But Giant remained unconvinced, and the more he thought about it, the more he saw the plausibility of Brook Connor’s story. ‘I don’t like leaving loose ends, so I’m going to keep looking into it, even in my own time. It’s a puzzle, and I’m good at puzzles.’
‘I know you are,’ Jenna said. ‘But that’s your problem, Ty. You’re not a political enough animal. People need it simple. And look what happened the last time you did something off the books. We end up here, ripping up compromising photos of you.’
‘I’ll be a lot more careful this time. And if it looks like Brook Connor is actually guilty, then that’s fine, I’ll let things lie. But I’m not prepared to allow a miscarriage of justice to happen on my watch.’ As he spoke the words he immediately felt better. If Brook Connor was innocent, helping her would erase his own guilt for destroying evidence. And if she was guilty, then what he’d done didn’t matter.
‘You’re not going to let this go are you, Ty?’ He looked at her and was surprised to see Jenna giving him a warm smile. ‘You know, you’re a good man.’
Giant felt a warm glow. Maybe things were going to work out for him after all. He felt even better when she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, her breath warm on his face.
They were coming up to McPherson’s place now. Yellow scene-of-crime tape blocked off the track leading down to the house, and two bored-looking marshals stood guard, while half a dozen police vehicles lined one side of the road, with Jenna’s car at the end.
Giant waved at the marshals as he drove past and, recognizing him from the department, they waved back. He pulled up in front of Jenna’s car, wondering whether he should try to kiss her now. They looked at each other for a couple of seconds. Giant told himself to go for it, but nerves held him back, and then the moment was lost and the atmosphere in the car was suddenly awkward, as if they both knew what ought to happen, but somehow couldn’t manage it.
‘Goodnight, Ty,’ said Jenna, and Giant could have sworn she was blushing. But then she got out of the car and was gone.
He turned the car around and waited while she pulled in behind him, then began the drive back to Monterey, wondering whether he should just pull up at the side of the road, get her to stop, then go back and kiss her properly. She was definitely giving off signs of interest. He needed to take the lead for once. But Jesus, it was hard when you were as shy as he was. He hadn’t been in a relationship for so long it was hard to remember what to do, and he was terrified of getting it wrong.
And then he saw in the rear-view mirror that Jenna was flashing her lights at him and he felt a burst of elation. It seemed she had the same idea as him. He pulled up at the side of the road, letting his window down as she drove in behind him and got out of her car, running towards him.
But elation gave way to disappointment as she reached the window and leaned down, her expression tense and businesslike. ‘Jesus, Ty, I’ve just remembered something about Connor’s story. Something we didn’t think about.’
‘What’s that?’ he asked, trying to keep the disappointment out of his voice.
And in that moment Giant saw the gun come up in Jenna’s gloved hand and realized, with a sense of complete and utter shock, that Brook Connor had been innocent all along. A hundred different thoughts seemed to explode across his mind in that last second, but the one that stood out was that now Tony Reyes was never going to be brought to justice.
And then Jenna pulled the trigger and everything went black.
55
Jenna moved quickly.
After putting a second bullet in Giant’s head, just to make sure he was gone, she threw the gun into the back of his car and shoved him across into the passenger seat, which was no easy task, given his bulk. She then reversed his car back up the road thirty yards, ignoring the fact that his legs were across her lap, until she came to the entrance to the corn field she’d spotted a few seconds earlier. She drove the car inside and parked it so that it was hidden from the road by a large hedge, before running back to her own car and driving off. The whole thing had taken about thirty seconds and, since it was gone three in the morning and this was an isolated stretch of road, there were no witnesses.
It was in many ways a perfect kill. The gun Jenna had used was an illegally owned pistol with the serial number shorn off, which she’d pocketed on a raid months earlier so there was no way of it being traced back to her. Also, after what had happened between Giant and Tony Reyes at the station the other night, there was a ready-made motive in place for Giant’s murder. Even if Reyes’s involvement couldn’t be proved (which was unlikely, given that he’d nothing to do with it), the finger of suspicion was always going to be pointed at him.
Even so, Jenna wished she hadn’t had to kill Giant. The fact was that she liked him. Not in a sexual way, of course. Physically he was the very opposite of the toned look she was attracted to, and he was also too soft, the kind of nice guy who always finishes last. But he’d been good to work for, and easy company. And he was a good detective, too, the type you want on your team, which of course was why he’d had to die. Driving back in the car earlier, Jenna could see that there was no way Giant would stop until he’d torn the case apart and put everything back together again, and that was when he’d have seen that the key to the case was Jenna herself. After all, as Mozzarella Man had proved in the past, he was nothing if not determined. And she couldn’t have that.
The problem was, thanks to that bitch Brook Connor, Jenna’s carefully laid plan (months – no, years – in the making) had come very close to falling apart. Jenna had expected Brook to give herself up as soon as she’d found Logan’s body in the trunk of his car. At that point Brook’s story really would have looked like bullshit, and it wouldn’t have taken long for the affair between Logan and Maria Reyes to have got out. So she’d have had a gold-plated motive for his murder. The cameras that Jenna and Lou had placed in her house had already been removed and there was no evidence they’d ever been there. It would have been a slam dunk.
