The Last Lie Told (Finley O’Sullivan, #1)(58)

Then she did what she always did. Introduced her daughter to the gathered crowd as if she were a doting mother and Finley an adoring child.

“Happy birthday, Judge,” Finley announced.

Those closest laughed at Finley’s joke. Her mother would know that it wasn’t really a joke. She hadn’t called her Mother in a long while now.

Her father skirted around the Judge and gave Finley a big hug, allowing the guest of honor to move back to her receiving line duties.

Being a good friend, Matt shook hands with her father and then ushered Finley into the dining room. “We should find a place to talk.”

“That sounds ominous.”

The concern in his eyes warned it was indeed ominous.

“Let’s go up to your old room.” He glanced around. “We need some privacy.”

“Sure.”

They used the staff staircase in the kitchen to avoid adding to the rumor mill. Finley had no idea if her old room was still her room. For all she knew the Judge could have cleared it out and turned it into a fifth guest room.

She opened the door and switched on the light. To her surprise the room remained exactly as it had been her senior year of high school.

“Looks the same,” Matt noted.

White walls. White carpet. White bedding. The only color was in the photos of places Finley had visited up to that point in her life. Paris. Madrid. Sydney. Dozens of other places. Her father had made sure Finley was well traveled. The Judge was generally too busy to accompany them, which was always a relief.

“She was so annoyed when you refused to have pink walls,” Matt reminded her. “You remember, she had that designer fly in from New York and create this magnificent”—he spread his arms wide apart—“fairy-princess fantasyland. And you came undone. You hated it.”

“I was ten years old,” she grumbled. “She took my room from clouds and butterflies to her vision of a fairy tale.”

“You were so upset, your dad and Jack painted it white the next day while Ruth was in court. She was furious when she found out.”

“The story of our relationship. We never saw eye to eye on anything.”

“She loves you anyway.”

Finley turned to him, studied his face. “Whose friend are you, hers or mine?”

He held his hands up, palms out, and moved them side to side as if erasing the words. “My bad. I guess being in this room had me sentimental for a moment.”

“What’s going on, Matt?”

“Briggs has openly voiced that he wants you off the Legard case. He’s claiming you’re unreliable. Lawrence has that new detective, Houser, digging up all the dirt he can on your and Derrick’s relationship and his . . . murder.”

“Briggs wants the Legard case to go away again without any new bones being unearthed,” Finley said, anger and frustration fighting for equal billing. “His one and only daughter was connected to the sister Holmes named as the one who supposedly wanted Lance Legard dead. I’ve already gotten too close for his liking.” Besides, he was looking for a way to ensure anything she did or had done didn’t make him or his office look bad. Protecting his office—or, more specifically, himself—was his top priority.

Matt sat down on the bed. “Fin, there is no doubt in my mind that there’s something bigger than we know here. The question is, are you willing to pay the price for finding the answer. You’ve just regained your balance after what happened last year. I don’t want to see you taking the wrong risks too soon.”

“Houser came to see me.” She couldn’t keep this from Matt any longer, and it was the perfect segue for moving on.

He nodded. “You mentioned he had.”

“What I didn’t mention was his claim that Derrick bought the house only a couple weeks before we met.”

“How’s that possible? Derrick had been working on the place for months before you met.”

“That’s what he told me. But when I called the previous owner, he said the same thing Houser did. In fact, the house wasn’t even for sale, but Derrick just kept upping the offer until the guy sold it to him. Derrick insisted his wife had seen the house and fallen in love with it. Derrick and I hadn’t even met at that point.”

“Damn.”

Finley sat down beside him. “Exactly.”

“I can do some digging if you want. See if Houser has found something more he hasn’t shared yet.”

“I would appreciate it very much. Obviously my contacts at the DA’s office and Metro are a little thin right now.” She’d never had that problem before.

“I really hate to broach this subject, but how well did you research Derrick before you married?”

She shrugged. “The usual. No criminal record. Not even a speeding ticket. Good credit. Solid work record. He didn’t have any close family, so I don’t really know anything about his relatives.”

Matt leaned forward, braced his forearms on his knees. “I’m guessing the Judge conducted a similar background review. If there was anything to be found, she would have found it.”

“Unless,” Finley braced herself for saying out loud the possibility that had been nagging at her, “he was using an alias.”

“Unless that, yeah.” Matt looked her in the eyes. “Any reason to suspect he did?”