Page 4 of Into the Veins
“We won’t know until we locate him. Agent Reese, why don’t you check the back? I’m on channel four. Colson and I will take the front.” She rang the doorbell a third time as the agent peeled from their group and headed around the property. But not without mouthing the word Colson in her own annoying way. Blair peered between the glass windowpanes, searching for movement or a struggle. White marble stretched from the front door toward the back of the house. No signs of blood or a disturbance. She pinched the push-to-talk button of the radio strapped to her left shoulder then released it as an outline solidified on the other side of the door. Blair stepped back as the door wrenched open.
Braydon Caddel—at least a haggard, sleep-drugged version of him— squinted into the afternoon sunlight. Dark hair stood in disoriented spikes as the victim’s husband centered a pair of round wire-frame glasses on his face. A few days of beard growth roughened a boyish face, despite the fact Caddel stood well above six-feet and obviously kept himself in shape. The stained and crumpled T-shirt said Caddel hadn’t changed his clothes in a while. “Can I help you?”
“Braydon Caddel? I’m Sheriff Sanders, and this is my partner Colson Rutherford. We have a few questions for you about your wife, Rachel.” Flashing her badge, she listened for sounds of the couple’s two children. Four and six. Low music tendrilled through the front door. A TV? “May we come inside?”
“I can’t believe she called the police.” Braydon scrubbed a hand down his face, and the hit of mint toothpaste filled her nostrils. The man had woken up in the middle of the day, apparently unconcerned his wife had gone missing. “It was a fight. Couples fight. Okay? I lost my temper, and she left right after that. I never touched her. I swear. I haven’t even talked to Rachel in two days. She won’t pick up her phone.”
Shock solidified in her gut.
“Mr. Caddel, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but your wife was found dead this morning on the Rattlesnake Mountain trail.” Colson hauled one foot to the edge of the step leading into the home.
Informing a loved one—no matter how estranged—had always left her with a heavy sense of empathy and guilt, and a shot of appreciation swarmed through her from Colson’s efficient delivery. He’d taken that task off her shoulders. Maybe there was a way she’d close her eyes tonight and actually be able to sleep.
“What? No. That’s not possible. She was here… She was...” Caddel swayed on his feet as the color drained from his face. His expression crumpled under the weight of apparent grief, but Blair had been involved in plenty of homicide investigations not to trust the masks people wore to protect themselves. The truth was, Braydon Caddel had the most to gain from his wife’s death, and if Rachel hadn’t been willing to grant her husband the divorce he’d asked for, murder was another way to get what he wanted. Caddel leaned against the doorframe for support before turning rich, dark eyes on her. “You’re positive it was Rachel?”
“DNA and dental records confirm the victim’s identity, Mr. Caddel.” Blair nodded. “Perhaps you’d like to call a family member to stay with your children while you answer some questions for us.”
“Uh, the kids are…” Caddel took a moment to compose himself as though realizing the world didn’t stop turning because his wife’s remains had been found. “They’re at school. Rachel offered to pick them up this afternoon. We were all going to go to dinner. How am I supposed to tell them their mother is dead? What am I supposed to say?”
“Mr. Caddel, we have reason to believe your wife was murdered.” Colson hiked his hands to his hips again as Agent Reese rounded back to the front of the property and took position at the base of the stairs. “We need to know where you were this morning between four and five.”
“Murdered? No. Everyone loved Rachel,” Caddel said. “She helped thousands of business owners and women build confidence through her platform and books. Who would want to kill her?”
“Your whereabouts, sir?” Blair didn’t miss the misdirection and complete avoidance of the question. Her instincts kicked into high gear as she took in the dark circles under his eyes and the gray parlor to his skin.
“I was here, asleep. All I’ve been doing lately is sleeping. That’s why Rachel and I fought two nights ago.” Caddel shook his head. “I haven’t been able to go into work, I’ve been missing meetings. I was supposed to be watching the kids while she was doing a live TV interview in her office the other night, but I fell asleep on the couch. The kids barged in on her in the middle of the interview. She had to end it early, which set her off. She’s always had a temper, but I’d never seen her like that before.”
“You left a lucrative career as an executive at one of the biggest production companies in the world to become Rachel’s CEO.” Blair was starting to fit the pieces together. “That must’ve been hard to give up your career and be thrown into working with your wife for half the pay. Maybe some resentment built?”
