Cold Case Theresa
Cold Case
Theresa
It’s very late when Detective Theresa Lee gets back to Malogen.
She sits at her desk with an “Oomph.” She’s hit that age when everything aches, but nothing’s actually wrong outside of too many sleepless nights, too much caffeine, and years of midnight crime scenes.
It’s all finally catching up to her. She has her twenty; she should put in her notice and move along to quieter pastures.
But in truth, she still likes the work. The department is small—just her, the captain, a receptionist, and two young officers who are out on patrol in shifts.
The area’s crime is more prone to drugs and domestics, and honestly, she’d be bored to tears without at least some intrigue to keep her going.
What’s she supposed to do, read books and take walks?
Garden? Bird-watch? Crime is in her blood—she’s a third-generation cop—and she doesn’t have anything else.
She’s dedicated herself to the job. To the community.
To Malogen. And let’s be honest, to the case that was never truly solved.
Chloe Barrow Locke.
Murdered on Christmas Eve. Twenty-four years old, married for two years, newly pregnant, stabbed to death while wrapping presents. A pregnancy test was found in a box on the table, already beribboned, a poignant twist. She wasn’t even showing yet.
Her husband did it. Of course he did. It’s always the husband.
Andrew Edward Locke III, son of Lucy and Andrew Locke Jr., absolute child hellion turned football quarterback turned Air Force pilot, who married Chloe right out of school.
He worshipped her, by all accounts. A good woman’s love had straightened him out.
Oh, he wasn’t that bad, the usual outrageously-popular-teenage-boy-in-a-small-town crap, and he was getting his act together when they started dating.
He was sixteen; she was fourteen. They’d known each other their whole lives—the town was small, remember—but didn’t start dating until high school.
A sweet fairy tale, an adorable couple finding true love. Until it wasn’t.
Everyone knew he killed her, but his alibi checked out, so eventually, after months of failed attempts to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he murdered his wife, they had to let him go. And the moment they did, he ran. Disappeared. Split into the ether. And no one has seen him since.
Until now.
Only guilty men run; that’s what she’s always been taught. Andrew has been gone for ten years. And he has a whole new family that he’s just abandoned. Eden’s right: This is Andrew’s MO.
Eden had Brooklyn’s phone, which was still on the coffee table when she ran outside. Theresa was able to call the sister, Margot, who, it turned out, was already driving through the night to Atlanta, not trusting her family with the stranger whom they’d met at an airport.
Good call.
Theresa wouldn’t trust her life with Eden Barrow, either.
If she hadn’t witnessed the whole accident and the moments leading to it, she would have looked askance at the woman.
It’s bad enough that Andrew Locke appeared out of nowhere after all this time, then disappeared, abandoning his wife and children.
But Eden ends up with Andrew’s new wife and kids in her house?
Of all the people in the world to be in the middle of the maelstrom . . .
Theresa has been a cop long enough not to believe in coincidences. They happen sometimes, but this one strains credulity. Oh, it’s entirely possible that Eden just got lucky. But something doesn’t feel right.
What she does buy is that seeing Eden drove Andrew to run.
The minute she spoke to him on the plane, he must have realized his life was about to implode.
He’d been lying to Brooklyn the whole time he’d known her.
Or maybe he was worried new evidence had come to the fore that would tie him to the murder at last and took advantage to get a head start.
There was more that Brooklyn hadn’t told them. Theresa could tell when she mentioned the credit cards that she was holding something back.
Everything about this stinks to high heaven. What a damn mess.
Theresa’s phone dings with a text from her good friend at the FBI. Call me.
She dials the number she’s known by heart for a decade. A deep male voice greets her. “T-Lee. What up?”
She laughs with her whole body. “Drake. I haven’t heard that name in a while. It’s been too long.”
“Four months at least. You know, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you forsook me when I moved to Quantico.”
“I forsook you? Ha. You’ve been too busy making headlines. Caught that creeper in Idaho.”
“You know how it is. Just doing the job. Always a new creep to hunt. Speaking of . . .”
“It’s him, isn’t it? Andrew Locke?”
“Facial recognition doesn’t lie. It sure is.”
“Incredible. Where’s he been for ten years?”
“Nashville. Working for his wife’s uncle at a firm called the Gussin Group.”
