Christmas Daisy by Patti Larsen

Author:Patti Larsen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Patti Larsen Books

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Chapter Eight

Rowan answers with the question also on my mind. “You’re thinking one of her thieves killed her?”

I stare at the pile of files in front of me and sigh. “I hate to say it, Rowan, but that makes sense, doesn’t it?” As much as anything else. “Then again.” I think about the email she had begun, Chelsea’s words to Mr. Corning. “What if she had no idea the kids were over eighteen?”

“What makes you say that?” It’s clear to me Rowan is frustrated that he can’t be there with me, the edge of it in his tone then tempered as he carries on. I want to ask when he’s coming but don’t because my voice will shake, I’m sure of it, because if he was going to be able to come, he’d be here by now, wouldn’t he? “Talk it out, Day.”

I read back the email on the computer monitor while he ponders it. “We know she’s the ringleader,” I say. “Or do we? What if she found the jewelry and the phone while investigating the kids? What if the real person behind this whole thing was the one who killed her?” The idea someone like Chelsea Thrice could be innocent has me frowning. Just because I didn’t like her for the way she spoke to me, to the kids, the fact the house isn’t decorated for Christmas… doesn’t make her an automatic criminal. And none of the texts I read actually identified her as the ringleader. For all I know, she confiscated the stolen items and the burner and was contacting whoever this mystery man is for information on the kids before turning everyone in to the police.

Am I jumping to conclusions because she wasn’t nice to me?

“I get your logic,” he says, “but. If she was innocent, Day, there’s no way she’d sit on the stolen stuff like that.” He has a point. “Maybe you’re right and she wasn’t in on it, but she might have been looking for a way in. Otherwise, why not have the cops show up immediately?”

I shouldn’t feel better about my judgment of her, but I do, and I silently thank Rowan for that. “We need to find out who this Mr. Corning is.”

“Already on it,” my detective friend says. “Richard Corning is the deputy commissioner of FSD. And I’ve just confirmed that Caleb Johnson is eighteen going on nineteen, Day. I have his records right here.”

How did he get the young man’s sealed file so fast? “What was he accused of?”

Rowan’s lack of accusation, his steady, calm tone, says a lot about him as he replies. “Theft,” he says. “Breaking and entering and theft, Day.”

“Let’s say that Chelsea was blackmailing the kids. That she found out they somehow managed to get their birthdates changed in the house files.” I have a very good idea how that happened, but I’m not going to share that until I know for sure. “When did the thefts start?”

“About a month ago,” Rowan says.

That’s recent enough. I look through the texts, confirm the first one on the burner is from about four weeks ago.

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