Robby’s gaze shifted full on to Kerri’s. “In fifteen years, not a day or a night has gone by that I haven’t worried that he’d come back and want something else. I knew what I’d done—whatever he had done—was bad. Really bad.”

Falco asked, “Did this man ever approach you again?”

“Before you say more,” Diana said to Robby, her hands up in a sort of surrender, “let me talk.”

Robby didn’t look happy about it, but he nodded for her to go ahead.

She cleared her throat. “Around that same time, maybe a few months later, a man approached me at the little studio I leased when I first started out.”

“I remember the one,” Kerri said. Little was a generous description. Her sister had worked really hard to move up from there.

Diana nodded, drew in a shaky breath. “He was widowed and had a little girl. She was four at the time. She was very shy. He said she just hadn’t been the same since her mother died. He wanted me to give her private classes. At first I refused because honestly I couldn’t afford to spend the time with just one child. I needed at least ten students in each class to make it financially feasible.”

She looked to Robby, and he took her hand in his before she continued. “He offered me two hundred dollars per session. All I had to do was work with her one on one for one hour each week.”

Kerri made a surprised face. “Wow.”

Diana shook her head slowly from side to side. “He was so nice, and his little girl was so sad. God knows I needed the money, so I said yes.” She moistened her lips. “These private lessons continued for the next several years, and I put aside most of it. I really wanted to be able to one day buy a studio of my own. As luck would have it, the place I’m in now came available. But I didn’t have enough for a proper down payment, and the interest rate was insane. This man offered to give me an interest-free loan. I refused, of course.” She drew in a big breath. “The next thing I knew, he’d bought the studio and handed me the deed. He said I could pay him back in whatever way worked for me.” She turned to her husband. “I never told Robby. I didn’t want him to worry that I was getting in over my head or that there was something else going on.”

Robby put his arm around her. “Because I had kept my mouth shut, she had no idea that the man who’d been bringing his daughter to her all that time was the same one who showed up at my shop late that night wanting his car repaired.”

Kerri suddenly felt sick to her stomach. She knew where this was going.

“Have you,” Falco asked Robby again, “heard from him since that first time?”

“Not until just over two weeks ago. He came to my shop and said he had another job for me. This time he was going to give me cash. All I had to do was damage the braking system on a car so that the brakes would fail. He would see that the car was brought to me, and I would never know who it belonged to or anything.”

Kerri held her breath. But she knew Robby. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt another human. Neither would Diana.

“I told him no way. I couldn’t do it. He reminded me that I owed him a big debt of gratitude. That I still had my business, and it was flourishing because of what he did for me. I told him that was payment for a service I provided. He said it was more than that; it was tampering with evidence, and if I didn’t do what he needed me to do, the police might find out. I figured he had as much to lose as I did, so I stood my ground.”

“Did he let it go at that?” Kerri had to ask. Deep down she knew there was more. What Robby had said about Amelia when he and Diana first arrived kept echoing in her head.

“He said okay, if that’s the way I wanted to do things, but he warned I would regret turning him down. Then he left.”

“But that wasn’t the end of it,” Falco suggested.

Robby shook his head. “A few minutes after he left, another man came in demanding to know if I was working for the first guy. I told him no and made up a story about why he’d stopped by. This guy was livid. But I couldn’t tell him what he really wanted to know. I was already scared shitless of what the bastard would do to me for saying no. This other guy finally left, and then a few days later he was all over the news.” Robby dropped his head. “He was Ben Abbott, and the next time I saw his face, he had been murdered.”

His words seemed to echo in the abrupt silence for five or so seconds.

Kerri took a moment to absorb what he’d just said. “Who was the other man—the first one?” She glanced at Falco. They both already knew the answer.

“Lewis York.”

Another look passed between Kerri and her partner, but neither of them reacted. No matter that she had a million questions and her heart was pounding, she needed to hear whatever else Diana and Robby had to say.

“Then,” Diana said, “on Sunday he stopped by my house. I haven’t given his daughter a lesson since she went off to college, and I repaid the loan before that, but suddenly there he was at my door. He’d never come to my house before. He said he just wanted to tell me how much they loved Amelia at the firm and how they planned to donate generously for any needs beyond her scholarship.”

Kerri’s lips tightened. Arrogance personified. The bastard. “Did he pressure you in any way?”

Diana shook her head. “No, but it felt strange . . . as if he wanted to remind me of who he was and all he’d done for our family.”

“He called me that same day,” Robby put in, “just to remind me that I owed him and that he was still planning to collect. After all that’s happened this week with Amelia, I’d had enough. I went to his office this afternoon.” The big guy took a moment to compose himself. “I told him if he’d done anything to hurt Amelia, I would make him pay. I didn’t like it when she went to work there, but she was so happy. I didn’t want to do anything to ruin it for her.”

“What did York say?” Kerri prompted, ushering him back on track, dread thickening in her throat.

“He told me to go home and remember that I still have two kids and a wife and that I should take better care of them.” Robby stood. “I saw it in his eyes. He did something to my girl. I know he did.”

“Robby,” Kerri said, adrenaline burning through her, “before you say anything else, you need to know your rights.” This was skirting into dangerous territory, and she did not want to risk Robby incriminating himself further.

“I don’t give a damn about my rights, Kerri. Amelia is missing, and that son of a bitch did something to her. I know it!”

“First,” Falco said, “I need you to think about what York asked you to do. Did he mention Abbott’s name or what kind of car he wanted you to sabotage?”

Robby shook his head. “No. He didn’t. I assumed since Abbott stormed in right after his visit and then turned up dead a few days later that it was about him. Why else would he have been following York around? He knew the guy was up to something that involved him and his family.” Robby swore. “I let that happen.”

“You’re right about Abbott,” Kerri said, drawing him from that guilt-ridden path for now. “I just don’t know if that conclusion will be enough to get the powers that be to allow us to move on York. I know you’re telling the truth, Robby, but in the court’s eyes this will be your word against his, and he’s a very powerful man.”

Robby stared at the ceiling and expelled every profane word in his vocabulary, all directed at York.

“What kind of damage was done to the car you repaired for him fifteen years ago?” Falco asked.

“Front bumper. He said he hit a deer, but I didn’t believe him. I think it was a person. This was a sedan. You hit a full-grown deer straight on in a sedan, the animal is coming up on the hood. Deer are top heavy. You hit a person straight on, it’s a little different. They’re most likely going down. Whatever he hit went down. I looked under the car, and there was . . .” He took a breath. “A hunk of meat trapped . . .” He shook his head, as if trying to clear the image from his mind. “Whoever he hit, they didn’t survive. Couldn’t have.”

Diana covered her mouth with her hands, her eyes filling with tears.

“We need the exact date this happened,” Falco pressed.

“August first, fifteen years ago.”

“Jesus,” Kerri said. “That’s the last day anyone saw Janelle Stevens.”

“If we could tie him to this,” Falco said, “we could take the son of a bitch down.”

Kerri reminded her partner of their current reality. “Robby’s word against York’s. We all know how that will go. Hell, the LT will remind me that all these people—Jen included—are my family.”

“Jen talked to you too?” Diana asked, regret filling her dark eyes.

“She did.” These bastards had hurt this family and too many others to count.

Falco shook his head. “We can’t just let this go.”

Kerri wanted to scream, but she refrained. “What do you suggest we do beyond what we’ve planned?”

“I have evidence.”