She watched Christopher Robles enter and exit every camera. He tried to open the sliding back door. Then each window around the house. And, of course, he checked the front door. While Robles was testing her security, Rachel was up in Eric’s room. Oblivious. It was fortunate Robles had not been of sound mind. A smarter man might have done real damage.
Finally, Robles seemed to get frustrated, pulled the gun from his jacket pocket, blasted out the back window, and climbed through. Just as Rachel thought. The break-in had been spur of the moment. Robles had not exactly been a planner.
Then Rachel watched each monitor as Robles wandered through the house, the SIG Sauer clear even on the grainy feed. She turned the volume all the way up. Robles was muttering. And now, for the first time, Rachel could hear what he was saying. Some of it, at least.
“Told Isabelle not to trust him,” Robles said. “Money talks and bullshit walks. He wants her money after he took his wife’s money? Bitch, please. He won’t protect Sis, then I will.”
Rachel listened. She took out a notepad and transcribed Robles’s words.
“I know it’s his. Has to be.”
Rachel paused the videos. What had to be his? Robles had clearly been referring to Nicholas Drummond. He was worried that Drummond would go after Isabelle’s money. Not an unreasonable concern, given his history of draining his wives’ bank accounts.
But what had to be his?
Then, it hit her.
The baby.
Constance Wright had been pregnant when she died. And Robles had thought Nicholas Drummond was the father.
She leaned back in her chair, thinking. Early on, she had pegged Drummond as the number one suspect in Wright’s murder. But surely Serrano and Tally had run Drummond’s DNA against the fetal tissue. And if it had come back a match, they would have had enough probable cause to charge him with Constance’s murder.
Even Robles had thought Drummond was the father. But he’d been wrong. But how had Robles known that Constance was pregnant?
Rachel recalled her conversation with Serrano and Tally at the Drummond house. Serrano had said Constance Wright had called Nicholas Drummond just prior to her murder. It was possible Robles eavesdropped on Nicholas and Isabelle or simply listened to Nicholas’s voice mails. If Constance told Nicholas she was pregnant and going after his money, Christopher may have assumed Nicholas was the father.
Rachel was convinced that Constance was making a play to get restitution for Nicholas’s $1.2 million fraud. That money was rightfully hers. And her baby’s.
Christopher knew something. His death at the hospital was beyond suspicious. Someone wanted him out of the picture. But Nicholas Drummond had neither the stomach nor the smarts to off his brother-in-law in a hospital. Especially since Robles, charged with breaking and entering and attempted murder, would have been heavily guarded by—
Rachel bolted upright.
Cops.
Robles would have been guarded by cops. There was only one way someone could have gotten to him.
Of course. How could she not have seen it?
Serrano.
CHAPTER 38
She cursed herself for being so blind. Serrano said it himself at Voss field: Wright singlehandedly torpedoed his play to make sergeant. Kicked him when he was down. Added insult to injury when Serrano was at the lowest point in his life. And grudges died hard.
It explained why Robles was at the press conference looking terrified. He must have seen Serrano kill Wright at the bridge and then had to watch the man who killed Constance Wright investigate her death.
And the night she shot Robles—Serrano himself said he was heading to the hospital. And the next day Robles wound up dead.
Goddamn it. How could she have missed it?
That speech about his son. The kindness he’d shown toward her children. Her vision had been clouded by her sympathy for Serrano’s loss.
Sometimes behind the kindest eyes lay the darkest hearts.
She remembered the kindly-eyed man who, years ago, had installed the security system in her family’s home. The way he made googly eyes at baby Megan and made her fantasy-obsessed son laugh with his impression of Gollum. My precious. The way he shook her husband’s hand and told him how he took pride in protecting a nice young family from those who might do them harm.
And then that man had ripped their family apart.
And now Serrano was looking to pin Wright’s murder on her. And if he couldn’t do that . . . Rachel knew what he was capable of.
She turned off the lights and monitors in the basement and went upstairs. She took the Mossberg shotgun from the safe and made sure it was loaded. She hadn’t touched it since the night she shot Robles.
Rachel crept downstairs. She took a chair from the kitchen and set it down facing the front door. Then Rachel took a seat, the shotgun on her lap, and prayed she would not have to use it tonight.
Rachel stirred when she heard music playing upstairs. Panic swept through her. She’d fallen asleep. The gun was still on her lap. She couldn’t bring it upstairs; the kids could burst into the hall at any moment to see their mother carrying a loaded shotgun.
She ran into the living room and tucked the gun underneath the sofa cushions.
“Morning, Mom!” Megan sang, bounding down the stairs.
Her hair was a delightful mess. She bounced into the kitchen, hopped onto a stool at the counter, and said, “Eggs, please.”
“Coming right up,” Rachel said. Eric joined them a few minutes later, rubbing his eyes. “Morning, sweetie. Finish your paper?”
“It’s not due until next week.”
“Did you make good progress?” He shrugged. “Right. You’re not a morning person. You know who else wasn’t a morning person?”
Eric shook his head. “Who?”
“Your father.”
Eric’s head snapped up. “Dad?” he said. Rachel never talked about Brad so casually.
“That’s right. Your father hated waking up in the morning. Before you came along, he’d usually wake up for breakfast around lunchtime.”
“That’s silly,” Megan said. “Why would anyone skip breakfast?”
“Beats me,” Rachel said, cracking two eggs into a pan.
Eric was beaming, wistful. “Can you make me some eggs too?”
Rachel smiled back. “Of course, hon.” She cracked two more into the pan.
While the children ate, Rachel kept sneaking looks back to the living room, where a loaded shotgun was hidden just feet from her kids.
How did it come to this? she thought. Hiding loaded weapons from my children?
When they finished, Rachel cleaned the kitchen. John Serrano’s smiling face stuck in her head like a piece of rotten fruit on a clean white plate. Most days, she felt like she never had enough time to spend with her children. This morning, she couldn’t wait for them to leave. And the secrecy made her feel terrible.
Finally, after she had given Megan an extra ten hugs and kisses and patted Eric on the arm (she’d hit her teenage son hug quota early this week), they were off to school. When the house was empty, Rachel ran into the living room, grabbed the Mossberg from under the cushions, and deposited it back in the safe. Then she sat on her bed and tried to regain her composure.
Now, she had to think of a plan. Serrano was a cop. Not just any cop. A detective. He was smart. He was thorough. And he was clean.