Triple Cross

“What about it?” the former editor said, more wary than frightened now.

Moore said, “I told you to shut up, Suzanne.”

“Did you have a hand in writing the proposal, Suzanne?”

Liu glanced at Moore. “Of course I did. She’s a first-timer.”

Moore scowled.

“Doesn’t know how to put that kind of thing together?”

“Lisa’s a quick learner, but yes. I helped her structure it, showed her the format. Sample chapters. Outline. Market analysis.”

“And you knew whom to approach at various houses.”

“I was always aware of my competition, so yes,” she said, on firmer ground now.

“Did you gin it up?” Sampson said.

“What do you mean?”

“Embellish the story? Add details that might or might not be true?”

“This is nonfiction. Lisa stands by the facts in the proposal and so do I.”

“One hundred percent?” Mahoney said, studying Moore.

“To the best of my knowledge, everything is true, yes,” Liu said. “Why?”

I sat forward. “Because we went through the proposal and compared it to our timeline of events and then ran it all by Thomas Tull.”

“Thomas?” Moore said. “Why would you do that? He’s a stone-cold killer.”

“He claims an ironclad alibi for the night the Kanes were killed,” I said. “Says he was miles away, and yet his hair was somehow found at the scene.”

“Because he was there,” Moore said.

“Or someone else was. Someone involved in a frame job.”

CHAPTER 101

MOORE CONTINUED TO STAY COOL. But Liu shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

I knew we’d agreed to focus on the former book editor, but I felt like it was time to turn the pressure up on both of them.

I pulled a sheaf of papers from my jacket. “This is your book proposal. Tull disputes some of these facts.”

“Of course he does,” Liu said.

“And there are other facts here that you could not have known about because we have not released them.”

Moore’s gaze was steady, but her girlfriend’s eyes shifted low and to the right.

Liu said, “Like what?”

“Like the fact that the murder weapon was not found in the gun safe in Tull’s storage unit but in a filing cabinet against the back wall.”

“Lisa said she got that from one of the officers on the scene,” Liu said.

Sampson smiled. “Except we were the only officers on the scene and neither of us saw or spoke to her about that search or any other aspect of the investigation. Isn’t that right, Ms. Moore?”

“That’s correct,” Moore said. “I spoke with two patrolmen outside the gates of the storage facility who were there after you left and then a forensics team that was sent in to tear apart Tull’s unit.”

I didn’t expect that. “You remember the officers’ names?”

“I can get them from my notes,” Moore said. “What else?”

“How about James Kenilworth?”

Moore’s face went several shades lighter.

Liu’s brows knit. “James who?”

“Kenilworth,” Sampson said.

“Never heard of James Kenilworth.”

I said, “Funny. He’s heard a whole lot about you. From Ms. Moore.”

“What?”

Mahoney said, “Turns out, Kenilworth is a two-time felon with warrants out on breaking-and-entering charges in Fort Worth. He was more than willing to tell us he’d ginned things up for Tull in the past—hired by Ms. Moore, of course. For the past three months, he’s been working solely for Moore. And, in effect, for you, Ms. Liu.”

“No,” Liu said, then looked at Moore, who was expressionless.

“Oh, yes. Mr. Kenilworth has admitted to being the intruder at the Allison home. He’s confessed to using the toupee your girlfriend gave him so he would look like Tull.”

Mahoney slid a picture of Kenilworth’s driver’s license and the still from the Allisons’ security recordings across the table. “He’s bald in real life. He’s also a runner and owns a little Jack Russell terrier named Sparkle. He does look a heck of a lot like Thomas Tull with the toupee on, doesn’t he?”

Liu looked at the pictures and then at Moore. “Lisa?”

“Shut up, Suzanne,” Moore said. “For once, shut up.”

I nodded to Sampson, telling him I was setting him up for the kill.

Then I turned back to Moore. “You went on the laptop in Tull’s office and called up Google Earth and the Allisons’ house and the Kanes’, then left the app running.”

Tull’s researcher said nothing.

Sampson opened a large manila envelope he’d brought in with him. “While my colleagues were placing you both under arrest, I was executing a search warrant on your Airbnb apartment. And look what we found on a shelf in one of the closets.”

He drew out an evidence bag containing a baggie holding several locks of sandy-brown hair.

“We haven’t tested them yet, but they are the right color,” I said. “And they sure look about the same length as the hairs we found at the Kane crime scene and later identified as Tull’s.”

Liu stared at the hair, then at Moore, then at Sampson. “Which bedroom?”

Mahoney pointed at Moore and said, “It gets worse.”