Aria's POV
The second number on the phone belonged to a woman named Patricia Holt — thirty-eight years old, administrative coordinator at Ravenwood Primary for years, unremarkable employment record, no criminal history. Barnes had a name within twenty hours of the dropped phone.
He had her in an interview room within twenty-two.
She broke in under forty minutes, which Barnes said was faster than he'd expected, which told me she had never imagined this going as far as it had. She was a woman who had been approached by a well-dressed older man who said he was a concerned grandfather, who'd asked only for a copy of the staff photo directory and the school's weekly schedule, who had paid her three thousand dollars in cash and told her it was for a custody matter.
She hadn't known about the criminal history of the man In question, hadn't known about any of it.
