s okay to tell him there’s a body matching Shannon’s description.”

Luca nodded, and he took out his phone, moving a few yards away into the adjacent formal dining room and motioning for Bree to join him. She did, and Luca put the call on Speaker when he tried to call Tara. Bree got a very uneasy feeling when it went straight to voicemail. Maybe Tara was just dodging them, but it was also possible she was dead.

“This is Deputy Vanetti,” Luca said, leaving a message. “I need to speak to you right away.” He paused a heartbeat. “It’s about your sister.”

That might prompt Tara to return the call. If she was in any position to do it, that is.

Luca pulled up Manny’s number next and also put it on Speaker. “Didn’t I make it clear that you’ll have to go through my lawyer if you want to talk to me?” Manny greeted in a snarl.

“I’m looking for Tara,” Luca said, clearly ignoring Manny’s rant.

“I have no idea where she is. She’s not at work, that’s for sure.” He paused. “Why are you looking for her? Did you find some kind of proof that she’s the one who killed Brighton?”

“No,” Luca answered. “I wanted to talk to her about her sister.”

“Shannon?” Manny questioned.

“That’s right. You know her?”

“Yeah, I’ve met Shannon a couple of times,” Manny confirmed. “She’s the spitting image of Tara, but they’re nothing alike personality-wise. Or rather they were nothing alike. Tara used to be reliable. Shannon’s a train wreck. She takes that whole bad girl attitude way too far.”

“What do you mean Tara used to be reliable?” Luca asked. Bree knew he wasn’t dropping the subject of Shannon, but that past tense could be a red flag if Manny knew Tara was dead. “Has something changed?”

“Damn right, things have changed. Tara’s spooked out of her mind and believes this whole thing of someone wanting her dead. I’m the one who was nearly run off the road. I’m the one who was attacked, not her, but you’d think she was the only one at risk here. Hell, there’s no indication other than her wild imagination that someone is after her.”

Bree mentally repeated all of that, and there was something about it that didn’t ring true. But she didn’t know what part. If Manny was the mastermind behind what was happening, then he could be setting up Tara to take the fall. That didn’t feel right either though.

“Truth is, I’ve told Tara that she should look for another job,” Manny went on. “Now watch, she’ll probably pull some ‘hell has no fury like a woman scorned’ deal and accuse me of all sorts of things.”

“Like what?” Luca pressed, and Bree realized this was turning into the interview that they hadn’t been able to finish with Manny when he’d been at the sheriff’s office.

“Who the hell knows,” Manny grumbled. “She’ll probably accuse me of murder or something. She might even claim I’m the one after her.” He paused. “Wait, is Tara working with Shannon to try to smear my name or something?”

“Not that I know of,” Luca assured him. “Would Tara or Shannon do that?”

“Hell, yeah. Shannon would, anyway, and it wouldn’t take much of a push for Tara to get Shannon to come after me for her version of payback.”

“You think Shannon could be violent?” Luca went on.

Now, Manny wasn’t so quick to answer. “Did Shannon do something? Does she want Tara to bail her out of jail again?”

“No,” Luca said, but didn’t add more to that. “Does Shannon have any identifying marks that Tara doesn’t and vice versa? Like a birthmark or tat?”

Again, Manny hesitated. “Why are you asking that? Did something happen to Shannon or Tara?”

Luca dodged those questions. “We’re looking into that. Tats or birthmarks?” Luca repeated.

Manny huffed. “Tara has a shamrock tat on her right ankle. As far as I know, Shannon’s not into that sort of thing.”

Bree hurried back to Duncan to let him know to have the cops on scene check for an ankle tat on the dead body. It didn’t take Duncan long to make the call or for the cops to respond.

“No tat of any kind on her ankle,” Duncan relayed.

So, this was Shannon. Bree didn’t know whether to be relieved or not. The proximity of the body to the cabin and the eyewitness accounts of the woman driving the silver truck likely meant Shannon had been involved in not only her mother’s kidnapping but perhaps everything else that’d happened.

But that didn’t exclude Tara’s involvement.

In fact, the conversations Sandra had overheard could have been Shannon talking with Tara. Tara might be the mastermind behind the kidnapping and the attacks. Why though, Bree still wasn’t sure.

She went back to Luca to let him know that the dead woman didn’t have a tat and found him in the middle of another Manny tirade. Manny was now demanding that Luca tell him what was going on, and the man was peppering the demand with plenty of profanity.

Bree mouthed the info about the tat. Luca nodded and interrupted Manny’s rant. “A woman’s been murdered, and it might be Shannon,” he said.

That stopped Manny mid-sentence. “Murdered?” he questioned. “And you think I did it?”

“Did you?” Luca asked.

“Of course not.” He paused again. “This is why you want to talk to Tara,” Manny concluded with a sigh. “Do you think she killed her sister?”

Luca frowned. “Why would you think that? Is Tara capable of killing Shannon?”

