Page 106 of Liar's Point

He glanced up, and the excited look in Adam’s eyes pulled his attention away from the report.

“I do, yeah.”

“So, yesterday you said you thought that name Sam Pacheco gave us was bullshit.”

Emmet leaned back in his chair. “Brenden. What about it?”

“Well, I wanted to follow up. I think it’s important that we nail down who Aubrey Lambert spent the night with right before she was murdered.”

“You’re right, we should.”

“And I figured it out. I went to her AA group that meets over at the Methodist church and interviewed a couple people who knew her. Turns out, she’s got a boyfriend there in the group.”

“Her AA group,” Emmet said.

“Yeah.”

Emmet stared at him, impressed. “Who is this boyfriend?”

Adam pulled a spiral notebook from his pocket. He was in his field uniform today—a navy golf shirt and brown tactical pants—and Emmet tried to picture him crashing some AA meeting. He needed to learn how to look less conspicuous.

“Scott Kinney,” Adam said. “He’s thirty-six.”

“Yeah? Interesting. And he admits to being Aubrey’s boyfriend?”

“Well, I don’t know if ‘boyfriend’ is really the term,” Adam said. “Sounds more like friend with benefits. He said they hooked up every now and then. Including last Friday.”

“This guy seem legit?”

“Yeah, I mean, he admitted spending the night with her, didn’t seem evasive about it or anything.”

Emmet laced his hands together behind his head. “What about his demeanor? He seem broken up about her death?”

“Honestly? Not so much. I don’t think he really knew her all that well.”

“He have an alibi for the time of the murder?”

“I asked that. Indirectly. He said he flew to Dallas on Saturday afternoon for some kind of meeting.”

“So, he was in Dallas?”

“That’s what he claims.”

Emmet watched him, trying to gauge the usefulness of this new lead. Adam was fairly new at detective work, so Emmet wasn’t sure he trusted his judgment on whether or not this guy was being straight.

“Nice work.”

Adam smiled. “Thanks.”

“We’ll need to corroborate his story.”

“Yeah, I know. I wasn’t planning to just take him at his word.”

The chief leaned his head into the conference room. “Good, you’re here.”

“What’s up?” Emmet asked, and he could tell from Brady’s expression something was wrong.

“Just got a call from the crime lab.”

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