Chapter 20 Holt #2
Then he turned to June, knowing she would not like what he was about to say. “It’s time to get Chief Morrison and his family into individual interrogation rooms.”
“Holt,” Mina said sharply. “What are you saying?”
“Mother, there were only so many people at our house that day,” Holt said.
“Then there’s the evidence. That doesn’t just go missing without anyone seeing anything.
” He swallowed. “I can’t ignore where this is leading, Mother.
Do you think I like it? Tom is not only a friend but a fellow law enforcer. ”
“What day?” Margo asked before anyone else could. “What do you mean there were only so many people in your house that day?”
“The day the bracelet you found at Teacups was stolen,” Rad said, then added, “along with the rest of the set, from my late aunt’s bedroom.”
Every head turned toward him, and Holt looked at his son warningly. “Rad…”
“No, Dad,” Rad said, shaking his head. “You said it yourself. Secrets are what get people hurt, and if we’re laying all our cards out on the table, it has to be all the cards, no matter what.”
“What are you talking about?” Margo and Willa asked in unison.
Holt explained then about the necklace, the set, the FBI operation, the fake jewels used as bait, and the suspected cat burglar. When he was finished he turned to look at his son. “Rad?” He raised his eyebrows. “No more secrets, remember?”
Rad nodded and then broke his promise to Sienna as he told them about the break-in, the safe, and how Sienna had sworn him to secrecy because she’d been looking after the safe and its contents for years.
“Wait! The thief took an entire safe?” Margo asked in disbelief.
“It appears that way, yes,” Rad confirmed.
“Sienna’s safe was stolen?” Harvey’s eyes widened. “She never said a word to me.”
“She wouldn’t,” Rad told him. “She’s too scared that her parents would find out. One would be mad that she’d lost their hidden fortune, the other that there was a hidden fortune.”
“Which was which?” Ace asked.
“According to Sienna, she was hiding the safe for her father,” Rad said, then clarified. “For Chief Morrison.”
“Holt.” Mina’s face sharpened with alarm. “You are not accusing Tom of being the thief here, are you?”
“Everything is pointing that way,” Holt said. “Sienna was keeping the safe hidden from her mother, and she was keeping it for her father. At least that’s what she told Rad.”
“You know you can’t trust Sienna,” Mina said at once. “That young lady has been lying since she could talk.”
“Mother,” Holt warned. “She’s had a hard time because of Victoria.”
“Yes,” Harvey spoke up unexpectedly. “Her mother is really hard on her.”
Mina turned to him. “Oh, Harvey, you sweet little smitten fool. Penny is single and far more worthy of a good, honest, hardworking man like you.” She shook her head.
“That viper of a Sienna is just using you and you, Ace.” Her eyes turned to Ace before returning to Holt.
“I’m telling you, you can’t trust a word out of that young woman's mouth.”
Harvey went red so fast that Holt almost felt sorry for him.
“No, you’re wrong,” Harvey muttered, ignoring the Penny part entirely. “Victoria is a total cow to her daughter.”
Before Mina could respond, Holt cut in. “Can we get back to the situation?” His voice wasn't loud, but the impatience in it was impossible to miss.
“Sorry,” five voices, excluding his mother, Holt noticed, mumbled in various degrees of sincerity.
“So none of you knows exactly which last conversation triggered the incidents?” Holt said. “These things started after you spoke to the people you just listed?”
“Yes,” the four of them said together.
“I can knock most of those people off your suspect list,” Mina insisted. “Including Tom.”
“Please, Mother.” This time Holt’s voice snapped with a strain he had almost never directed at his mother.
But Holt was feeling the kind of frustration with this case that he’d only ever felt once before.
When he was investigating his father’s case.
And Holt was hanging at the end of his tether.
“We didn't bring you here to run the case. We’ll get to your part in this in a bit.” Then Holt looked back at Rad. “Which was the first incident?”
Margo raised her hand slightly. “I believe it was the windows of my cottage being broken.”
“Then my tires were slashed,” Willa said.
“Then my plane was tampered with,” Ace added.
Both June and Holt turned toward him.
“What?” they said together.
Ace shrugged. “It wasn’t anything serious. Somebody cut one of the ropes mooring it to the dock.”
Willa stared at him. “You never told me that.”
“It wasn’t important,” Ace said. “I handled it.”
“Still, we promised to tell each other if something happened,” Willa said, anger creeping into her voice.
“You know now,” Ace replied.
Then he turned toward Holt. “But Rad had it worst at the start. The target on him got physical faster. Filing cabinets nearly crushed him. Then he got locked in a room. Then that shelving collapsed, only it hit Chief Morrison instead.”
“What happened before it escalated into fires?” June asked.
“I went to check the burnt-out cabin,” Willa said. “That was the same day you arrived, Mom.”
“And then a few days later, you arrived, Dad,” Rad added, looking at Holt. “Between those days, Willa and Margo got threatening notes.”
Mina sat back and looked from one face to another before her gaze settled on Holt.
“This is only a hunch,” she said, “but maybe Margo was right after all in her assumption that an FBI agent and an attorney with reputations that precede them arriving in town, both connected to the people reopening an old case, was the spark that finally lit the fuse.”
The room went still after that.
Because whether any of them wanted to admit it or not, that theory made a terrible kind of sense.
And Holt had the distinct feeling that from here on out, nothing about this investigation was going to stay contained.
Those things were only going to get worse.
Especially now that one of the most prominent families in Sandpiper Shores, besides his, was about to be hauled in by Holt and interrogated.
Truths were going to come out, and knowing the likes of Victoria and her daughter, things were going to get a lot uglier around town.
“You know, Holt,” his mother caught his attention, “you’re all so focused on the Morrisons, you seem to be overlooking another family entirely. A family tied to what I believe Shaun and his team were originally investigating.”
Holt’s brows shot up as he stared at his mother. “The Frosts.”
“I’d be more likely to point a finger at Alvin Frost,” Mina pointed out.
“After all, he was in the house back when the jewels were stolen, and he was best friends with Victoria’s late older brother, always running 'errands' for her lowlife father…” She leaned back with hooded eyes and the slightest of smug smiles on her face as she landed her final blow. “Then there’s the long-standing affair between Alvin and Victoria, and let’s not forget the Frosts used to live right next door to the Morrisons before Alvin quickly sold up everything to leave town a few weeks after the tragic fire. ”
Holt looked at his mother, wide-eyed, and couldn’t help the slight lift of gloom or the tinge of joy that surged through him that they had another suspect to consider besides Tom.