Chapter Twenty-Five

Margo Angelhart

Late last night, I drove by St. Dominic's and cruised through the surrounding neighborhood, looking for either Carillo's DPS cruiser or the family minivan. He wasn't there, which made me feel marginally better. There was no clear way to connect me to Rafe, and less Rafe to Annie.

I parked outside the rectory for an hour, just to make sure my uncle was safe. He lived there with two other priests—a young priest, who was just ordained last year, and a retired priest. All quiet. Finally, at two in the morning, I went home, showered, and slept uneasily for a few hours.

After morning coffee and a bagel, I again circled St. Dominic and the neighborhood until I was confident that Carillo wasn't staking out the church.

Tess had left a message for me to come to the office this morning, but I texted her that I had things to do. She'd wanted to join me to talk to Rachel Roper, but Rachel drugging Logan Monroe was my cross to bear—I needed to confirm that Brittney hired her, then to figure out why. I thought I knew—divorce settlement—but I wasn't positive. I needed the truth, and Brittney Monroe wasn't going to give it to me.

After calling Rachel's work for her schedule—pretending to be an existing client to see if she could "squeeze me in" this morning—I learned that she came in at eleven. That gave me plenty of time to hit Costco when it opened.

Last night while watching Uncle Rafe's place, I had researched security systems. I didn't need—nor could I afford—an alarm service. But surveillance? Most home camera systems recorded anyone who approached—even people who walked by the front of the house with their dog. I was more interested in people who approached my door—front, side, and back.

If Peter Carillo came to my house again, I wanted to know about it. If I'd thought of this before, I could nail him now—he would have a lot of explaining to do. Would he return? I doubted it.

Still, I bought a system with cameras that could connect to my phone and alert me in real-time if anyone entered the house—or even if someone came to the door to deliver a package. Though I was pretty handy and the instructions were clear, it took more than an hour to install. By the time I left and arrived at Rachel's work in north Peoria, it was noon.

Foothill Physical Therapy was a large building at the end of a new strip mall in upscale northern Peoria, in the hills above Highway 101. It was a nice community—if you liked big houses that all looked alike packed close together. FPT had the trappings of a gym, but with less equipment and added tables for muscle massage.

I'd had physical therapy twice. The first, when I was sixteen and tore my ACL during the championship soccer game, which we won 2–1. The second, two years after I left the Army, I was in the middle of my annual two-week Army Reserves training. During a drill—an obstacle drill I've done hundreds of times—my body went one way and my ankle went the other. Snap. It was a clean break, but I worked my ass off to be mobile as soon as possible.

I hated being out of commission.

The AC hit me hard when I walked into the building. Such was life living in the desert—it could be a hundred degrees outside but you needed a sweater when you went indoors. I had a light blazer on to conceal my weapon. Arizona was an open-carry state, but I preferred discretion.

The receptionist smiled. "Appointment?"

"Rachel."

She looked at the book. "Mrs. Thomas?"

"Margo Angelhart. I need five minutes of her time." I saw Rachel on the far side of the large room working with an athletic kid wearing a knee brace.

"She has an appointment—"

"Tell her it's about last night. Please, I would appreciate it."

More flies with honey. But if the receptionist balked, I'd push back. I had no time for games. If Rachel thought I'd tell her colleagues about her moonlighting as a paid girlfriend? All the better.

"I'll see if she can step away."

"Thank you," I said with a friendly smile. I watched as the receptionist spoke to Rachel, who looked over at me with a stunned expression. I waved. Surprise!

She quickly approached me and said in a low voice, "You can't be here."

"I'm here."

"This is my work. Go."

"I'm here about Brittney."

Her face paled. "I need ten minutes," she said. "Please."

"I'll wait outside."

Rachel looked shaken when she walked back to her client. She also didn't look like the hardened vixen she'd appeared last night. Her long shiny red hair was pulled back, she wore no makeup, and she dressed comfortably in shorts and a blue Foothill Therapy polo shirt.

I left the building and stood under the awning where I could watch the door.

I saw the teen leave eleven minutes later, then Rachel came out.

"I only have five minutes between clients. You really shouldn't be here."

"Tell me what happened," I said.

She looked scared. "I could be fired. Arrested."

You should have thought of that before you drugged someone.But I didn't say it.

"If you don't go back to The Beverly, they're not going to go after you. And if you don't do it again, I won't have any reason to come after you. Tell me the truth. That's how you protect yourself."

"I can't."

"I'm not a cop. I'm not the aggrieved party. I can't file a complaint. But if you don't tell me exactly how you ended up at The Beverly last night and why you drugged Monroe, I'll make sure that he files a complaint. I think the police will listen to him, don't you?"

Rachel paled even more. I hoped she didn't faint.

