Holly didn’t think she’d ever seen anything so insane as the media frenzy when Ethan Montclair walked out of jail and the chief had to eat crow for arresting him before they’d formally ID’d the body found at the farm off Highway 96. Which the ME hadn’t been able to do yet. There were no other officially missing women in the area, so unless a family member came forward or the dental database got a hit—which she doubted they would, because the victim clearly hadn’t been being treated by a dentist recently, so current radiographs were a long shot—they had a Jane Doe on their hands.
An anonymous victim. Lost. No way to determine age, ethnicity, or identity, thanks to the very well-placed fire. A stranger, wearing Sutton Montclair’s wedding set.
Rings on her fingers, bells on her toes. Holly couldn’t get the refrain out of her head.
Once the crow had been eaten, the friends lined up for more interviews, both with the Franklin Police and the media, now begging Sutton to come forward, to show herself, to stop the charade. Ethan Montclair drank himself into oblivion while Joel Robinson gave proxy interviews begging Sutton to come home.
Holly ignored it all. She shut the doors to the conference war room and went back to work.
Because now, they were acting under the assumption that Sutton Montclair was a murderer.
It was quite clear from all the interviews that she’d been parceling out information to her friends. Phyllis, the comforting knowledge she was the only confessor. Ellen, the honor of intelligence and professional intimacy. Ivy, taken advantage of the most, given the Benadryl bottle to make it look like her husband had killed their child. Holly imagined Sutton to be a disturbed woman, volatile and unpredictable. A woman with problems, who was lashing out at everyone and everything around her. A woman who lost her child, Holly. That alone would drive anyone insane.
Lost? Or was Sutton Montclair responsible for her baby’s death?
It was an easy hypothesis. Kill the baby, lose her mind, fake her own death, set up her husband. Perhaps it should be the realm of fiction, but it wasn’t outside the bounds of reality. People had done worse for less.
Holly needed to speak again to the friends, especially to Ivy. The one who’d so adamantly insisted Ethan Montclair had hurt his wife and possibly killed his child. To whom pictures had been shown, murder weapons given. It seemed to Holly that Sutton Montclair was a master manipulator. She’d killed her child, done a mighty fine job of trying to set up her husband for murder, all under the guise of poor little me, I’m an abused wife. She’d deceived everyone around her, including the women who thought she was their friend. She needed to run this past them, and see who thought Sutton Montclair capable of this level of deception.
Holly hated her. Which was ridiculous. She was mad at a woman she’d never met, because she’d managed to turn everyone’s world upside down, and two people were dead because of it.
The whole team had been digging, and Holly had been digging, too. Deep. She’d talked to Siobhan Healy in Canada again, who’d called Holly back at the station when she heard that her daughter’s body had been found. The conversation that ensued was one Holly wouldn’t ever forget. Mrs. Healy had expressed disbelief, as was to be expected. And then she’d said, “Well, since she’s dead, I guess you can unseal the juvenile records now, can’t you?”
Holly had nearly dropped the phone.
“What does she have juvenile records for, ma’am?”
“You’ll see. This truly is a shame. I never did believe Ethan had the balls to murder her. Do I need to come home? No, of course I don’t. We should be able to finish our vacation before the funeral.” And she’d hung up. The woman was cold as ice. But of course she was. Her daughter had to learn it somewhere.
Was the mother involved? She’d skedaddled out of town quickly, but if there was one thing all the people in Sutton’s life agreed on, it was her prickly relationship with her mother.
Holly tapped her fingers along the base of her laptop. She was three cups of coffee in and needed a bathroom break badly, but those juvie records were calling her.
She typed in Sutton Healy, came up with nothing. Tried Siobhan Healy, nothing. It was half an hour later, deep in the system, she found a name change petition. Maude Wilson. Mother of Elizabeth Sutton Wilson. Maude’s new name was Siobhan.
Now who was being devious? Looked like Sutton came by it naturally.
She plugged in Wilson, Elizabeth S. There was an immediate hit. She opened the file, and started to read. An hour later, she emerged from the computer, rinsed her coffee cup, used the bathroom, and perched on the edge of her desk to think.
Sutton Montclair wasn’t who she said she was.
And Holly wasn’t surprised at all.