Chapter Five Ava Angelhart
Chapter Five
Ava Angelhart
After Margo left, Ava poured a second glass of wine. She took a sip then immediately put it down and stared out into the backyard
without seeing anything. Uncertain, lost. She needed to talk to someone, figure out what she was going to do.
She reached into her purse and pulled out her cell phone, ready to call her sister Rita . . . but stopped. She couldn’t talk
to Rita about this, not over the phone. She would come over and ask questions Ava wasn’t yet ready to answer.
Questions Ava couldn’t answer.
Rita had never asked for details. She’d just negotiated the best plea deal for Cooper possible. They were lucky to get fifteen
years.
Fifteen years for a murder he hadn’t committed. But Rita said she didn’t want to know, that she loved and trusted Ava and
Cooper and that was that.
Rafe likely knew, because Cooper must have told him in the sanctity of the confessional.
Ava didn’t know the whole truth, because Cooper only told her about the threats.
Threats against their family.
Ava had been so angry with Margo—angry and terrified—when Margo insisted on investigating Devin’s murder. She feared for her daughter’s life. Margo was tenacious and
driven, much like Ava had been when she was a young prosecutor.
But nothing was black-and-white, not when human beings were involved.
So Margo went out on her own. Ava knew she hadn’t gotten very far in her investigation, partly because Ava quietly thwarted
her. Margo also had to work and would never have asked for financial help.
And for three years, Ava thought Margo had finally put it aside. Ava had hated that they were estranged, but she would rather
be estranged from her daughter than mourning her daughter.
Until Margo found Georgia Rollins in Tucson. Georgia didn’t know what happened any more than Ava did, but Georgia had worked for Devin, and Margo was good at ferreting out information. Ava had deliberately not asked questions because she didn’t
want the answers; if she knew who killed Devin she didn’t know if she could live with herself for remaining silent.
Georgia had assured Ava that she’d sent Margo on a wild-goose chase. That Margo’s questions had been focused on people who
had a grudge against Devin, people who might have a motive to kill him.
Then Georgia asked, “Don’t you want to know the truth? Because there were some really unusual things going on at the VA those
last few months, and Dr. Klein was preoccupied.”
“No,” Ava had told her firmly. “Don’t ask questions. Do you want a target on your back as well?”
Ava had succeeded in scaring her. But why had Georgia talked to Liz Swanson? What did she tell her? Why give the nurse Margo’s
name? To spite Ava? Did she know something she hadn’t shared?
Ava called Georgia.
She didn’t answer.
Dammit!
Even though it was after hours, Ava called the research hospital in San Diego where Georgia worked in the lab. The young woman
was single and dedicated to her job and likely still there. It took ten minutes, but Ava finally got through to her office.
“This is Georgia Smith.”
“Ava Angelhart.”
Silence.
She continued. “Did you talk to a nurse named Liz Swanson, who worked with Cooper? Did you tell her if she saw anything odd
at the VA that she should call Margo?”
“What do you want from me?” she said, her voice tight and nervous.
“The truth.”
“So what if I did?”
“She’s dead.”
Silence.
“Georgia, did you talk to anyone other than Liz? What did you say?”
Instead of answering her question, Georgia said, “What happened?”
“I don’t know. We had an arrangement!”
“I quit the best job I ever had and changed my name for you.”
“For Cooper. You did it for Cooper, and I paid you very well.”
“Ava, I’m sorry, I don’t know what happened, but it sucks that Dr. Angelhart went to prison. He wouldn’t hurt a fly, we both
know that.”
“You know why!”
“The police could have put you all in protective custody while they figured it out.”
“Us, our five adult children, our grandson? My parents? My brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews?” Ava knew she sounded shrill and tried to temper her rising panic.
“Why are you calling me now?” Georgia said, her voice weary.
“Because Liz talked to Margo last night, and now Liz is dead. Margo’s not backing down. So help me God, I might need your
help.”
“I told you in February that I wasn’t moving again. I’m done.”
“I mean—” Ava took a deep breath “—to tell Margo what you told me.”
“You tell her,” Georgia snapped. “This whole situation is fucked, Ava.”
She bristled, but said, “She might have questions I can’t answer.”
“I’m not doing it. I wanted to find the truth three and a half years ago, but you made it clear that if we asked questions
I would be risking my life and yours. I went along with it, but it’s never sat right with me. And it’s your husband in prison.”
Ava was desperate. She felt so guilty for what she’d done and said to Georgia, how she pressured her to change her name and
leave the state. But Ava had been terrified that she was going to lose her daughter.
“I was hoping the threat was gone,” she said, “but someone killed Liz Swanson this morning.”
