Page 66 of The Perfect Divorce

“None of that’s true.”

“I didn’t say it was, but those are the optics right now. And what about those text messages with Stacy? Why didn’t you mention those before?”

“It slipped my mind,” I say with a heavy sigh.

“Jesus, Bob. My best legal advice for you right now is to lay low, leave your wife alone, and stay far away from this investigation.”

“No, I’m going to prove Sarah’s behind this. I’ve got eyes on her, and she’ll eventually slip up,” I say, pressing my lips firmly together.

“Hold up.” Brad lifts his hand. “What do you mean you have eyes on Sarah?”

“Exactly what it sounds like. I put a tracker on her car too. So, I’ve got all my bases covered, and if she goes anywhere out of the ordinary?—”

“Bob!” he interrupts, gritting his teeth. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? If she finds out about any of that, you’ll be even more screwed than you already are!”

“How could it get any worse than it already is?”

Brad pans his hand across the air in front of him like he’s reading the marquee of a theater. “After wife of cheating husband files for divorce, she finds GPS tracker on her car placed there by said cheating husband.How does that sound? Do you think you’ll have a shot in hell of getting any custody rights for Summer?”

“I just need to figure out one thing, that’s all, and then it’s over, for good.”

Brad scrunches his face at me. “Whatever you’re cooking up, you need to do it quickly and quietly. As your friend, I understand why you’re not doing your best right now, but as your lawyer”—Brad steps toward me and pats the side of my arm—“you need to get your shit together or a divorce is going to be the least of your worries.”

I nod in reply. I know he’s right; I know I must seem like the crazy, desperate, spiraling husband, but he doesn’t know what I know. He doesn’t know what lengths Sarah will go to to get what she wants. I just need to beat her at her own game, and the only way I’m going to do that is if I accelerate my pace and do what she thinks I’m incapable of. Because if anyone can best Sarah, it’s me.

Brad turns to head toward his car. “Hey, remember that thing you told me about?” He stops and snaps his fingers. “The one you said that would ensure you get full custody of Summer. What is it?”

“It’s a smoking gun with the trail wisping right back to Sarah. But...” I pause, deciding whether or not I should bring Brad in on this.

“But what?”

“It has far more implications than just helping me get custody of Summer,” I say.

“Okay, but what exactly is it?”

I let out a heavy sigh, staring at the ground for a moment before I meet Brad’s gaze. “It’s better if I show you.”

THIRTY-FIVE

SHERIFF HUDSON

Chief Deputy Olson finishes tacking photos of the two missing women onto the corkboard in the briefing room. Stacy Howard and Carissa Brooks stare back at me, smiling, both with at least fifty years of life still ahead of them... hopefully. Their pictures now hang in a place no one ever wants their photo to end up. The evidence we have on their disappearances so far is minimal—a busted-up salon; two abandoned cars, one empty, the other containing a cell phone; Bob Miller’s business card; and blood we’re still waiting on the results for. It’s a shame we didn’t have a tail on Bob the night Carissa went missing. That would have really helped, but we’re short-staffed and we’ve got too many fires to put out.

My on-duty deputies slowly trickle into the room, and I wait for them to get seated and settled.

“All right, everyone, busy Tuesday; we have a ton of groundwork to do and we’re running out of time, so let’s get started.”

I walk over to the corkboard and point at the photos of Stacy and Carissa hanging in suspension, much like their well-being.

“Stacy Howard and Carissa Brooks. These two names should be very familiar to you. Missing person cases are some of the most time sensitive we deal with, and I don’t need to tell you all that every second counts. What do we have so far? Unfortunately, very little. There have been no updates on the Howard case since the last briefing, and we’re still waiting on the forensics results from the crime scene at the salon.” I clear my throat. “Like the Howard case, BCI has facilitated putting out a critically missing adult alert for Carissa Brooks as well as a media release and social media posts. We’re hoping we’ll get a solid tip from the public.”

I grab a photograph from the table in front of me and pin it up on the corkboard beside the two missing women. “Bob Miller,” I say, pointing to the professional headshot we pulled from the Williamson, Miller & Associates website, “is a person of interest in both cases. According to our findings, he’s the last person to have had contact with either woman prior to their disappearances.”

“Why isn’t he in custody then?” Sergeant Lantz asks. As usual, he’s leaned up against the back wall with his arms folded over his chest.

“We don’t have enough to charge him yet. At this point, everything is circumstantial. Olson and I brought him in for questioning this morning, but his lawyer stonewalled much of it, and Mr. Miller didn’t offer up anything of substance. He did admit that wewouldfind his blood in the salon, but he had a somewhat plausible story for why it ended up there. However, we still have to wait on lab results from the scene anyway.”

A deputy raises a hand before speaking. “What do we know about Carissa Brooks? Aside from being Bob’s hairstylist, how else is she connected to him?”

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