The Bad Daughter(11)
“The safe in the den was open and empty, so it looks as if whoever did this was after something. ’Course, we don’t know what was in the safe. Hoping you might be able to help us with that.” He ran a hand across the top of his smooth head. “And dresser drawers and items of clothing were all over the floor in the walk-in closet of the master bedroom.”
That doesn’t mean anything, Robin thought. Tara wasn’t exactly a neat freak.
“It’s also looking as if Tara’s rings had been forcibly removed. She wasn’t wearing any, and there was bruising on both her ring fingers.”
Robin pictured the brilliant round three-carat diamond solitaire and accompanying diamond eternity band that her father had bought Tara and that she’d never been shy about showing off. Nor had she been reticent about wearing the few good pieces of jewelry that had once belonged to Robin’s mother, pieces that her father had showered on his new wife, leaving the less-valuable items for Robin and Melanie to fight over. Except that Robin had had no stamina for further conflict, and so she gave in to all of Melanie’s demands, settling for the simple amethyst ring her mother had owned since girlhood, which Robin wore on a thin gold chain around her neck. Her fingers went to it now.
“We’d like you and your sister to go through the house with us tomorrow morning, if you’re up to it,” Sheriff Prescott said. Again, he made it more of a statement than a request. “See if you can figure out what might be missing.”
Robin nodded, although she didn’t see how she could help. She’d never even seen her father’s new house—let alone set foot inside it. It was right next door to his old house—the one she’d grown up in, the one where Melanie and her son still lived. “Do you know how many people were involved, if there were more than one…”
“We don’t know,” the sheriff answered before she could finish her question. “There’s been no rain. Never is at this time of year, so it’s not like there are any telltale footprints in the mud or anything like that. Not like on TV. We’re still dusting for fingerprints, but it’s unlikely we’ll find anything useful. The house is brand spanking new. Apparently, workers were still going in and out of it all the time. Plus your father and Tara had just thrown a big house-warming party a few days before.” He shook his head, his small eyes narrowing into tiny slits as his bushy eyebrows converged into a single straight line. “Not to mention we just had the annual rodeo, so there’ve been lots of strangers in town.”
“So what you’re essentially saying is that it could have been anyone.”
“Except there was no sign of forced entry.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning that either the front door was unlocked or your father or Tara opened it.”
“I can’t imagine that they would leave the front door unlocked.”
“Can you imagine them opening it to strangers after midnight?”
Robin felt her windpipe closing, as if being squeezed by invisible fingers, and a dry cough escaped her throat.
The sheriff continued, oblivious to her discomfort, “If you can think of anyone who might have had a motive…”
“My father didn’t exactly make a secret of his wealth, Sheriff. It seems pretty obvious from everything you’ve just told me that robbery was the motive, regardless of whether or not my father knew his attacker. And with workers coming in and out of the house all the time, it would seem logical that one of them—”
“Would that life was always logical,” the sheriff interrupted again, this time with a rueful shake of his head. “Guess we’ll just have to wait till little Cassidy is able to tell us something.”
“Can I see her?”
“Absolutely.” Sheriff Prescott pushed himself to his feet.
Robin did likewise, then stumbled, her mounting panic all but propelling her into the sheriff’s arms.
“Whoa, there. You all right?”
“Just clumsy. Sorry.”
“No need to apologize. This way.” He took her elbow, as if he was afraid she might stumble again, and led her down the corridor to a room at the far end where an armed officer was standing guard.
“Is that necessary?” Robin asked.
“Just a precaution,” Sheriff Prescott explained. “Till we find out what happened.” He pushed the door open, then stood back to let her enter.
Robin took a deep breath, feeling it bounce against the air like a rubber ball as she released it and stepped inside the room. “Oh, God,” she whispered, inching forward, her mind trying to grasp what her eyes were seeing.
What she was seeing was the past—a little girl who so resembled her mother at that age that it took away what little breath Robin had left, and she fell back against the sheriff’s burly chest, the gun in his holster burrowing into the small of her back.
“You all right?” he asked her again. “Do you want me to get your sister?”
Robin shook her head. God, no. “She just looks so helpless, so young.”
In fact Cassidy looked even younger than her twelve years. Eyes closed, skin the color of skim milk, stringy light brown hair hanging limply past bony shoulders, only a hint of breasts beneath the bandages encasing her torso. More larva than butterfly, Robin couldn’t help thinking, staring down at the child’s sweet, unlined face. Tara’s face, she thought.