“Mr. Scott, forgive me, but I don’t see how it’s funny to use a minor as an accessory to fraud, theft, obstruction of justice, and tampering with evidence.”
Tanner sobered at once. “Look, don’t be hard on the kid. She didn’t want any part of this, either—but when she found out what Shep was threatening, she was scared. Last time I went to jail she was stuck in foster care for a year and a half. It wasn’t a day at the fucking beach. She’s terrified of losing me again.”
“And what about your wife and your son? Did they know what was going on?”
A strange look flitted across Tanner’s face. Veronica couldn’t decide if it was regret or relief.
“No. They didn’t. They don’t.”
Which meant, if it was true, that he’d been planning to leave her mom high and dry. The ticket to Bermuda spoke volumes about how he’d planned to end the heist: on a beach, with a daiquiri in hand and no straight-and-narrow wife or noisy six-year-old in sight.
Lianne was being questioned in a different interrogation room even now, a few doors down; Veronica had no desire to listen in on that session.
“So you wrote both ransom notes?”
“Shep did. He’s the one with the technical savvy. Knows how to encrypt things, knows how to mask an IP address, all that stuff. He thought we might get lucky and get the ransom for Hayley Dewalt too, but then that girl found the body.”
Veronica smiled a little. She’d gone from being “Veronica, honey” to “that girl” in a matter of hours. All things considered, she preferred the latter. At least from Tanner Scott.
“So today when Adrian Marks came forward with his story, you decided to move. You jogged to the Grand with one of your son’s maracas, waited for Shepherd to leave the hotel, assaulted him, and took the money.”
“No!” Tanner slammed his fist on the table. “No, I didn’t. I wasn’t anywhere near the hotel. I was checking in on Rory. Room twenty-four in the Pinehurst Lodge, like I’ve been saying for two hours. Check it if you don’t believe me!”
“We did check it.”
A look of surprise flashed across Tanner’s face, too quick for him to hide it. “So? What’d she say?”
Lamb’s chest swelled up, and Veronica could only guess how much he was loving this part—the trap sprung, the cat catching the canary. He’d taken the loss of Willie Murphy hard. But here he had a nice, juicy replacement for his trouble, a swindler who preyed upon the fears of anyone who’d ever seen a picture of a missing girl and imagined his or her own daughter in her place.
“Mr. Scott, no one at the Pinehurst has ever laid eyes on your daughter. Room twenty-four has been vacant for a week. There’s no evidence she was ever anywhere near that motel.”
Tanner shook his head, his jaw tight. “That’s not right. I just saw her there. Three hours ago, I just saw her there!”
“So on top of everything else, I’m starting to have a strong inclination to charge you not just in the assault of Duane Shepherd but also for the murder of Aurora Scott.”
“Lamb, get real.” Cliff broke in for the first time in a while. “You don’t have anything to indicate that Aurora Scott has been murdered—particularly not by my client.”
“Not yet,” Lamb said, a leering grin spreading across his face. “But until I start getting more satisfied about some of these answers, it’s definitely a possibility.”
“We’ve been searching the areas around the condo and around the Camelot,” Norris whispered. “I can’t figure out where he would have put the cash. I mean, look at him, he doesn’t even have pockets on his shorts. He had to hide it somewhere, right?”
For a second, Veronica felt everything stop. The sound of the station, the beating of her heart, the blood in her veins. The earth tilting and swaying. It all went still. Flashes went off in her brain, brilliant and blinding. She closed her eyes. She could feel a smile, incongruous and strange, spreading over her face.
“You won’t find that money hidden around the condo. Or the Neptune Grand,” Veronica said.
She opened her eyes. Norris was staring at her expectantly.
“How do you know that?”
“Give me an hour and I’ll explain everything.” She adjusted her purse strap on her shoulder. “Thanks, Norris. I’ve gotta go.”
She was halfway down the hall when she heard Norris calling after her. “Be careful, Veronica!” Veronica held up her hand in acknowledgment and rounded the corner to the exit.