"Damn her," Rachel muttered. "Britt and I went to high school together. Not friends, but we knew each other. She heard that I worked for a girlfriend experience—we're not escorts. I don't sleep with the guys, I'm just a hired date. For weddings and business events. I made a thousand bucks—more than I make here in two weeks!—for a weekend at the Waste Management golf tournament last year. Just to be arm candy for a nerd. Britt said her husband was having an affair but the PI she hired couldn't prove it. She gave me a sob story and I fell for it."

"That doesn't explain why you roofied him," I said.

Rachel winced. "She paid my date rate, and said she'd pay me $500 if I could get him to make a pass. Someone would get the picture. That's it. She was in tears."

"And you drugged him why?" I asked.

She glared at me. "I didn't."

"I'm not recording this conversation," I said.

She wasn't going to admit it. "Anyway," Rachel continued, "I could tell he was not into me—color me shocked." She flipped her sleek red ponytail over her shoulder. "He wanted to know about this Jennifer. She wasn't returning his calls. I told him she was fine, thought Britt was right, he was all into this Jennifer chick, then he said something weird, like he was worried about her safety and she needed to call him. Wanted to know how to reach her because she wasn't returning his calls."

Though I suspected I knew the answer, I asked, "Why was he asking you about Jennifer?"

"Britt said to drop her name when I called to make the date."

"You didn't tell Logan it was a date," I said.

She didn't say anything at first.

"Rachel, this is important. Brittney hired you to set up her husband. You can't be okay with this."

"I'm not. It just—the way she talked, it didn't seem like a big deal."

"What did you tell Logan so he agreed to meet with you?"

"I said Jennifer asked me to call, wanted us to get together to talk. That was it."

"Have you met Jennifer?"

"Don't even know who she is." She twirled the end of her ponytail in her fingers, tears in her eyes. "Britt said give him a little boost if he didn't seem interested. I swear, I've never done anything like that before. I wasn't going to sleep with him. God, I'm not a prostitute or anything. I just was going to let him kiss me, maybe get to second base, let the PI—you—get a couple pictures. That was it. I swear."

Rachel was in a near-panic and I believed her. Still, I pushed. "What did Brittney tell you about Jennifer?"

"Only that her husband was obsessed with her and she wanted to find out how long they'd been involved. That was it."

So nothing I said to Brittney sunk in—that Logan wasn't having an affair, with Jennifer or anyone. She set him up.

Rachel pleaded. "I'm telling you the truth. I've never done anything like this before and I swear to God I'll never do it again."

Rachel was scared enough not to do something like this in the future, at least for a while. I hoped this near-miss with a sexual assault case would keep her clean for the rest of her life.

"What did you give him?" I asked.

She hesitated.

"Some drugs have serious side effects. He deserves to know."

"I have a prescription for lorazepam. It's legit, but I don't use it anymore. I dissolved a double dose in water."

"Throw them away. And steer clear of Logan Monroe."

Rachel went back inside. Yeah, I believed her, but her excuses were pathetic.

Brittney Monroe was worse. When I found no evidence that Logan was committing adultery, she hired Rachel to seduce her husband so that she could divorce him for cheating on her and walk away with fifteen million dollars.

Something didn't fit. Maybe I'm more devious or smarter than Brittney, but if it were me and I wanted to set up my husband, I would have set everything in motion before hiring the private investigator. I would have a similar sob story—oh, he's changed, he's lying to me, he's ignoring me, blah, blah—but I would have had Rachel (well, someone smarter and wiser than Rachel) already in the wings so that the first time my PI went to follow him, there would be something to photograph.

There were plenty of people who could be hired for nefarious purposes.

Which is why this whole charade with Brittney was giving me a headache. Ten days of nothing...then I give her a name of a female business associate and suddenly that's the name Brittney drops to set up her husband? And she didn't think I'd pick up on it?

I called Tess.

"What have you found on Jennifer White?"

"Nothing new. Did Rachel admit everything?"

"Yep. Brittney hired her, wanted the money shot with her husband making it with another woman." Which I didn't get because there was no money shot to be had.

"Why would she want to sabotage her own marriage?"

There were a lot of reasons people no longer wanted to be married, but Tess still believed in true love and happily-ever-after. Even when I was mad at her, which was often, I never wanted to burst her bubble.

"For Brittney, it's about money. She gets more in the divorce if he cheats."

"Just money? There has to be something else."

"Why?"

"I don't know—it seems so crass."

It was crass, but it was also common. "Yeah, I think it is just about money. Maybe she never loved him, maybe she did but he's a jerk, maybe she just got tired of being tied down to one man, maybe she found someone else. Don't know, don't care."

Not completely true—I didn't care about Brittney Monroe, but I wanted the truth.

I hated being used.

I shifted the conversation back to Jennifer White. "Learn anything about Desert West?"

"Jack's there now. Are you coming to the office?"

She sounded almost hopeful. "Miss me?" I said.

"I thought you wanted to help find Jennifer."

"I do, but I have something to follow up on. I'll call you when I'm done."