Unfortunately Connor hadn’t given in and, by trying to solve the case, she’d located Jenna’s co-conspirator, the greedy and feckless Lou McPherson, and had got far too close to Jenna herself.
But as she drove back to her apartment now, still breathing heavily from the adrenalin-hit that always comes with killing, Jenna was confident that she’d overcome this latest obstacle. No one would think to connect her with Giant’s killing because, as far as the world was concerned, she had no motive. And with Giant gone, the focus of the investigation would be back where it belonged: Brook Connor.
56
Sleeping on a cell bunk wasn’t as bad as Brook had expected, and they even gave her coffee and a sandwich for breakfast. The coffee was bad and the sandwich worse, but she felt a palpable sense of relief that she was no longer on the run and had finally been able to tell her story. It was that, coupled with the remorseless stress of the previous few days, which made her sleep as well as she did.
Unfortunately, the fact she’d slept so well immediately made her feel guilty, because Paige was still out there, scared and confused and needing her mom. And as the morning passed and she was still stuck in her cell, without access to TV and the internet, Brook became more and more frustrated.
Finally, at 11 a.m. Angie arrived, looking pristine and ready for business in a conservative midnight-blue suit and matching heels. Brook was still wary of her, but even so, she was relieved to see someone who, at least on the surface, was on her side.
‘They’re ready for us in the interview room,’ Angie told her. ‘Now, don’t say anything at all, okay? Let me do the talking.’
‘I’ve got to get bail, Angie. At least then I can try to find Paige.’
Angie put a hand on her shoulder and gave it an affectionate squeeze. ‘I know, babe. I’ve already got my best guy looking into the background of everyone connected to this case, to see if we can turn anything up. I’ll do everything I can to get you out, but don’t get your hopes up. There
’s still a lot of evidence against you.’
Brook nodded and followed Angie out of the cell, suddenly terrified of what might happen, because if she didn’t get bail, she knew she’d get lost in the system and forgotten about for months on end, and all that time Paige would be out there somewhere, living a completely different life. She had a feeling that the next few hours would decide the rest of her life, and it wasn’t a comforting thought.
They were led by two uniformed officers back to the interview room they’d been in the night before. Detective Jenna King was in there, looking as serious and austere as ever, but Brook didn’t recognize the detective next to her, a younger Latino guy with a neatly trimmed beard.
‘Detective Giant not here?’ said Angie as she and Brook sat down opposite them.
‘I’m afraid he’s indisposed,’ answered Detective King. ‘This is Detective Padilla. We’ll be running things today.’ She made a play of consulting the handwritten notes laid out in front of her, before fixing Brook with a cold, officious look. ‘So, Ms Connor. You’ve had some time to think. Are you going to persist with your story, or would you like to tell us what really happened?’
Angie let out a dramatic sigh. ‘Please, Detective, let’s not go through all this again. My client has already given you a full account of what happened. So if you’re not going to charge her, then you’re going to have to release her.’
‘Is that your last word on the matter?’ asked Detective King, turning from Brook to Angie.
Brook felt her stomach clench. She had an ominous feeling about this interview.
‘No, it’s not,’ said Angie. ‘I’d like to see the pathologist’s report regarding the Maria Reyes shooting.’
It turned out that the pathologist’s report wasn’t available yet, but that in the pathologist’s opinion, Maria Reyes’s shooting had been suicide. Detective King gave this information reluctantly, and Brook felt her hopes rising as a part of her story was vindicated.
Angie then asked if the police had completed the fingerprint analysis of the gun used to kill Chris Cervantes and his son, and whether Brook’s fingerprints were on it.
Brook knew the answer to that one but, given the thoroughness with which she’d been set up, it was still a relief when Detective King admitted that the analysis had been completed and that Brook’s fingerprints weren’t on the gun. ‘However, that doesn’t mean she didn’t kill them,’ she added.
‘Well, you arrested her at the scene,’ said Angie, ‘and she wasn’t wearing gloves. So how could she have shot them?’
‘We’re still searching the premises for evidence. It’s an ongoing process.’
‘In that case, I’d like you to release my client while that process goes on, since it’s clear there’s a lot of doubt surrounding her involvement.’
Brook felt her hopes rise still further, but Detective King’s next words killed them stone dead. ‘There’s no doubt at all in our minds that your client killed her husband. The knife with her prints on it was sticking out of him in the back of his car, in their garage. So if you have nothing else to say, I’m charging you, Brook Connor, with the first-degree murder of Logan Harris on or about the third of May 2018.’ Detective King looked at Brook as she spoke, and Brook thought she saw a malignant gleam in the other woman’s eye.
‘This is bullshit,’ said Angie. ‘We want a bail hearing as soon as possible.’
‘Good,’ Detective King told her. ‘Because you’ve got one. Three p.m. this afternoon.’ She got to her feet. ‘Interview terminated.’
