11. Holt #2
Willa was still for a moment.
“Is he on it?” Willa asked quietly. “Shaun?”
“Yes,” June confirmed.
“Then I have to watch it.” Willa’s voice was steady. “I have to.”
June reached across and took her daughter’s hand, giving it a small squeeze for support.
“Sweetheart.” June’s voice dropped. “Shaun didn’t die the way we were told he did.”
Willa’s eyes filled slowly.
“How then?” she managed.
“I think you need to watch,” June told her gently.
Holt shifted slightly closer to Willa on the sofa.
June clicked the first file.
They watched Gilbert’s early interviews first. The background context, as Gilbert explained, was that he was in Sandpiper Shores to investigate three prominent residents who had lived quietly in that town for decades while being among the most notorious thieves in the country.
The evidence Gilbert had compiled was mind-boggling for a journalist. He was really good.
Holt drew in a long, slow breath as the case he’d been trying to force together for weeks finally locked cleanly into place in front of him, piece by piece.
They watched Gilbert’s interview with Victoria.
Holt noticed how different Victoria looked on screen.
Warmer. More alive. More herself than the woman he’d been sitting across from in boardrooms and police stations, and he felt a familiar professional frustration at how thoroughly he’d been misled about her.
Not just by circumstances. By her own deliberate performance as a woman she was not.
They watched Cynthia’s final video with Alvin, in which she asked him who had picked up her crystal-bejeweled slippers for cleaning.
“The fire chief,” Alvin said to the camera. “It was the fire chief. He and his Cinderella. The two of them. They were the postmen who had come to take the shoes for cleaning.”
Holt’s brow furrowed.
He glanced at June. She met his eyes briefly and said nothing.
Then June clicked the last file.
Shaun’s face filled the screen.
Willa’s hand closed around Holt’s forearm without her appearing to know she’d done it.
He felt the grip tighten as her husband’s voice came through the laptop’s speakers, quieter than Holt imagined he’d been in life, his forehead damp with sweat, his hand trembling slightly as he reached to adjust the camera.
“June. If you’re watching this, then what we feared is true...”
Willa made a small, broken sound beside him.
Holt moved his hand and covered hers where she gripped his arm. Willa didn’t pull away.
They sat through the rest of the video together.
Shaun telling June about the poisoning. Shaun telling her there were two people involved, close to all of them.
Shaun telling her to get the evidence to the authorities if the worst happened.
Shaun asking her to look after his family. Shaun’s final “I love you, Mom.”
The screen went black.
Willa’s face was wet. She didn’t wipe it.
“I need a moment,” Willa said quietly. She stood up carefully. “I just need a few minutes.”
“Take your time, sweetheart,” June told her softly.
Willa walked out of the living room and down the hall toward her old bedroom. The door closed behind her with a quiet, deliberate click.
Holt and June sat in the quiet.
June was the one who broke it.
“I know who the fire chief and Cinderella are,” June said simply.
Holt turned to look at her.
“You know who they are?” Holt’s brows rose.
“Yes.” June nodded.
“How?” Holt asked, keeping his voice level. “How do you know? Are there more videos that you took off the disk?”
June held his eyes steadily. “I can prove who they are,” she told him, moving around directly answering his question.
Holt stared at her. “June.” He pressed the bridge of his nose between two fingers and breathed. “You know what that is. You know exactly what that is. You cannot withhold evidence in a federal investigation. As an attorney, you know that more than most.”
“I can withhold it until you make a deal with me,” June replied calmly.
“June—” Holt warned.
“A deal to protect Victoria and Alfred,” June continued, her voice entirely steady. “And also to protect Lucy and Nigel.”
Holt went very still.
“Why?” His voice had dropped to a different register now. “What does Lucy or Nigel have to do with this? What have they done?”
June met his eyes without flinching. “Lucy was told not to complete the autopsy on the bodies from the cabin,” June told him.
