Chapter 11 Holt
HOLT
Holt looked at Sienna across his desk for a moment after she’d finished speaking.
She’d said everything she’d come to say.
He could see it in the way she sat. The slight deflation of someone who had been carrying something heavy for a long time and had finally set it down.
But Holt could also see that Sienna looked unsure whether putting it down had been the right or the most dangerous decision she’d ever made.
“Thank you for bringing this in, Sienna,” Holt said. He kept his voice measured and warm. “I know how hard that must have been.”
Sienna looked at her hands. The sweater sleeves were still pulled down over her fingers. “I didn’t know what else to do,” she admitted quietly.
“You did the right thing,” June told her.
Holt leaned forward slightly. “I’m going to need to take a formal statement from you. Everything you’ve told us today, on the record.” He watched her face. “Is that all right?”
Sienna looked up. A flicker of something moved across her face, apprehension maybe, or relief. It was difficult to tell the two apart with her. “Yes,” she said. “That’s fine.”
June stood and pulled open his office door as Holt and Sienna stood as well.
At that moment, Rad walked past on the way to his office.
He’d obviously just come in as he was still in his jacket from the call he’d been on.
Rad stopped when he saw the three of them standing at Holt’s door, his eyes moving between Holt, June, and Sienna with a quick, assessing look.
“Rad,” Holt said. “Good timing. I need you to take Sienna to interview room two and get her formal statement.” He looked at Sienna. “Rad will look after you. He’ll go through everything with you carefully.”
“Of course.” Rad looked back at Holt. “I’ll get set up.”
“Before you go,” Holt said, glancing at Sienna, “can I get you anything? Some water perhaps?”
“Yes, please,” Sienna said. “Water would be good.”
Holt looked toward the open office door where one of the administrative staff, a steady and discreet woman named Paula, was passing in the corridor. He caught her eye, and she stepped into the doorway.
“Paula, could you bring a bottle of water and a glass for Sienna, please?” Holt asked.
Paula nodded and disappeared without a word.
“She won’t be a moment,” Holt told Sienna.
“Thank you,” Sienna said, as Rad gently guided her away.
As they walked up the hallway, Paula walked up with the bottle and glass in her hand. Holt stopped her.
“Paula,” he said quietly, stepping close enough that his voice didn’t carry. “When Sienna is done in the interview room, make sure you keep the water glass and the bottle. Don’t let them go in the trash.”
Paula held his gaze for a fraction of a second, then gave a single, discreet nod.
“Of course,” she said, “I’ll ensure they get put discreetly into evidence bags.”
“Thank you,” Holt said as Paula nodded and walked toward the interview room.
Holt closed the office door, but as he walked back to his desk, it felt like something wasn’t sitting right. He couldn’t put a clean name to it yet. Holt should be happy that they may have just blown open their case
He turned back into his office and closed the door.
June was still in her chair with her notepad on her knee, her pen moving in the quiet, unhurried way it moved when she was writing things down, not because she needed to but because the act of writing helped her think. She looked up when Holt closed the door.
She was already watching him with the expression that told him she’d been sitting with the same feeling.
Holt crossed to his desk and sat down. He looked at the photographs of the boards spread across the surface in front of him, the neat columns and color-coded threads and carefully documented incidents that had been building toward something for weeks without quite arriving.
“Do you trust her?” June asked.
Holt looked at the photographs for a moment before answering. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “Something doesn’t feel right.”
“I know,” June said. She set the pen down on the notepad. “My question stands. If the safe belonged to Victoria and Sienna was keeping it for her, why would Victoria steal it back? Why not simply ask Sienna for it? Sienna was clearly protecting her.”
“That’s the part that won’t settle,” Holt agreed. He leaned back in his chair. “And the letter.”
June’s brows lifted slightly.
“A page is missing,” Holt said. “Right in the middle of the most important part.” He looked at June steadily. “That’s a convenient place for a page to go missing.”
“Very convenient,” June agreed.
“Sienna said her mother must have intercepted the letter when it arrived and hidden it,” Holt continued.
“But the letter arrived a month after her grandfather died. Sienna was twenty-something years old at that point, living in the pool house, receiving her own mail.” He shook his head.
