Page 109 of The First Gentleman

Bastinelli clicks to another image. “Your Honor, State’s exhibit sixteen. Is this the watch you found, Detective?”

“Yes, it is.”

“And how deep in the ground was the watch buried?”

“About three feet below where the bracelet was discovered,” Gagnon answers.

Damn it! IknewI should have dug deeper!

Bastinelli clicks to a close-up. “There’s an inscription on the back of the watch. Detective, can you tell us what the inscription says?”

“Yes,” says Gagnon. “It says, ‘To CW from BC, with love.’”

I don’t know who BC is. It doesn’t matter. I just know it’s not Brea Cooke.

All I care about is CW.

Because CW is Cole Wright.

Ithasto be.

CHAPTER

99

Tess Hardy’s turn. The defense attorney strides forward and stops a few feet short of the witness stand.

“Sergeant Gagnon, good morning.”

“It’sDetectiveSergeant. Detective is fine.”

Hardy adjusts smoothly. “Detective,” she says, folding her hands in front of her. “Could you tell the jury how you learned the location alleged to have contained the remains of Suzanne Bonanno?”

I’m riveted—this is the police testimony of my 911 call.

“State police dispatch received an anonymous phone call that was transferred to me. The caller gave specific directions as to where Suzanne Bonanno was buried.”

“Have you identified the caller?”

“No. The call was short and not easily traceable. Probably from a burner phone.”

“Anything distinctive about the caller?”

“Female. That’s all we know.”

No link to my identity. Thank goodness.

Tess Hardy says, “Your Honor, defendant’s exhibit ten B. This is an audio exhibit.” She presses a button on the controller and a recording starts.

Oh, crap. That’smyvoice booming through the speakers!I shift uncomfortably in my seat, hoping that Ron Reynolds, the only person in the courtroom who knows my voice, won’t recognize it.

“My name doesn’t matter. Just listen. Suzanne Bonanno was buried in the woods in Seabrook, forty feet west of the Reverend Bonus Weare memorial rock—”

Hardy stops the playback. “Is that the voice you heard?”

“It is, yes.”

“Detective, are you aware that the Department of Homeland Security, NSA, and other government intelligence agencies can sometimes trace burner phones?”

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