Chapter Fifty-Seven
FIFTY-SEVEN
Mac
The red Corolla pulled into her driveway just as Mac was about to leave for work.
“Blair, honey,” she said when her niece had parked and met Mac at the door. “What are you doing here? Is everything OK?”
“It’s fine,” said Blair. “Really good, actually. Do you have a sec?”
Mac waved her inside. “You just missed your dad.”
“Oh,” she said, looking startled. “I thought he was at work. Is everything OK?”
“We’ll see,” Mac answered honestly. She’d found Woody a good lawyer, insisting that she’d cover the cost, but despite Shana’s efforts to clear him of suspicion, the man had no alibi and Stacy, a credible eyewitness, was still claiming she’d seen him in bed with Angelica. Woody remained the prime suspect.
Blair said, “My dad is kind of the reason I’m here.”
Mac knew the second they sat down in the living room that she was going to be late to the office. She listened as Blair told her about finding Molly Kranz in the garage and talking to her about Angelica Patten.
“Jesus,” Mac said. “Blair, you should have called me. That woman could be dangerous.”
“She’s not,” Blair replied. “She told me everything about the night Angelica was killed. Dad didn’t do it, Maureen—he couldn’t have. He drank a ton and passed out in one of the bedrooms. Molly saw him herself.”
Mac tilted her head. If she had her facts straight, Stacy had called Nicole the morning after that party to break the news that she’d caught Woody in bed with another woman. Could Stacy Peel really have gotten it wrong?
“She can help clear Dad’s name,” Blair said urgently. “She’s a witness—right? Molly can tell Tim and Shana that Dad isn’t guilty. Hang on.”
Blair was getting a call. Mac hoped it was Nicole or Woody on the line, but as soon as Blair started to talk, Mac knew it was one of her friends.
“Hey.” Blair listened for a moment before speaking.
“You did? When? Yeah.” She glanced at her aunt.
“Don’t worry, I know. She’s not dangerous.
” Another pause. “I’m at Maureen’s. I don’t know, there’s some shit going down.
” Again, Blair looked Mac’s way, this time contrite as she mouthed the word sorry.
“OK. OK, bye. That was Nash,” Blair told Mac.
“He just saw Molly leaving our house. He recognized her from the video too.”
“Better keep this to ourselves for the time being,” she replied, wishing she’d issued the warning before Nash’s call. “Where’s Molly now?” The woman would need to be found, and quickly.
“If she left, I’m not really sure. You know that abandoned house a few blocks from ours? The one that’s all overgrown? That’s where she hid her car, but she’s been camping out in our garage for a couple of days.”
“A couple of days? Jesus. Why?” How on earth had Molly Kranz found her way to Woody and Nicole’s?
“She was looking for Dad,” Blair said. “She wants to talk to him about the night that Angelica died. She thinks she knows who killed her.” Blair’s eyes were bright now, sparking like pennies in the sun.
“The whole time she’s been up here, all these months, she’s been driving around searching for the guy she saw with Angelica that night.
She didn’t like the way he was acting with her.
Molly never got his name, but he was wearing a shirt with the logo of some construction company.
Molly thinks the guy’s a friend of Mikko’s. ”
Christ, thought Mac. A whole team of investigators working the homicide, an army of officers searching for a key witness, and it might be eighteen-year-old Blair who cracks the case.
“All right,” she said. Mac was buzzing, every nerve electrified.
“That’s good to know. You did good, Blair, really good. ”
Blair wasn’t smiling. “If Molly knows who killed her friend, and he’s around here somewhere, that puts her in danger, right? We need to protect her, don’t we?”
The kid wasn’t wrong. “The most important thing is to bring her in safely,” Mac agreed.
“We’ll do our very best. Listen, I want you to call your mom and dad.
Alana, too. Find out where they are, and get home.
Lock your doors, and don’t leave.” Mac needed to know the family was safe too.
After what happened to Nicole, she wasn’t taking any chances.
Mac followed Blair back to the town of Theresa in her car before turning off toward the barracks. On the way, she called Shana to fill her in.
“Sounds like she got a full account,” Mac said. “She’ll make a statement too.”
“Wow,” Shana replied with reverence. “Well done, Blair.”
“Right? The kid has skills.”
“This man Molly Kranz was talking about,” said Shana. “We think we may know who it is.”
According to Terry Martino’s secretary, he was on his way to the site of an upcoming commercial project.
“I can be there in thirty minutes,” said Mac. “See you soon.”