Manny did more cursing. “To hell if I know. A week ago, I would have said no, but I think Tara’s had some kind of breakdown. There’s no telling what she might do in this state of mind.”

There it was again, the feeling that what he was saying just didn’t ring true. Basically, Manny was throwing Tara under the bus. Maybe because he believed she was indeed capable of murder, but it felt to Bree as if Manny was trying to cover his own tracks by making them believe Tara was guilty.

“I really need to speak to Tara,” Luca went on. “But she’s not answering her phone. Any idea where she might be?”

“None whatsoever,” he was quick to say, “but when you do talk to her, remember what I said. Don’t believe anything she tells you about me. Or anything else for that matter,” Manny added a split second before he ended the call.

Luca stared at his phone for a moment as if he might hit Redial, but something Duncan said must have caught his attention because he headed in that direction. Duncan was still talking to someone on the phone, but he finished his conversation just as they approached him.

“They ran the dead woman’s fingerprints and got an immediate hit,” Duncan explained. “It’s Shannon.”

Bree wasn’t sure what to feel about that. With her death, she would no longer be a threat. But the threat was still out there, and if Shannon were alive, she might at least have been willing to spill the name of her accomplice. If she had an accomplice, that is. For now, all they could do was speculate as to what her part had been in Sandra’s kidnapping and the attacks.

They knew from the witnesses’ sketches that Shannon, or Tara, had been at the cabin and had driven the silver truck. So, one of them had held Sandra. It was too bad that Sandra had never seen her kidnapper’s face or she might have been able to verify which one.

But the proximity of Shannon’s body to the cabin pointed to it being her.

Shannon had that “trouble magnet” past, and she would have had an easier time getting to and from the cabin than Tara who, according to her work schedule, was putting in fifty-plus hours a week. That didn’t totally exclude Tara, but at the moment the circumstantial evidence was skewed more to Shannon. She was almost certainly the one who had brought in groceries to Sandra.

“Deputy Morales will get the body to the ME and send the gun to the lab for analysis,” Duncan explained. “Her address is listed as an apartment in Austin, so Austin PD will send someone out to take a look at the place.”

Duncan was scowling. So were Luca and Slater. Probably because this had turned into a three-prong investigation with three different law enforcement agencies involved. That meant red tape and possible delays.

“I checked and Shannon Adler doesn’t have a gun registered to her,” Slater said a moment later. “Of course, that doesn’t mean she didn’t buy one illegally, but we still might be able to trace the gun to someone.”

True. “How about our other suspects?” Bree asked. “Do they own guns?”

“Not Tara. Again, not legally anyway,” Slater answered. “Manny has a permit to carry concealed, and he owns both a Glock and a SIG Sauer.”

Those were normally cops’ weapons, but plenty of civilians carried them as well. Manny could probably justify ownership of that kind of firepower though by saying he’d wanted protection for the bar. Added to that, if Manny was responsible for the attacks, he almost certainly wouldn’t have used one of his own weapons. However, the concealed permit was an indicator that he knew how to shoot since he would have needed classes to get that.

“Did Morales say if the shot to Shannon’s head was point-blank?” Luca asked.

“It was,” Duncan verified. “There was stippling around the point of entry.”

Bree knew that stippling was unburned gunpowder striking the skin, and it was an indicator that the shot had been fired less than two feet away. So, if this wasn’t a suicide, it likely meant Shannon’s killer had been someone she knew. Or at least someone who could get that close to her anyway.

“Morales thinks Shannon was actually killed in the spot where she was found,” Duncan went on. “There were no drag marks, and there was an ample amount of blood to make him believe that’s where she died.”

“How far from the road?” Luca wanted to know.

“About fifty yards,” Duncan answered. “It was a heavily treed area in between the cabin and the river. Morales said it was the very definition of off the beaten path .”

“So, Shannon was meeting someone or was lured there,” Luca concluded.

“This is all too pat for my liking,” Slater said, reading through something on his laptop screen.

That got Bree’s and everyone else’s attention, and they turned to Slater, waiting for him to explain that.

“Shannon had a short stint in the army before she was dishonorably discharged,” he said. “She would have gotten firearms training. She also had a record for drugs and B and E. Everything I’m seeing in her background indicates she couldn’t stay out of trouble and had issues with authority.”

Bree figured she knew where he was going with this. “So, how could she have stayed on task for the eleven months Mom was held captive?”

“Exactly,” Slater agreed. “She doesn’t seem to fit the profile of someone who could have done this on her own. Yet, she also doesn’t fit for someone taking orders either.”

“I guess that could depend on whoever was giving the orders,” Duncan suggested. “If it was someone she trusted...or loved, then maybe that allowed her to stay on task.” He paused, shook his head. “And it’s possible that Shannon is being used as a scapegoat in all of this.”

Luca made a sound of agreement. “And if so, that points back to Tara.”