“Wait, Pat and Robert Gussin? The Gussins? The venture capitalists?” Theresa feels a buzz start. “Brooklyn said Andrew was in finance and worked for her uncle, but she didn’t say it was TGG. That changes things.”
“Yeah, this is going to get high profile, real quick. The blowback if it comes out one of their employees is a murderer? I wouldn’t want to be their PR person.”
She laughs. “Me neither.”
“Why do you think he bolted?”
“Two words. Eden Barrow.”
“Oh.” He drags out the word, realization setting in. “He saw the dead wife’s sister. She was at the airport?”
“He was on her flight. Get this, it was a total fluke. A rerouting at the last minute. Eden confronted him, he pretended not to know who she was, and then the first opportunity he had, he took off. Walked right out of the airport and left his new family behind.”
“Harsh. Ten years is a long time to stay off the radar.”
“Keeping his nose clean helps with that,” Theresa says. “If he’s been on the straight and narrow, there’s no reason to be on the radar. It’s always driven me nuts, trying to figure out where he’s been all this time. Working for her uncle makes sense, though he’s definitely keeping a low profile.”
“Hmm. Okay, I’m going to tell you something in strictest confidence. There are some money troubles at TGG. The Gussins came to us a few weeks back, quietly requested an examination of the company’s finances. They think someone’s been stealing from the accounts.”
Theresa’s sense of equilibrium returns. Crimes are committed for several reasons, but almost all boil down to one of three things: love, greed, or revenge. She can take a coincidence, but she knew in her heart there was something deeper going on.
“Did they accuse Andrew?”
“Yeah. When I put Locke’s name in the system, it flagged. I took a look, then talked to a friend in financial crimes.”
“So he’s been stealing from his wife’s uncle? The man who’s kept him sheltered all this time? That’s bold.”
“Unconfirmed as of this moment, it was just a hunch the old guy had. They’re just getting started on the case.”
“Now this is starting to make sense. Maybe it wasn’t just seeing Eden after all these years and being afraid she would tell his new wife about Chloe. Maybe it was the danger of his wife discovering other secrets. She didn’t know about his past. He’s using a different name. The wife calls him Trey.”
She hears clicking, then the ribbed clatter of a mouse wheel scrolling. “So the name Trey Locke doesn’t pop anything connected to Malogen, Georgia, or Chloe Barrow.” He types some more. “Interesting. The name Andrew Locke doesn’t either. Headlines at the time of the murder case, yeah?”
“You were there. So many headlines.”
“Well, looks like your boy may have had some help cleaning up his internet history. A talented friend or a powerful company. Anything can be done for the right price.”
This makes a strange kind of sense—no wonder they haven’t been able to find him.
Theresa leans back in her chair, pops her feet up on the desk. It’s her best thinking position.
“So he has his history wiped, starts a new family in Tennessee, and manages to keep his nose clean for a decade—except he’s maybe embezzling from his job, and thought he was gonna get caught and took off with the family to Europe. Sees Eden on the way, freaks, and bails. That’s a new one for me.”
“It’s more complicated than your average criminal motivation, for sure. You say the wife acted totally shocked when she heard about his first wife?”
“No chance she was acting. She flipped out. Barreled out the door straight into a running SUV. One that conveniently kept going after it clipped her.”
“Hit her on purpose?”
Theresa sucks in a deep breath. “I don’t know. There are too many coincidences for my liking, but that one does seem like a true accident. No one could time her leaving in a rush like she did. It was an organic panic attack.”
“Or they were lying in wait, and when they saw her walk out, they gunned it.”
“I hadn’t considered that it was on purpose. Wow. I need to wrap my head around that.”
“You’re welcome. Anything else you want me to do?”
She twists her pen in her fingers. “Well, let’s hold on to this information for the moment.
The Atlanta police are searching for the SUV, so we can follow up with them.
I don’t know Brooklyn’s status—the accident was pretty dreadful.
Bad head injury. If she makes it, and recovers, obviously, we need to ask about the money.
I’d really like to find Locke, talk to him myself.
He’s somewhere in the area—or he was earlier today. ”
“A lot of cameras around Atlanta, he shouldn’t be too hard to track.” Drake sounds dubious, though, mimicking the feeling that she has. “You sure it wasn’t him in the SUV, taking out the new wife?”
“Aw, man. That’s pretty damn cold, don’t you think?”
“If he killed his first wife, maybe not. Is it worth trying for a warrant?”