Page 58 of Little Last Words
“You can talk to them. If you get the chance to speak to them one at a time, it would be ideal. If not, go ahead and talk to them together.”
“Anyone else you’re interested in knowing more about?” Hunter asked.
I nodded. “I had an interesting conversation this morning with Aaron Redgrave, one of Penelope’s neighbors. He caught a man kissing Penelope one night, and he overheard the man telling him he loved her and always had.”
“Meaning, he wasn’t someone new,” Simone said. “He was someone from her past.”
“Yep,” I said.
“What else do we know about the man Aaron saw?” Hunter asked.
“A few things. He’s tall and slender, and he may drive a charcoal-colored Jeep Wrangler. He had his back to Aaron the entire time, so we don’t have anything more to go on.”
Hunter nodded.
Simone turned toward me. “After I speak to the Ramseys, is there anyone else you’d like me to pay a visit?”
“Yes,” I said. “Jack Becker. He’s Penelope’s neighbor. I’ve already spoken to him once, and now I’d like to see what you can get out of him. Maybe he’ll tell you something he hasn’t told me.”
“Something like …?”
“I don’t know. He seemed too aloof when it came to his interactions with Penelope. I think he knows her more than he’s saying. He told me he’d never been inside of her house. Angelica told me he’d taken in her groceries, so which is it?”
“Sounds suspicious,” Simone said. “I’ll see what he has to say.”
I turned toward Hunter. “I don’t expect you’ll find anything, but I’d like to know if there’s a correlation between Penelope and any of the lakes around here. I’d say the time frame you’d want to search would be when she was younger, junior high and high school.”
“I’m intrigued,” Hunter said. “What’s the connection?”
“I’m not sure yet. I had one of my strange dreams last night—the kind where I feel like I’m being pointed somewhere, but it’s still unclear where.”
I was about to wrap things up and suggest we all go our separate ways when the office phone buzzed. Hunter hopped up and answered it. A few seconds later, she handed it to me.
“Hello?”
“Is this Georgiana Germaine?”
“It is.”
“This is Rita Redgrave, your neighbor.”
Her tone was far from pleasant.
Had she seen me talking to Aaron and called to ask about it?
“What can I do for you, Rita?” I asked.
“You can tell me who’s sneaking around inside Penelope’s house.”
“What makes you think someone’s inside her house?” I asked.
“I can see someone in there. A short man walking around, and it’s not the police, because there are no patrol cars parked out front, or any other cars for that matter.”
No cars parked out front.
If someone was in the house, they may have taken steps to ensure they weren’t seen. And yet, they’d underestimated the power of Neighborhood Watch Rita.
“Did you get a look at the man’s face?” I asked.