Red saved her by taking the lead. “What’s the plan now?”
“We’ll take it from here. Agent Phipps and I will go to the house and see what we can find out. Ask some questions.” She nodded to Phipps. “We’ll use the Lake Charles police for backup.”
Rachel watched as Phipps walked away, phoning the local department.
Krapek looked sternly at Rachel. “You guys can wait here. I’ll let you know what we find.”
Rachel was itching to go along, but she knew Krapek was already pissed at her for not telling her about the lake house
sooner. She didn’t want to push it with her. But she couldn’t stand to sit and wait at the hotel, either.
“Can I speak to you in private?” Rachel asked Krapek. She wanted to tell her about spotting the boy. This was something she didn’t want Matt to hear. They took a walk outside while the rest of the party waited in the lobby.
“I can’t say that I’m too happy about you keeping this information from us,” Krapek said.
“We weren’t sure at first if it was anything worth your time,” Rachel said, leaning against the sedan. “There is one more thing you should know, and it’s something I didn’t want Matt to overhear. But I think you need to know before confronting Melinda.”
Rachel told her about seeing a blond-haired boy through the lake house window when she and Red had been on the boat. “He was on the second floor, probably in one of the bedrooms.”
“Are you sure it was Patrick O’Malley you spotted?” Krapek asked.
“Not one hundred percent. But it was definitely a young boy, blond hair, with the same build and frame as Patrick. I’m just going on what I’ve seen in photos given to me.”
“What about the girl? Mary Katherine?” Krapek asked.
“No sign of her,” Rachel answered. “We’ve only seen Melinda and Moses outside of the home. No sign of Adam, Melinda’s brother.”
“We need to let Matt know this. In case the kids are in the house, he can be on standby. I can’t imagine what they’ve been through, and having their dad there would be comforting.”
“Please let me tell him,” Rachel said.
When they got back inside the lobby, Rachel told Matt what she had been keeping from him. “Of course, we don’t know for sure if your kids are in the house…”
“I need to be there in case it’s them,” Matt implored Krapek. “Please?”
W
ithin the hour, Rachel, Red, and Matt were situated at the end of Terre Belle anxiously waiting for Krapek and her team to investigate the lake house. It had taken some convincing, but Rachel eventually coaxed Krapek into letting them come along, explaining that she and Red would help Matt stay put while they waited to find out if his kids were in the house. Fifteen, thirty, and then forty-five minutes went by. Just as Matt was about to lose it, Agent Krapek drove down the street in her unmarked dark-blue car.
“Hop in,” she instructed Matt. “I’m going to take you to see your kids.”
Rachel and Red got into their vehicle and followed Agent Krapek’s car up to the lake house. Rachel watched Matt jump out and run into the house. By the time she’d caught up to him, Matt was sitting on the couch with Mary Kate and Patrick in his lap. The kids looked a little out of it. Rachel wasn’t sure if it was the stress of being kidnapped or if they’d been drugged. Both kids had their arms wrapped firmly around their father, quietly crying.
Rachel stepped back outside to give them some privacy. Agent Krapek walked up to her.
“I guess you want me to give a statement?” Rachel asked.
Agent Krapek tucked a stray blond hair behind her ear. “That can wait until we get back to New Orleans. You can come to the field office.”
“Bittersweet ending. How are the kids holding up?”
“Good as can be expected. They don’t know about their mother yet.”
“Is Melinda talking? I mean, do we know why she did this?”
Krapek shook her head. “We’ll get her and Moses transferred to New Orleans in the next day or two. Matt and his kids are free to go home after we get a chance to interview them.”
“What about Adam?”
“We have a BOLO on his vehicle. So far, Melinda isn’t cooperating, so we don’t know where Adam is or what his involvement is.”
“I can have Red…” Rachel started to say before Krapek cut her off.
“I don’t want you or Red doing anything else to compromise this investigation. You’ll be expected at our office tomorrow to give your statements.”
Rachel told Krapek they would be there and then left to find her partner. She told herself that finding the kids unharmed was the important thing. Everything else would work itself out.
“T
ell me more about your hunch,” said Krapek. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I want to know why I didn’t get to Donnelly’s lake house before you did.”