“She got an order from a fire chief named Brandon. The morgue arrived to close her examination. When she dared to question it, she was threatened directly. She was told to remove the findings she’d already recorded. ”
“That’s evidence tampering,” Holt said. “That’s a felony, June. Falsifying a coroner’s report?—”
“I know what it is,” June cut in. “They showed her exactly how they could get to Margo. To Willa. To the children. Then they went after Nigel the same way. They threatened his father. They set fire to the new wing of the clinic where Alvin was in the room closest to the work site. Not a big fire. Just enough to show them what was possible. To make sure both Lucy and Nigel did exactly what they were told.”
Holt exhaled slowly. He looked at the laptop’s blackened screen, then back at June.
“So the nickname Alvin called the one postman wasn’t just a nickname. The man was a firefighter?” Holt asked. “Someone with enough knowledge to control fires at that level. And the nickname Cinderella of the other postman must imply the second person is a woman.”
“Yes,” June confirmed. “Nigel was told to close the case. Lucy was told to put in her report that the accelerant was only found on Gilbert’s shoes.”
“What had Lucy actually found?” Holt asked.
“Accelerant on all five bodies,” June told him. “All five of them were doused with it. Whoever did it was making sure those bodies burned.” She sucked in a breath. “And Lucy said that they had all been laid out in a row in the living room of that cabin.”
Holt’s jaw tightened.
“I always wondered why four firefighters didn’t try to overpower Gilbert,” Holt said slowly. “If they thought he was a threat, they should have been able to handle him easily. None of them even tried to get out.” He rubbed his chin. “That was another big problem I had with this case.”
“That crossed my mind, too,” June admitted.
“Does Lucy think they were already dead by the time they were put in the cabin?” Holt’s eyes met June’s.
“We’re not entirely sure yet,” June replied.
“The call that came in was a report of a fire at the cabin. We know they were alive when they went to the fire.” She glanced at the door, her eyes filled with worry, and then back to him.
“We know that the official story is that the four firefighters went in to help Gilbert because he’d already set light to the cabin.
Then, when they got there, he locked them in and torched the rest of the cabin.
” She swallowed again as pain flashed in her eyes.
“That was the last call that came through.”
“They could have been unconscious from the poison by that point,” Holt said. “The perpetrators could have simply waited for the poison to take full effect and then set the fire to cover the cause of death.”
“Or they were given what they believed was the antidote at the meeting to hand over the evidence,” June said, her voice dropping. “And it was something that killed them sooner.”
Holt closed his eyes briefly and nodded.
“I’ll see what I can do for Lucy, for Nigel, for Victoria, and for Alfred,” Holt told her.
“I can’t promise everything. But I’ll do everything I can.
Lucy and Nigel acted under genuine duress.
That’s a defense. Victoria and Alfred are already fugitives, but if the evidence clears them, we can work that piece.
” He held her eyes. “But I need to know who they are, June. I need those names, and I need them now.”
June was silent for a beat.
Then she opened her mouth.
“I can help you with that.” The soft female voice came from the living room doorway.
Holt’s head turned sharply toward the sound.
A woman was standing in the doorway.
She was a woman they knew. A woman Holt had sat across from. A woman who had been at the memorial. A woman who had been welcomed into every space they’d occupied in Sandpiper Shores, and someone from one of the most prominent families in Sandpiper Shores.
Right now, she was holding a gun, and it was pointed directly at June.
Holt’s hand moved instinctively toward his weapon.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Director.” The male voice came from behind him.
From the direction of the kitchen.
Holt turned carefully toward the second voice, his hand stilling before it reached his holster. His eyes landed on the man standing in the archway between the kitchen and the living room, and every piece of the case he’d been building locked cleanly and terribly into place.
He was a man Holt knew and was good friends with his father. A man who shouldn’t be standing here in front of them right now, either. He was a man who, according to every official record in the state of Florida, had been dead for ten years.
“Get up, both of you,” the woman demanded.
June had gone entirely white beside him. She rose slowly to her feet, her hands lifting carefully to where they could be clearly seen, and stepped so that she was standing at Holt’s side when he too rose.
“I take it,” Holt said quietly to her, “these are the fire chief and Cinderella?”
“Yes,” June confirmed softly.
Holt’s head turned slightly to the doorway, and fear coursed through him because Willa was still in the house.