“Good luck. I did what you wanted, I’m out of it.”
“Georgia!”
But she’d already hung up.
Ava stopped herself from throwing the phone across the room. Instead, she called her brother Rafe.
“Raphael, can you come over after Mass?”
“I don’t have Mass this evening. What’s wrong, Ava?”
“Everything. I don’t know what to do. I am so lost right now.”
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
Rafe warmed up leftover stew while Ava told him what Margo had learned. “While I waited for you, I called a friend of mine
in the county attorney’s office. Liz Swanson and her husband were killed in their vehicle as they backed out of the garage.
No suspects, no witnesses, police are stumped. The husband is a lawyer and they’re looking at his clients, but he’s a tax
attorney for a bank, not a trial lawyer. They were killed because of something Liz learned at the VA. She talked to Margo.
Margo is in danger.”
“Ava,” Rafe said calmly, “Margo is a smart young woman, but she needs all the information so she can protect herself.”
“I don’t know what to tell her! I don’t know who killed Devin. I don’t even know where to start looking! And if I start looking,
Cooper is dead.” Her voice cracked. “I’ve never felt this . . . broken. Even when Cooper told me about the threats, I had
a plan. But now . . . what do I do? How can I protect my family?”
“Breathe, Ava. Breathe.”
She sat down but didn’t touch the food he placed in front of her.
He sat next to her, took her hand. “Did Margo leave angry? Did she tell you what she plans to do?”
“We’re talking to Cooper in the morning. She’s not going to back down this time, and I tried. Maybe I tried half-heartedly.
I know my daughter. She won’t leave it alone now that someone who reached out to her is dead. Liz had two boys. Why would
they kill her? Because of something she saw . . . or because she called Margo?”
“How would anyone know she called Margo?”
She tossed her hands into the air. “How do they know anything?”
“Ava, listen to yourself. These people are not omniscient. They are not God.”
She took a deep breath. “You’re right. Margo was supposed to meet her this morning. I’m scared they know, that they’ll go
after my daughter.”
“You and Margo need to encourage Cooper to share everything he knows.”
She looked at her brother. “We’re all in danger.”
“I understand your fear. But it’s the right thing to do.”
“I’m going to suggest that Mom and Dad go to the cabin, maybe you should join them. Take Austin.”
“We can discuss that.” He said it in a way that told Ava he had no intention of leaving town.
“When Jack knows the truth, he’ll want Austin safe.”
“You knew it was only a matter of time before Margo found a bone and started chomping on it again.”
“It was Georgia. She told Liz to call Margo because she was angry at me for asking her to leave.”
“I don’t think you asked her, Ava. You bribed her. And, if I remember correctly, you helped her change her name so Margo couldn’t
easily find her.”
She nodded. It had not been her finest hour.
“Rafe, I’m scared.”
Her brother squeezed her hand. “The truth was always the answer, Ava. I know it’s difficult for you and Cooper. It hurts me
that you both have suffered so much and refused to let anyone help.”
She closed her eyes. Her life was falling apart around her. It had been falling apart in slow motion since the day Cooper
told her he planned to go to the police and confess to killing Devin.
“You know it’s not that simple,” she whispered.
“Do not fear.”
How could he be so calm?
Ava rubbed her forehead, the low-grade ache that started during her fight with Margo growing into a throbbing pain. She had
a thirty-five-year career as a lawyer. She had been a prosecutor and faced men and women who committed heinous crimes, and
she fearlessly put them behind bars. She was the county attorney who oversaw the entire justice system in Maricopa County
for six years. And she had been a private practice lawyer, helping those the system couldn’t or didn’t help. She had stood
strong. Always. For everyone. For justice.
And she couldn’t stand for her husband? Her family? She had felt helpless when Cooper confessed, but worse now. Losing her
family would destroy her.
“Come with us tomorrow?” she asked Rafe hopefully.
“You don’t need me.”
“I do,” she pleaded.
Rafe was eighteen years her junior. She left for college the month before he was born. She was the oldest of seven kids, Rafe
the youngest. Yet right now, she didn’t feel old or wise or brave. She was looking to her little brother for answers, for
hope, for a guarantee that come tomorrow, her life as she knew it would not end. That her children would survive and still
love her.
“Do you want me there for support or to be a buffer with Margo?”
She frowned. “Both?”
He smiled, patted her hand, stood. “You, Cooper, and Margo need to talk. Not me. But after, I’ll be here for you.”
“Can she forgive us?”
“I’ve found that God is more forgiving than people, but Margo loves you and Cooper very much. I will remind her of that if
she needs a reminder.”