57
Jenna had enjoyed charging Brook Connor with the first-degree murder of her husband., the man she herself had actually killed. Logan Harris’s instructions on the night he’d delivered the money at the nursery had been simple: he was to keep hold of the cellphone he’d been given and beat Connor up, until she was in a position where she couldn’t fight back. Then, when Connor was questioned afterwards about her injuries, she’d have to admit that Logan had hit her, thus giving her a secondary motive for his killing.
Logan had managed to knock Connor out cold, but had somehow lost the cellphone in the process. As he’d walked back through the nursery, looking distraught and confused, Jenna had stepped out from behind a building, along with Lou McPherson, and had called him over. While McPherson had watched him with the gun, Jenna had told Harris to open up the bag and show her the money. As he’d gone to open it, Jenna had slipped the switchblade from the back pocket of her jeans and stabbed him between the ribs a number of times in rapid succession. It had all been surprisingly easy and Logan had fallen to the ground and died, almost without a sound.
Jenna didn’t feel at all guilty about what she’d done. Logan Harris was a serial philanderer, and Connor deserved everything that was coming to her. It was just a pity they couldn’t also charge her with the Maria Reyes murder, or the murders of Lou and his old man. But for the moment, at least, everyone in the department, from the Chief downwards, believed that Brook Connor was guilty of most, if not, all of the killings. Unlike Giant, they wanted the simple narrative – the one that Jenna had provided for them. In truth, she was proud of what she’d done. It was a pity about Giant. He was the kind of collateral damage she’d have preferred to avoid. But he, too, had played his part in Jenna’s plan. For months she’d been plotting Connor’s destruction as well as that of her nauseatingly happy family, but it had been Giant who’d provided her with the opportunity, when he’d told her about Logan Harris’s affair with Maria Reyes. With that knowledge, she’d had a perfect motive for murder to pin on Connor. And it had worked, too. Maybe not smoothly, but they’d come to the right place in the end.
So far, Giant’s body hadn’t been discovered, which surprised Jenna, given that it wasn’t exactly well hidden. Obviously Giant himself was missed at the station. In the nine months he’d been with the department he’d never missed a day of work and was considered highly reliable.
When he still hadn’t turned up by mid-morning, the Chief had had little choice but to give her the job of charging Connor. It was even possible, she thought, that Giant’s death would get her the promotion she’d always wanted. As they say, every cloud has a silver lining.
And for Jenna there were going to be several silver linings, starting with Brook Connor’s bail hearing that afternoon, when she’d have the opportunity to watch as the woman she’d hated for so long was taken off to begin her new life in jail.
58
The bail hearing that afternoon was possibly the most nerve-racking hour of Brook’s life, as she sat and listened while the state prosecutor and Angie argued in front of the judge about whether or not she should be given bail.
The argument against was strong. Brook was being charged with a capital offence and she was therefore deemed a flight risk, especially as she’d taken a quarter of a million dollars in cash out of her bank only four days earlier. However, Angie had a trump card. She’d found out from the police department that a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars in cash had been recovered from Luis McPherson’s house, and the serial numbers on the money matched that of the money Brook had been given. This made her look a lot less like a flight risk.
In the end, after a tense session, bail was granted at a cost of two million dollars. Brook had to sign over the money and the deeds to her house (which was still a crime scene) and surrender her passport. She also promised to stay at Angie’s house until she found herself somewhere to live. Thankfully, she managed to avoid wearing a tag, even though the prosecution called for it.
Brook left the courthouse via the back entrance in Angie’s Tesla, slumped down across the back seats. Even so, it didn’t take long for half a dozen media vehicles to pick up their trail, as well as a helicopter. Angie seemed oblivious as she drove up Highway One, having a lengthy phone conversation about another case. When they finally arrived, an hour later, at her beautiful, architect-designed house on a hill looking down to the sea in Half Moon Bay, the half-dozen media vehicles had becom
e a dozen, and Angie drove straight into the garage, letting the automatic door close behind them before getting out of the car.
‘Don’t worry about them,’ said Angie, leading Brook into her house. ‘I’ll go and tell them that our hands are tied and we can’t talk about the case. They’ll disappear soon enough.’
They walked into the huge open-plan living area. A line of floor-to-ceiling windows looked out onto the Pacific Ocean, where a big orange sun was beginning its slow descent into the dark waters.
Brook felt the tension ease out of her as she took in the view. She couldn’t relax. Not entirely. Not with Paige still out there and a murder charge hanging over her head, but the longer Paige was gone, the more Brook was growing used to the situation.
Angie fixed her a drink – a large gin and tonic, with ice and a slice of lime – and then excused herself to go down and address the camera crews. Brook sank into an armchair right next to the window and watched as a slew or reporters, backed up by camera crews, gathered around Angie at the bottom of the drive while she spoke.
It didn’t take long. Angie finished and walked back up the drive to the house, while the reporters milled about, seemingly realizing they weren’t going to get much of a story here. It felt strange for Brook, knowing she was the subject of so much interest, and she wondered for the first time what it had done for the sales of her new book.
We Can See You Page 26