“Okay, here it goes,” said Rachel. She looked across the conference table at her team—Red, Stacy, Peter, and Rankin. All of them were seated around a shiny wooden conference table at the FBI’s field office in New Orleans, gathered together to discuss the O’Malley case with Agents Krapek and Phipps along with Detective Jones.
“From what we discovered, it seems Melinda O’Malley was jealous of Erin and her relationship with her husband and kids,” said Rachel. “Melinda wanted the things that Erin and Matt had. She was mad at her husband Chris for giving the family home in the Garden District to Matt. She was also envious of Erin for having two kids so easily. Melinda went through a painful miscarriage only to have her uterus taken out afterward, destroying any chance of having children. Melinda felt that she was living in Erin’s shadow.”
“It sounds like a high school vendetta gone bad,” said Krapek. “I find it hard to believe that jealousy was the sole motive for her actions.”
“There’s more,” said Rachel. “Melinda knew that Erin was having an affair with a local art dealer, Gavin Beckwith. We are speculating that Melinda plotted to have Erin killed and possibly frame Matt for the murder. She figured that exposing Erin’s affair to me would point the finger at Matt. Her plan was to get both parents out of the way so that she and Chris could take over guardianship of the children and the lofty trust fund that goes along with that responsibility. That’s why she kidnapped the children. To keep them out of view, she held them at her brother’s lake house, a place that no one knew about, and had Moses babysit them. What we can’t figure out is how she planned on explaining to the children what happened to their parents.”
Krapek cleared her throat. “I think I can clear that up for you,” she said.
“Okay, great,” said Rachel. “Does that mean so far our suspicions have been right?”
“Somewhat. Melinda was plotting to kill Erin and have Matt framed for the murder. But the murder didn’t go as planned. What she didn’t count on was Erin asphyxiating on her own vomit after she was drugged and her mouth was taped shut. Also, she didn’t count on it being such a long and difficult process to frame Matt for Erin’s murder. One mistake she made early on was to decide she could trust her convict brother Adam and his friend Moses to carry out the ridiculous plan.”
“What was their plan?” Red asked.
“The plan was for the kidnapping to take place at the O’Malley home prior to soccer practice. Adam’s friend, Moses, was dressed as a homeless person and was supposed to distract Matt while Adam broke into the house and subdued the wife and kids. But there was a problem. Apparently Adam got nervous and didn’t go through with it. So they decided to do it after soccer practice. While the O’Malleys were on the field, Adam slashed one of the tires, hoping they’d have a flat by the time practice was over. But
he didn’t plan for the tire not to go flat right away. Another wrinkle in the plans.” Agent Krapek paused and took a sip of her coffee.
Agent Phipps picked up where she left off. “They followed the O’Malleys from the soccer field to the gas station. As you guys found out,” Phipps said, nodding to Red, “Adam was caught on tape buying snacks while Matt was pumping gas. After the O’Malleys left the gas station, the tire finally gave out. Adam approached Matt while he was inspecting the tire and clubbed him over the head. Moses grabbed Erin and the kids and injected them with a sedative. The two men dragged the kids and Erin into the car and threw Matt in the trunk, then drove back to Adam’s house. There, they moved the kids and Erin to another car. Adam turned around, drove Matt to Baton Rouge, and dumped him, still unconscious, behind the Dumpster near the truck stop.
“Meanwhile, Moses was supposed to drive Erin and the kids to the lake house. But Erin aspirated on her own vomit while her mouth was taped shut. Thankfully, we don’t think the kids witnessed their mom’s demise, since they were heavily drugged. After dropping off the kids at the lake house, Moses waited for Adam. When Adam arrived, he told him about Erin’s death. Moses drove Erin’s body to Houma, where his dad has a fishing cabin. He got a boat and then dumped her body near a fish camp that his father owned, hoping the gators would take care of her body, which is what happened—well, except for the fact that they didn’t finish off her arm. Anyway, the other thing that Moses didn’t count on was being confronted by that local fisherman.” Phipps paused to consult his notes. “Um, Aaron Boudreaux. The details he gave us led to us finding a cabin owned by Moses’s father, which is what we were investigating when we got the call from you guys about the house in Lake Charles.”