“Victoria intercepting a special delivery letter addressed to her adult daughter without Sienna ever knowing about it for all this time?” He picked up his pen and turned it over in his fingers. “That’s a stretch.”
“It is,” June agreed with him, adding, “but not impossible. It could’ve happened.”
They looked at each other across the desk.
“I just keep hearing my mother’s voice in my head the day we all sat around the conference table at the Sandpiper Inn.” Holt blew out a breath.
“I know,” June said again, in exactly the same tone as before. “Your mother was adamant that we can’t trust Sienna.”
“Which either means Sienna is genuinely frightened and finally telling the truth,” Holt said.
“Or she’s giving us exactly what she wants us to have,” June finished.
The office held the silence for a moment.
Holt reached for his phone. They could sit here all afternoon turning it over and arriving at the same place, or they could move. Right now, moving was what the situation required.
“We need to find Victoria,” Holt said. “And the Frosts.” He pulled up Tom’s number. “And it’s time to bring Tom in for questioning, no more waiting.”
“Do you want me to do anything while you call him?” June asked.
“Yes,” Holt told her. “I need you to take me to the Morrison residence after I’ve spoken to Tom. We’ll ask him to meet us there.”
June nodded and gathered her notepad and pen into her bag without another word.
Holt dialed.
Two hours later, Holt pulled up outside the Morrison mansion with June in the passenger seat beside him.
Tom’s car was already in the driveway, which meant he’d driven straight from Gainesville the moment Holt had called him.
That tracked. Whatever Tom Morrison’s failings were, indifference to his family was not among them.
Tom was standing on the front steps when they got out of the car.
He looked like a man who had driven two hours with nothing but his own thoughts for company, and the thoughts had not been kind ones.
His tie was loosened, and his jacket was over one arm.
His face carried the particular, tightly controlled worry of someone trying to hold themselves steady while everything in them was tilting.
“Holt,” Tom said as they reached the steps. “What’s the emergency? Where is everyone? I’ve been trying to reach Victoria and Sienna since you called, and neither of them is answering.”
“Sienna is at the station,” Holt told him. “She’s giving a statement.”
Tom stared at him. “A statement about what?”
“Let’s go inside,” Holt said. “We need to talk to you, Tom.”
Tom nodded and led them into the house.
The house had a different quality inside without the usual staff moving through it. It was large, well-furnished, and completely still. The stillness had a quality to it that wasn’t simply absence. It was more like a held breath.
Tom led them through to the front living room and turned to face them. “Can I offer you both something? I’m not sure where Mrs. Clark or Alfred have gotten to, but I can find my way around my own kitchen.”
“I’m fine, thank you,” Holt said.
“Nothing for me either, thank you, Tom,” June replied.
“Sit down,” Holt told him. “Please.”
Tom looked at him sharply but took a seat in an armchair across from the sofa Holt and June sat on.
The worry on his face had deepened into something closer to dread, which was the appropriate response when your oldest friend told you to sit down in your own living room, while your ex-wife and daughter were unreachable.
June settled beside Holt with her notepad open.
“Did you know that Sienna had a safe installed in her pool house?” Holt asked.
Tom blinked. Whatever question he’d been bracing for, that wasn’t it.
“Yes,” he answered Holt’s question without hesitation. “I had it put in for her. Sienna was worried about the jewels and some other valuables that had been left to her grandmothers, and I wanted her to have somewhere secure for them.”
“Which grandmothers?” June asked. “Your side or Victoria’s?”
“Both, actually,” Tom replied. “My mother left her some diamonds. My father left her a few gold and diamond money clips.” He frowned slightly.
“And I believe Victoria’s mother left her a necklace, earrings, and a bracelet set.
A matching heirloom piece.” He glanced between them.
“There were also some bonds or something that Victoria’s father left Sienna. ” He frowned. “Why? What’s this about?”
“Did you know if Victoria ever asked Sienna to keep anything in the safe for her?” Holt asked.
Tom’s brow furrowed a little deeper. “I wouldn’t know,” he admitted honestly. “Victoria and I haven’t exactly been sharing information for the past couple of years. I know Sienna had her own pieces in there. What Victoria may or may not have asked her to keep, I genuinely couldn’t tell you.”
“Did you ever see the pieces Victoria’s mother left Sienna?” June asked.