It did indeed. But Bree knew they couldn’t rule out Nathan or Manny. Especially Manny who’d admitted to knowing Shannon. That made Bree wonder if Nathan would admit to knowing the dead woman as well. She was on the verge of asking Luca, Slater and Duncan if they should ask Nathan that when Luca’s phone rang.

“Tara,” Luca said when he looked at the screen. The relief was in his voice, but the concern was still on his face. He took the call and immediately told Tara, “I’ve got the call on Speaker. Sheriff Holder, Deputy McCullough and Bree are here with me.”

“What’s so important?” Tara responded, the ice practically dripping off the question.

“I need to talk to you in person,” Luca explained. “Can you come back to Saddle Ridge? If not, I can arrange—”

“I’m not going back there,” Tara interrupted, “and I’m not talking to any Austin cops either. If you’ve got something to say to me, just say it fast because you’ve got exactly thirty seconds before I hang up and then block you.”

Duncan nodded, giving Luca the okay to tell her about Shannon. Normally, this was something done in person, but it was obvious Tara wasn’t going to consent to a visit with cops.

“Tara, I regret to inform you that your sister, Shannon, is dead,” Luca stated.

There were a couple of seconds of silence, followed by a sharp gasp. “What?” she demanded but didn’t wait for an answer. “You’re lying. You’re saying that so I’ll meet with you.”

“I’m saying it because it’s true,” Luca spelled out. “A positive ID was made of her body just minutes ago.”

Tara muttered something Bree didn’t catch. “Her body?” she repeated. “Shannon’s dead.”

“Yes,” Luca verified but didn’t add more. He was no doubt giving Tara some time to let it sink in.

“How did she die?” Tara asked a couple of moments later.

“We believe she was murdered,” Luca said.

No gasp this time, but Tara’s moan was plenty loud enough. There were some rustling sounds, and Bree thought maybe Tara was dropping down into a chair. “Who killed her?”

“We don’t know yet. We were hoping you could help us with that,” Luca explained.

More silence. “You’d better not be trying to pin this on me because I didn’t kill my own sister.”

The denial sounded adamant enough, but Bree knew that some people were top-notch liars. She had no idea though if Tara was one of them.

“Any idea who’d want Shannon dead?” Luca asked.

“No,” Tara said, and her tone had softened some. “But you thought she was involved in what was going on with Manny and Bree, so maybe Shannon got mixed up with the wrong person. That wouldn’t be a first,” she added in a mutter. “I want to see her body. Where are you sending her?”

“To the county medical examiner. I don’t have the number off the top of my head, but if you call the Saddle Ridge dispatcher, they can connect you. Then you can arrange a time to see your sister.”

“Good,” she said in a hoarse whisper, and she repeated it a couple of times as if using it to try to steady herself. “Please tell me you know who killed her because I want the SOB behind bars.”

“I don’t know, not yet, but there are a lot of cops investigating Shannon’s murder. We’re—”

“Did Manny kill her?” Tara blurted out.

That caused everyone in the room to freeze. “Why would you think that?” Luca asked.

“Because he’s an SOB, that’s why,” Tara was quick to say. “He fired me, did you know that?” Again, she didn’t wait for an answer. “Manny’s a lying lowlife scum, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he was using my sister. Used her and then killed her.” A hoarse sob tore from her throat. “If he did kill Shannon, I will bury him.”

“Tara,” Luca warned, “you need to calm down. And you need to stay away from Manny. Leave this to the cops. Like I said, we’re investigating several possibilities. Some cops are headed to Shannon’s apartment in Austin now to see if there’s anything there that’ll point us in the direction of her killer.”

“Her apartment in Austin?” Tara questioned. “She moved out of there close to a year ago.”

Bree was certain Luca, Duncan and Slater didn’t miss the timing of that. It meshed with when her mother had been kidnapped.

“Do you know where Shannon had been living?” Luca asked.

“The last time I saw her, she said she was staying in a travel trailer our grandparents left her. She had it parked on a lot she was renting... Hang on a sec,” Tara muttered. “I put the address in my phone.” A couple of seconds later, she read it off. “It’s 116 Wilmer Cranston Road, Bulverde.”

Slater immediately pulled up a map on his laptop and showed it to them. It was less than five miles from the burned-out cabin and where Shannon’s body had been found.

“Get someone out there right now,” Duncan told Slater, and Bree understood the urgency. Shannon’s killer might intend to destroy the trailer if he or she hadn’t done that already.

Slater stepped into the dining room to make a call while Luca continued with Tara. “Thanks for the address.”

“I hope you find something there that tells you who killed her,” Tara was quick to say. “And if it’s Manny, then I think I can add a nail to his coffin.”

“What do you mean by that?” Luca asked, obviously just as unnerved by the comment as Duncan and Bree were.

“I mean, I might have some proof that’ll help you convict Manny of murder,” Tara spelled out.

“What kind of proof?” Luca demanded.

But he was talking to the air because Tara had already ended the call.