Agent Krapek chimed in. “After Melinda reported to Rachel about Erin’s affair, she was waiting to see how it played out, hoping that Matt would be arrested for the murder of his wife. While she waited on that news, she returned to Lake Charles to check on
the kids. She didn’t want them to see her, so she had Moses keep them drugged and locked away upstairs while she was there. We found bottles of Valium in the house. Her big idea was that she’d have Moses take them to a gas station and leave them, then call in an anonymous tip to the police. Melinda wanted to be the hero and ‘rescue’ the children. She didn’t foresee that Matt wouldn’t be picked up as a suspect in Erin’s murder, or that he would trail her instead—and ruin her plans.”
“So, the whole time, Melinda was hoping that you would take a hard look at Matt for Erin’s death and put him away?” Rachel asked.
Krapek nodded. “She’s now being held in Orleans Parish Prison without bond pending her hearing. Melinda has been maintaining her innocence despite her brother’s collaboration with the police. He took a deal to turn on his sister and Moses.”
Rachel was amazed at the lengths some people would go to to get what they wanted. Melinda had hoped that with Erin and Matt out of the picture, she and Chris would move into the Garden District mansion and have the life and the huge bank accounts she so desperately wanted. Who knows, maybe she’d even planned to try to parent Erin’s kids, and make them her own. Rachel grimly wondered how Melinda and her gang had planned to murder Erin and whether they’d been worried when they’d had to deal with her accidental death by asphyxiation instead. Not that it mattered now. The key thing was that the children had been found.
After her meeting with the feds, Rachel went back to the hotel to pack. She was ready to get back to Miami first thing in the morning and start fresh on the leads to find Mallory. A knock at the door caught her attention. She was surprised to find Matt standing there with his kids and his brother Chris.
Matt hugged Rachel. “How can I ever thank you?”
“Seeing you with your kids is thanks enough.”
“Seriously. If you ever need anything, I’m forever indebted to you.”
Chris stood to the side, his hands in his jean pockets. “Can we talk in private?”
“Sure.” Rachel walked with him out to the hallway.
“I just wanted to say thank you as well. As you can tell, I’m still in a bit of shock over all this. Melinda would be the last person I’d ever expect to pull off something like this. She adored those kids in there. Melinda spoiled them more than Erin and Matt did. I just can’t believe she did this.”
“We were surprised ourselves. Hopefully now you’ll be able to move past it and help your brother with the children.”
Matt and his kids came out and joined them in the hallway.
“Thanks again, Rachel.”
“Well, you’re very welcome,” Rachel squeezed his hands. “Good luck with everything.”
B
right and early the next morning, Rachel dragged her luggage down to the lobby and waited as Red pulled the rental car around to pick her up.
“Ready for our flight home?” he asked.
“Yes. It’ll be good to see Mags and get back in the groove of things. Tracking down Scotty Jensen is high on my list of things to do.”
“You haven’t heard from him again?” Red asked.
“No, he hasn’t called. I don’t know whether I should be thankful or worried.”
“He’s a nut job, that’s for sure,” Red said as he drove them to the airport.
The drive took about twenty minutes. The airport was busy, and they had just a few minutes to check in and get to their gate.
“Want me to return the car while you check us in?” Rachel offered.
“Yeah. Drop me off here.” Red grabbed their bags and headed inside.
As Rachel continued to the car rental drop-off, her cell phone rang. She looked at the caller ID. Unknown number. A chill ran up her spine. Was it Scotty again?
“Rachel Scott,” she answered.
“I know where Mallory is.”
Rachel slammed on her brakes and pulled the car over in front of the car rental return.
“What? Who is this?” Rachel asked her caller.
A woman’s voice answered her. “I only have a minute so listen carefully because I’m only saying this once. Mallory’s in Atlanta. I have the address.”
Rachel scrambled for a pen and piece of paper, her heart hammering against her chest.
“Give it to me,” she said, her hands shaking.
As she wrote the address down and repeated it back, she realized that this could be just a crank call. Scotty’s way of messing with her and throwing her off the track. Then suddenly she remembered Verdene’s advice. “Go with your gut,” she’d told Rachel.