He laughed. “I haven’t heard that word since about seventh grade. You’ll get used to it, Marie. The changes are going to come in a bunch, but they’ll level off after a while.”
“How would you handle it, being wealthy?”
He thought about it. “I’d probably take better vacations.” He shook his head. “I don’t know. What I need, I have, and what I want, I enjoy dreaming about. I like my job.”
“I wonder if I’m still going to like having this gallery after all the curiosity seekers come by.”
“You’ve built this as a place you love, and you’ll still love it a year from now.” He paused. “May I?” He reached for a photo on her desk. “Your family?”
“My aunt and the three of us girls: Mandy, Tracey, and me. My aunt passed away in ’95, and Mandy was killed in ’98. That’s one of the last pictures I have of us together.”
“Mandy was your older sister?”
“Four years older. She was murdered in New York.”
His gaze shot up to hers. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to open old wounds.”
“It’s okay.” She leaned back against the credenza. “We’ve never been able to give her a funeral; they never found her body.”
He stilled and looked back at the photo again. “I really don’t mean to pry, but what happened?” When he looked back up at her she didn’t understand the quietness in him, but she did understand the sympathy and appreciated it.
“She’d had dinner out with her boyfriend; they were on the way back to her place. The car stopped at a stoplight, and someone walked up and shot her boyfriend three times in the chest. They found Mandy’s blood on the passenger seat, and a witness saw a woman being chased from the scene. They never found her body, but the police finally concluded she had been killed that night too. Her apartment was never returned to-pets abandoned, her credit cards never used, her bank accounts never touched, her car where she had left it parked. No one ever heard from her again. She would have called had she been alive. That convinced me more than anything that she was gone. We had a private investigator work with the cops, but what he found just confirmed what we knew-a pendant she never took off showed up at a pawnshop, that kind of thing. I wish her body had been found so we could have had a funeral. It’s like an open sore without the closure. And I’m sure it will get dragged up again now that we are in the news.”
“It’s the kind of case a homicide cop dreads, the one that you can’t fully wrap up. Did they identify the shooter?”
“They had some solid suspicions, but nothing they could prove. I doubt Mandy ever suspected her accountant boyfriend had some less-than-reputable clients. She was trusting that way, always assuming the best. She ended up at the wrong place at the wrong time. The guy they think probably hired the hit went to jail two years ago on an unrelated murder charge. I’d like more justice for Mandy, but it’s not going to bring her back. And that’s the hardest part to live with.”
He carefully set the photo down. “I really am sorry for your loss.”
“I’d have hated to tell Mandy she’s just my half sister. We’ve been sisters all our life. Today would have been incredibly rough on her.”
Connor shook his head. “Today wouldn’t have changed anything; you’re always family.” He tugged out a card and wrote two numbers on the back. “Anything bothers you in the next few weeks, even a cat walking on the fire escape, give me a call. Marsh or I will be around.”
“I appreciate it, Connor.” She slid the card into her pocket.
“Show me out, Marie, lock up, and then get ready to meet Daniel. I’ll give him a call before then with a list of items I think need dealt with. You’ll like Granger; he’s a good police chief. And if he suggests anything else tonight, take his advice.”
“I’ll do that.” Marie saw the clock as she turned off the office light. Connor had been with her almost two hours. He was doing quite a favor for a friend.
Connor stepped outside and zipped his jacket, then turned to walk back to join her again. “Would you mind terribly if you heard Marsh proposed to Tracey?”
She blinked, then smiled. “I wouldn’t mind at all.”
Connor smiled back. “Good.”
“You know something, don’t you?”
He stepped away, pulling on gloves. “Nope. I swear. But my mom calls me a touch of a romantic. Let’s just say I had hopes for this weekend before today arrived.”
“I did too.”
“Did you?” He grinned. “I’ll see you around, Marie.”
Connor shoved the door closed to the police chief’s office with his foot and searched for the item in the thick file he remembered. “Chief, I don’t know what to think.” Granger had canceled two appointments on the strength of his request for half an hour of his time as soon as possible, and Connor wasn’t one to shy away from giving his boss a gut reaction to events, not when it was this serious.
“There are three sisters, not two: Mandy, Tracey, and Marie. The oldest everyone thinks is dead, murdered in New York eight years ago. Daniel thinks it, the two sisters do, the New York cops, the investigator the family had work the case. But I swear, Chief, I picked up the family photo on Marie’s desk, and I was looking at a younger photo of someone I recognized.”
Connor found the photo he sought and felt a punch in his gut; reality was even more vivid than his memory. He set it on the desk. “I will swear on my grandmother’s grave that lady is the oldest sister, Mandy, and she was very much alive as of three years ago.”
Connor watched the chief shift the photo over to his side of the desk and pick it up. He was quiet for an unusually long time. “The sisters, Marie and Tracey, their last name is Griffin? Daniel didn’t say.”
“Yeah.”
The chief tapped the photo. “Meet Amanda Griffin; Amy to her friends, Mandy to her family.”
Connor dropped into a chair. “I was hoping I wasn’t right. The sister was staying in this town under the name Kelly Brown, while her sisters thought she was dead? What kind of oldest sister is that?”
“One afraid they’d be dead if she showed up alive.”
That simple statement on the chief’s part told Connor a whole lot of case was out there he’d never even had a clue existed. “I stepped into something I shouldn’t have, didn’t I?”
Luke smiled. “Well, for what it’s worth, you caught a wrinkle others had missed.” He nodded to the photo he held. “Kelly Brown, Ann Walsh-she’s used those and probably quite a few more names over the years. The sisters believe she’s dead?”
“They’re absolutely convinced of it. They think she was murdered in New York eight years ago, and either the cops that worked the case did a really good snow job for some reason or they think she’s dead as well. Marie said she’d even hired a private investigator to look at it, and he also concluded the sister was dead. Her body was never found.”
“Then, Connor, you and Marsh are about to have a tough reality, because for now Amy is dead. And you two never saw the photo of Kelly Brown. Clear?”
“I can handle that part. So can Marsh. But she’s got two sisters about to be seriously rich. And I can tell you for a fact it’s not going to take long before Marie and Tracey are posting a major reward for information about their sister to try to find the body and get some closure. Marie calls it an open wound, the fact they never were able to have a funeral.”
“Okay. I’ve got some calls to make.” The chief looked at his watch. “And I’ve got a meeting with Daniel in just under two hours, and he’s bringing Marie with him. What’s she like?”
Connor smiled. “Nice. Pretty.” He thought about the last few hours, about the impression he’d been left with. “She’s a little like a pretty tiger shark. A little wary on the initial read, pretty determined on what she wants, and eyes that make you want to look back a second and third time to figure out what she’s really thinking.”
Luke chuckled. “Interesting choice of comparison, but I know what you mean. Amy was like that too. Confident, but preferring to swim alone. Keep your phone on tonight. I’ll be in touch, probably very late. You’ve got a number for Marsh?”
“Yes.”
