"Yes."
"Your evidence better be good. Trent's father is a powerful person with a lot of connections."
"I'm aware of that, but the evidence is solid, so I'm not worried. I gotta run. Thanks for reaching out."
"Sure. Good luck with everything, Matt."
"Thanks, Shari." He ended the call and looked over at Haley. "What do you think?"
"Shari gave you a name. We don't have evidence on Trent, so maybe Jeremy Allen is a good lead, and Shari is on the right side. Her source could be Senator Matson. Maybe he wants the case to be solved now, although that seems doubtful." She sat up straighter as the café door opened. "There's Shari. She's leaving."
He opened the tracking app on his phone. "Let's see where she goes."
"What if she just goes to work? This whole thing will have been pointless."
"Not entirely. We heard what she wanted to tell me, and maybe Jeremy Allen is a lead we can follow, but we'll see what happens."
Within minutes, Shari's car pulled out of the lot, and Matt set his phone on the console between them so they could both see the red dot on the screen moving north. Then he pulled out of his spot, heading in the same direction. Because of the tracker, Matt was able to keep some distance between them and avoid tipping Shari off to the fact that she had a tail.
For the next thirty minutes, they followed the red dot through the streets of Santa Monica, Century City, and into Beverly Hills, driving past large homes, mansions, and finally estates with iron gates and homes tucked far behind those gates. When Shari's car finally stopped, Matt parked just around the corner and put the address into his phone.
"Who lives there?" she asked impatiently.
He met her gaze. "Charles Adler."
Her stomach flipped over. "She's going to tell Charles that his son might be wanted for murder. He probably won't believe it."
"It will still concern him," Matt said. "And now I know that Shari knows Adler well enough to visit him at his home. Damn. She had to have had something to do with our case against Meridien Developments getting shut down. I blamed it on Markham, but maybe Shari was reporting information that wasn't true up the chain to protect Adler's company."
"Or they were both in on it."
"True."
"Senator Matson could also be part of it," she said. "Shari has a lot of connections with the key players in our investigation." She paused, seeing the betrayal in his gaze. He'd trusted Shari. "I'm sorry, Matt."
He gave a careless shrug, but she’d learned by now that Matt’s indifference was often a mask for just how much he did care. He was probably also embarrassed he hadn't seen through Shari before now.
"What do we do next?" she asked.
"We divide and conquer. We continue to sow seeds of distrust within the group. Right now, Charles is wondering if Trent killed Landon and might be in trouble. We need to find ways to throw off the others in the group. They've been working as one unit, completely on the same page, everyone with the same story. If they each start to feel more pressure, they'll begin to wonder if they're being set up as a fall guy."
"I like that, Matt. And I might have an idea…"
ChapterTwenty-Three
Matt gave her a questioning look. "What's the idea?"
"If we're going to divide and conquer, our next target should be Henry. He blackmailed Brooke and probably Professor Harrington. We need to use the same strategy. Get some dirt on him and use it against him."
"We'd have to find the dirt first."
"Unless we manufacture it. Like you did with the fake evidence connecting Trent to my brother's murder."
"We're going to need more concrete evidence to go directly at Henry. The Trent evidence was a ruse to see which side Shari was on. It won't stand up legally."
"It doesn't have to. It's still going to disrupt the Adler family, if not all their friends." She thought for a moment. "We should talk to Brooke about Henry. If he has a weakness, she probably knows what it is."
He gave her an approving nod. "Good idea. I wanted to check in at the hospital this morning anyway."
