Chapter Twenty-Seven
Jackson
“For Christ’s sake,” I muttered to myself as I pulled out of City Hall’s parking lot and onto a busy stretch of road. There’d been some bullshit problem with a colleague at work, but it was sorted out now, and I could finally get home to Lily…if only the damn traffic wasn’t so bad.
Sighing, I pulled out my cell phone and glanced at it while I waited for the light to go green. It looked like I had a few texts from Lily over the last half hour or so, the most recent having been sent only two minutes ago.
11:14 AM: Please call me when you’ve stopped driving! I found something!
11:47 AM: I’m with Dad. He knows where my mother is. He’s taking me to her now.
11:50 AM: Please reply soon? Dad’s always hated it when I text in the car, and he just told me to get off the phone. Told him I am just quickly checking my college email, but will have to put it away soon before he gets pissed.
I almost slammed my foot on the accelerator and veered off the road with shock, but luckily I managed to hold it all together. Pulling off to the edge when I could, I tried calling Lily to no avail. It kept ringing once before going to voicemail—well, my voicemail, seeing as she had one of my cell phones. She texted a moment later.
Sorry. Service getting really bad out here – only have one bar of reception so can’t answer, plus Dad wanted me to stay off the phone anyway, so he can talk to me. But texting still seems to be working? I hope.
It is, I replied. Lily, what the hell is going on??? You’re with your mother?
No. On my way to her. Apparently she’s been within an hour of the city this whole time…remember Dad’s 30th birthday when we all went camping/had a party out in the woods near that old hunting cabin? She’s there. She’s been there this whole time. I can’t believe it….
How did your dad find out where she was? I asked.
She replied a few minutes later. He’s known all along! He said he felt like it was his fault that mom went crazy. So he’s been helping her ever since she ran off. Don’t worry, now that I know, I’m turning them both in. I just wanted to talk to Mom one last time first.
Bile rose in my throat when I read her message. That fucking two-faced bastard Craig. He knew all along where his crazy wife was hiding, and he actually helped her? I still remembered the day Jenna was killed like it was yesterday, and I remember seeing the shock in his eyes when the police called us at the office that evening to inform us of what’d happened. He was so horrified to hear what went down…and yet apparently he contacted Karen and started helping her right away, just to make sure she got away with her crime. What the fuck?
My phone began to ring a few seconds later, and I answered it, assuming Lily finally got within range of a better cell phone tower. “Baby girl, you need to tell me more. You—”
“Sorry, man, it’s Brent.”
“Oh. What’s up, Brent?” I muttered, wishing it wasn’t the PI. I desperately wanted to talk to Lily.
“Remember when you asked me to check out your whereabouts on a certain day six years ago?” he asked.
“Huh? No,” I said, confused. Then it came back to me in a flash. When Lily suspected that I had something to do with Jenna’s death, I told her I’d do anything to prove my innocence. One of those things involved getting Brent to ascertain that I’d been in Craig’s construction company offices all day on the day of the murder to prove that I had a solid alibi. “Oh, right. I remember now. Go ahead.”
“Well, I already got hold of all the security camera footage for Rubio Construction on that date. Your car, with you in it, is seen driving in at nine that morning, and it doesn’t leave the parking lot until six-thirty that evening. I even checked the parking lot from different angles. Your car was there all day. So you were definitely there the whole time.”
“Thanks, man.”
“Only one person left and came back at any point that day, and you weren’t in his car so you couldn’t have simply sneaked out with him. He arrived at the same time as you, but then he left at twelve and returned at four. Then he left again at six-thirty, same as you.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Who?”
“License plate is registered to a Craig Rubio. I assume he owns the company?”
A chill flooded my system. “Can you repeat that name?”
“Craig Rubio.”
“And you’re sure he left the offices for four hours that day?”
“Yep.”
“Thanks, Brent.”
I ended the call and sat there staring into space, my heart pounding. I was certain Craig had been at the construction offices with me all day, but now I was hearing otherwise. How was that possible?
I thought as hard as I could, trying to recall all the details of that day. Craig and I had arrived together, shared coffee in his private office, worked on a pile of documents, had an early lunch, and then ordered in dinner at six, which we shared until the cops called and told us we needed to get home (after they discovered Jenna’s body).
I frowned, thinking harder. There had to be something I was missing. Eventually, other memories began to slowly filter back. After our early lunch that day, I’d been asked to go and help some employees with tax file issues in another part of the office, and I’d remained there doing that until Craig came to get me at around four-thirty to ask for my help back in his private office again. So, shit, there it was—I’d been elsewhere in the office building for five hours, and I would’ve had no idea if Craig left the site. I just assumed he’d been there all day, because after four-thirty we spent the rest of the afternoon together in his office, had dinner together, and left at the same time. It simply never occurred to me that he’d left at all at any point during the day.
So why would he need to leave for four hours? Was it simply to help Karen get away with what she did—help her clear her accounts, pack up her things and make a run for it before the cops showed up, like Lily said in her messages earlier? Or was there something much more sinister going on here?
Whatever the answer to that question was, I sure as hell wasn’t waiting around to find out.
I needed to get to Lily, and I needed to get there fast.