Page 31 of 2 Sisters Murder Investigations

CHAPTER33

I WALKED GEORGE TOmy Chevy Impala, keeping an eye out for Dave and Baby, and told him, reluctantly, to hold off on what he was saying about Daisy Hansen until my sister could hear it. I trusted Baby’s instincts, her ability to read people’s emotions.

The big guy took up most of the back seat; my suspension labored audibly as we both got in. We watched shoppers crossing the parking lot, happily pushing carts of electronics and kitchenware to their cars, and a mother trying to wrangle her toddler into a car seat while two older boys fought in the back seat of an SUV. I eyed George in the rearview mirror. He was biting his already savaged fingernails.

Suddenly, Baby slipped into the passenger seat, drummed the dash, and told me to go.

“How did you lose Dave?” I asked Baby after we’d peeled out of the parking lot and I’d introduced her to George.

“I told him you’d already bounced,” she said. “I faked getting a text saying you were halfway to the safe house where we’d stashed Troy.”

She turned in her seat and skewered George with a look. “Now’s the time to spill it, dude,” she said. “Tell us where Troy is, or we’ll take this rig up to a hundred and ten miles per hour on the freeway and kick you out the door.”

“We’re not going to do that.” I twisted Baby back around by her shoulder. “But I admire your faith in this car. I’d have to strap on a rocket to get us to a hundred and ten.” I looked at George. Not even a glimmer of a smile. “We’re going to treat George like what he is, Baby. Our ally. He was just about to tell me why he thinks all of this is Daisy’s doing.”

George shifted in his seat, heaved another exhaust-blast sigh. I felt it on the back of my neck.

“I don’t ... I’m not saying I know for sure.” He nibbled his nails. “It’s just ... Troy is a straight arrow. Okay? He’s — he’s not what the people on the internet are saying he is. There’s a whole channel on YouTube devoted to finding out who he’s having an affair with right now. Because it’s only dudes who have affairs, right? Not true.”

“Get specific,” I said. “You said Daisy was behind this. What did you mean exactly?”

“I mean Daisy was the one having an affair,” George said.

Baby and I looked at each other. Then the inevitable text from Dave Summerly flashed up on the screen of my phone, which sat propped in the ashtray.

Not cool, Rhonda.

Los Angeles rolled by us, shadows of palm trees streaking the little gray stores of the jewelry district with their gates and barred windows. The trees made dark silhouettes in the gold haze.

“Troy called me a few days ago,” George Crawley said. “The cops were starting to come down harder and harder on him, like something was wrong over there at the house. At first they sat him down for a bunch of talks, and it was all very low-key. But Troy said that things were becoming hostile. Their tone was changing from, like,Oh, man, you’re overreacting. She’s an adult. She’ll probably come home soontoSo what were you doing that night?andWhy didn’t you call us earlier?Troy asked me to come over and hang with him. He was freaked out. We were both freaked out.”

I felt the atmosphere in the car closing in.

“We tried watching a movie, but we just couldn’t stop talking about Daisy and what had maybe happened,” George said. “Troy still had his phone and stuff back then, but he had a feeling that the cops were going to confiscate his electronics and he wanted to be able to keep in touch with me. So he fished out an old phone from a drawer. It was Daisy’s old phone, from before she upgraded. He told me to go plug it in, charge it up. But when I went to plug it in, I saw it was already charged. It was just switched off. And it even had a new SIM card.”

My stomach sank. Baby was still as a stone.

“You already had suspicions,” I said, trying to keep my tone even, non-accusatory. “It would take more than an unexplained second phone to bring you all the way to ‘She’s having an affair.’ You found messages that proved it.”

“Did you go through the call log?” Baby asked.

“It was empty. There were no messages either. But I poked around on the phone and I found the messaging app she’d installed. It was hidden.”

“Seems like overkill to have a hidden app on a hidden phone,” Baby said.

George wiped his puffy, tearstained cheeks. “Daisy’s a very beautiful woman. She was, like, prom queen. Troy and me, we’re sort of ... you know. The last guys picked for the team. The two of them, Troy and Daisy, met online. Texted for months before they actually met. I think that was the only reason he had a shot with someone like her. Hooking her before she found out how weird he was in person.”

“Why would Troy hire my agency and not tell me that Daisy was having an affair?”

“He doesn’t know.”

“He doesn’tknow?” Baby whirled around. “You didn’t tell him?”

“Chill!” I turned Baby around again.

“The guy’s wife disappears, and you know who she likely ran off with, andyou don’t tell him?” Baby’s voice filled the car. “It doesn’t make any sense!”

“I didn’t know how to tell him!” George’s face crumpled and he burst into fresh tears. “Troy’s my best friend! He’s my only friend!”

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