Colson’s body language tightened as he pulled his foot from the step. Understanding seemed to compel him to stand straighter. “Is that why you filed for divorce the day before she disappeared?”
Surprise widened Braydon Caddel’s eyes, and he backed away from the door slightly as though he’d physically taken a blow to the gut. “How do you know about that?”
“We know a lot of things, Mr. Caddel. We know with Rachel dead, you stand to inherit everything she built, that you don’t have anybody to corroborate your alibi the night she disappeared, and we know you must not have been making as much money in your wife’s startup as you were in your former career.” Blair commandeered the lead. No matter how much information Colson Rutherford had on this particular victim, this was still her case. “Filing for divorce was a good move on your part, but once you realized the courts wouldn’t rule in your favor when it came to dividing assets and parental visitation, you got angry. You gave up your career. You should’ve been able to walk away with something, right?”
“What? No, that’s not what… You’ve got this all wrong,” Caddel said.
“Money is the largest contributing factor to marriages ending in divorce,” January said. “Not being able to agree on a sustainable budget, future planning, or to build healthy financial habits you both agree to can put a strain on a relationship. Yours would just be one of thousands every year.”
“The divorce wasn’t about money. Okay? Our company is pulling in ten times what I earned as an executive, and I didn’t resent her for making me her CEO.” Braydon Caddel ran a hand through his matted hair. “We did that so Rachel could focus on the creative aspects of the company and not have to worry about hiring, financials, or day-to-day operations. She felt like she was suffocating under all the small details of running a business, and that it was getting in the way of her creativity, so she asked me to step in as CEO. It was the best decision we’ve made. The company is growing faster than we projected. Everything we have is because of Rachel. I didn’t kill her. I’m the one who told her father she might be missing when she didn’t come home. Why would I do that if I planned on killing her?”
“To shore up your alibi is one reason I can think of off the top of my head,” Colson said. “If it wasn’t about money, why file for divorce?”
Defeat hollowed Caddel’s cheeks and aged the victim’s husband another ten years right in front of Blair’s eyes. “Rachel was obsessed with social media. That’s where her business started, but it was getting out of control. She couldn’t put her phone down when we sat down to dinner with the kids. She was always checking her likes and how many followers she’d accrued after every post on date night. If her post wasn’t getting the amount of attention she’d expected, she’d panic. Start promoting it more, creating another post.” A humorless laugh shook Caddel’s shoulders. “One comment could alter her mood from one extreme to the other. No matter how many times I asked her to give her phone a break, she wouldn’t do it. It felt like we were fighting about it every day. We had an amazing life, but that wasn’t good enough for her. I mean, even our boys couldn’t get her to pay attention to them. The fight we had the night before she disappeared… I told her what I’d done. I wasn’t going to go through with it, but filing for the divorce…”
“It was supposed to be a wake-up call.” Blair relaxed her hands to her sides. But had it worked, or had the victim’s addiction taken complete control? Rachel Faulkner had lived a perfectly curated life for the masses of followers who hung on her every word, but she hadn’t been able to see the love she’d already had in front of her. Staged. Filtered. Perfectly designed. As though she’d had something to prove. “All right. If you’re telling the truth, can you think of anyone who might’ve resented your wife, had any recent disagreements with her, or can you think of any threats she’d had? Maybe a run in with one of your employees?”
“Everyone loved Rachel. I would’ve heard if one of our people had complained or had a problem with her, but I can double-check with our Human Resources.” Three deep lines appeared between Braydon Caddel’s eyebrows then a sudden shot of inspiration from behind those wire-rimmed glasses. He pushed away from the doorframe, straightening. “There was a private message Rachel received a few days ago.”
“Through one of her social media accounts?” Colson asked.
“Yeah.” Caddel pointed his index finger down at the welcome mat. “I mean, she gets hundreds of messages and replies from her posts, but this one seemed to really shake her. I remember it because she refused to look at her phone for a couple hours until she calmed down enough to respond.”
“We haven’t been able to gain access to her accounts. Did she tell you what the message said or who it’d come from?” Blair slid her notebook from her jacket and made a note to have the computer crimes unit go through the deleted data on the victim’s phone.
“No. I tried talking to her, but she shut me down. Said it was nothing.” Braydon Caddel’s voice shook. He folded his arms across his chest as though trying to hold himself together. “I’m telling you, my wife didn’t let anything get to her, but she was rattled. If you want to find who killed her, start with that message.”
CHAPTER FOUR