“No, he was awake then. I was with him. We were having lunch.”
“What did you have for lunch?”
“How do I know. Tuna fish sandwiches, I guess.”
“Can anyone else verify you were with him then? Dover, maybe?”
Phyllis’s eyes widened, then she frowned at Tori. “He’s in jail. What a stupid thing to say.”
“Right. He’s in jail, but wouldn’t he know you’re with this Victor character now? Maybe you mentioned it to Dover?”
Phyllis chewed on her bottom lip. “He wouldn’t know what I’m doing on a daily basis unless I told him. And why would I tell him I made tuna fish sandwiches for Victor and me?”
“Would he care?”
Phyllis glowered at her, her arms folded across her waist, her chin tilted up, her look superior.
Adam took that as a yes. But he knew she wasn’t having lunch with Victor when Sierra’s car was stolen and the girl kidnapped. Now they knew she was seeing Victor for sure and Dover didn’t know about it. Adam was thinking Kinney might drop that little bombshell on Dover when he went to speak to him and hopefully get him to confess on tape to some of the crimes he had done.
Tori brought out some photos of video surveillance in the area. “You were seen driving here and then here. Then you drove out into the country to get rid of the stolen car. But there’s a car following you too. That car is registered to…Victor Freemont. Your new boyfriend. I wonder what Dover will think of you stealing boats and selling them and having a new boyfriend.”
Phyllis looked panicked, her arms tightening against her waist, her hands clenched into fists.
Then Tori pulled out a plastic bagged wig from an evidence box. “From Victor’s grandmother’s house.”
Phyllis’s eyes widened. Adam figured she was immediately thinking about all the stuff they had at the house that could be used as evidence. If it had been him, he would have certainly been considering that.
“This is the wig you wore to Ms. Redding’s house, and hair fibers in her car and in her house place you in both the vehicle and her house. Your hair fibers were also inside the wig. Even the kidnapped victim had a couple of the wig’s hairs on her,” Tori said.
Phyllis chewed on her lip. “Kinney told you about Victor’s grandmother’s house, didn’t he?”
Adam shook his head. “It’s a matter of public record.”
Phyllis let out her breath and pulled her hair back off her shoulders, then released it, narrowing her eyes at Adam. “Dover will kill me if he knows I’ve been with Victor since he was incarcerated.”
“You don’t think he already knows?” Adam asked.
Her eyes grew big again.
“Maybe that’s why Dover sent you on the mission to steal Ms. Redding’s car, kidnap a girl, and break into Ms. Redding’s house. You’ve never done anything like that before, right? And he knew you would get caught. And when you didn’t get caught soon enough, he had Victor pay some teens to slash Ms. Redding’s tires. Who would get hurt by this if you got caught? Whose idea was it to kill Ms. Redding’s dog for revenge when she doesn’t even own one?” Adam asked.
Phyllis started to say, “She has one and she lied—”
“It’s Dover’s payback for a perceived wrong. I get it. But who is going to pay the price? Dover? You? For his vendetta? And you’re with Victor now, so why should you care about some revenge issues Dover has? Ms. Redding did you a favor when she helped put Dover away so you could be with Victor, right? And this is a great way for Dover to kill two birds with one stone. He told you that you and Victor had to do the job and make sure Burt had the gun and threatened the kidnapped victim with it, correct? That way, it sounded like he was setting up Burt.
“But in truth, he was setting up the lot of you. How hard do you think it would be for Dover to figure out that you and Victor have been together since the time Dover was incarcerated?” Wise up, Adam wanted to say to her.
Phyllis shifted in her chair.
“Not once have you visited Dover in prison. No visits to the jail before he was tried. No letters or postcards, care packages sent to him, nothing. You don’t think he would get suspicious? Especially since Burt Barnes is the only one bothering to visit him. You don’t think Dover would ask him what was up with you? Do you think Burt would be loyal to you or to Dover?” Adam asked.
Her eyes narrowed.
He raised his brows. “Then we have the sale of the stolen boat to a Mr. Rivers.”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
He folded his arms. “You were driving the other boat while your cohorts took possession of the boat you tried to sell. Then we have the case of you and your cohorts trying to kill Kinney, one of your fellow associates in crime, since he was trying to go legit.”
Her jaw dropped, then she gathered her composure. “There is no way I can be implicated in that.”
Adam just smiled at her.
“I didn’t have anything to do with Ollie trying to kill Kinney,” Phyllis added.
“You were in the car following Kinney. Victor was driving,” Adam said.
She didn’t say anything to that. Then she let out her breath. “I want a lawyer.”
“Sure thing,” Adam said. “You’re going to need one.” He wondered then if she had been the other passenger in the car that Kinney didn’t identify.
Adam and Tori left the interrogation room, and one of the officers took Phyllis to jail.
“How did it go?” Sierra asked.
“Great. But let me tell you, once Adam is on a roll, there’s no stopping him,” Tori said.
Adam felt his face warm a bit. “Sorry, Tori. I meant to let you deal with her the whole time.”
Tori laughed. “I don’t have an ego. Any way we can get anything out of them works for me. She knows we have her over a barrel. You were brilliant in coming up with the idea that Dover already knew about her affair with Victor. I didn’t even consider that she hadn’t been visiting him in jail. She’ll be thinking it over as far as the business with Dover setting her and the others up. Hmm, he might even be pissed he was in jail and they all got off without spending any time there.”
“That’s certainly a possibility. Here he’s the one who’s in charge and he got caught.”
Sierra smiled. “All because of me.”
Chapter 28
After they were finished with work, Adam and Sierra said good night to Tori and then headed out to their own vehicles. “You know, when I mated you, I never dreamed how much better everything would be. Not just with being mated to you but enjoying my time off. It didn’t bother me about having to go into work before. Now I want to spend the time with you instead. You make it really worthwhile.”