A Stranger on the Beach(89)

He paused, remembering his lawyer telling him to keep his mouth shut. But he couldn’t resist.

“Not then,” he said, and wanted to kick himself. Caroline had her hooks in him so deep that, after everything that happened, he still felt the need to brag about their relationship.

“I don’t know what happened between you and that woman,” Brittany said, “but I want to help. Samantha’s married, you know. She’s having a baby in December. She feels bad that—well, she feels bad. And so do I. You should tell your lawyer what I said.”

“I will. Thanks for coming.”

As he watched her walk away, Aidan thought about what Brittany had said. He believed her now, but he didn’t know how to process the information. Caroline had known his full name and requested him to work at her party. Why would she do that, and what could it mean?





54


Jess put on her power pantsuit for the team meeting at the prosecutor’s office. She reminded herself to speak in a low register and not to fiddle with hair. People were always telling her that she looked too young to be a lieutenant, and Vernon Mays already wasn’t satisfied with her work. She needed to appear mature and professional while delivering the bad news. Not only had Jess failed to locate Caroline Stark, but new evidence she and Mike had developed suggested that their star witness might be implicated in her husband’s murder. It was really just a maybe. Jess still had faith in Caroline. She was hoping for good news from the crime scene team to shore up Caroline’s credibility. Like Aidan Callahan’s fingerprints on the murder weapon, or the recovery of Jason Stark’s body with some forensic tell that Callahan was the murderer.

As Jess got off the elevator and marched toward the conference room, Mike Castro stepped forward to intercept her.

“You have a golf game after the meeting?” she said, looking him up and down.

He’d taken the opposite sartorial approach from Jess, dressing down in khakis and a polo shirt. Guys could get away with that, and people still paid attention when they talked.

“Give me a break. I worked late last night and went out early this morning to serve a subpoena. This was the best I could do,” he said.

“Just kidding.”

Vernon Mays walked by with Phil Nadler, the head of the crime scene team.

“You two joining us?” Mays said.

“Two minutes, boss,” Mike said.

Mike waited until the others were out of earshot before speaking.

“Listen, I hit pay dirt, but you won’t like it. Bad news about Caroline.”

Jess blanched. “Is she all right?”

“I didn’t find her dead if that’s what you mean. I didn’t find her at all. Her phone is off, and she removed the SIM card. Not only isn’t she using it to make calls. It’s not accessing data or pinging cell towers or anything. She’s off the grid, and deliberately.”

“That is bad news. But why do you think it’s deliberate?”

“Because. There’s something worse.”

“Ugh, go ahead. Tell me.”

“When I couldn’t track her using her phone, I started analyzing the numbers she called for leads. The number she called the most in the days leading up to the murder? An insurance company. Two days before the murder, a new insurance policy was taken out on Jason Stark’s life in the amount of five million dollars, with Caroline as the sole beneficiary.”

Jess kicked the wall. “Two days. Two days?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Mike, two days. That looks like she killed him for money.”

“Yeah. No kidding.”

“Aw, shit. I really believed everything she told me. Hey, you don’t think this could be a coincidence, do you?”

“Seriously? You can’t be that na?ve, right?” Mike said.

“Two days means she’s involved.”

“Uh, yeah.”

“I can’t believe she’d do it.”

“Why not? The husband cheated. She’s got a new guy. They get the insurance money and run off together. It’s classic.”

“I remember something. When Aidan grabbed Caroline in the police station, he asked her if she killed Jason.”

“Why would he have to ask? He was there,” Mike said.

“I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head. “But it suggests she was involved, right? We have to tell the team about the insurance policy. It’s too big to keep it quiet. Mays will hate this.”

“Or else he’ll love it. More publicity.”

In the conference room, Vernon Mays asked everyone to introduce themselves. There were more people present than Jess had expected, including officers from the crime scene team, an assistant prosecutor, and a federal prosecutor and an FBI agent. Jess had no idea why those last two were here, since there was no federal angle to the case that she knew of.

“We’re going to start with a report from our colleagues from the feds,” Mays said. “Assistant U.S. Attorney Vargas and Special Agent O’Reilly are working a Russian mob case that has a surprising connection to our murder. Their investigation is ongoing, so what they say doesn’t leave this room.”

He turned to the AUSA.

“Melanie, the floor is yours. I understand you have a PowerPoint?”