Then No One Can Have Her Read Free Page B

neighbors, Lila Farr and Marge Powell, on horseback. Carol stopped for five minutes to chat and pet Lila’s horse before heading on. It was warm that evening, not as warm as some days, but the horses, just like Carol, preferred to exercise when it was cooler.
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    Back at the house, Carol texted Steve again, at 7:06 P.M. , after seeing no response to her message about Katie’s car.
    You never replied to let me know if u were coming to get it , she texted.
    It was unlike Steve not to respond quickly. He always had his cell phone with him, and a spare battery or two as well.
    Carol switched gears and texted Charlotte at 7:12 P.M . How was ur day darlin? she wrote, asking Charlotte if she’d started her new job yet.
    Charlotte replied that she still had to finish training, but was set to start work the next day.
    At 7:36 P.M. , Carol used her cordless landline to make her usual call to her eighty-three-year-old mother, Ruth Kennedy, in Nashville, Tennessee. Carol had checked in with her mother most every night since her father had died in March 2006. With the two-hour time difference, Carol always called before 8 P.M ., her time, before she ate dinner and her mother went to bed. As she chatted with Ruth, Carol also texted Charlotte about the rain.
    â€œMom, the dogs are fed and the doors are locked,” Carol told Ruth, proactively answering her mother’s usual questions.
    Ruth worried about her daughter, living in a relatively isolated area known as Williamson Valley, about half an hour’s drive from downtown Prescott. Carol’s mother found it odd that she never seemed concerned or scared about leaving her doors unlocked. To Ruth, locking doors always “seemed paramount to safety.” But when she questioned her daughter about it, Carol would say, “Oh, Mom.”
    Still, it wasn’t a complete nonissue. Carol did change the locks after filing for divorce; she also suspected that Steve had been climbing in through a back window. Steve’s name was still on the title, and he’d been paying the mortgage during the separation, but she gave spare keys only to her daughters.
    Ruth could hear the water running in the background as Carol washed her salad ingredients and they discussed the companies Carol could use to send Katie her belongings. Rather than pay for extra bags on the flight, Carol was going to pack some boxes, then ship the items to her daughter. In fact, just ten minutes before she’d called Ruth, she texted Steve to follow up on the DHL shipping information. But again, no response.
    The sun set at 7:46 P.M ., as Carol told her mother that she and Steve were still arguing about money. Typically, Carol didn’t complain about her problems to Ruth, she usually tried to solve them on her own. But this time she seemed extremely worried.
    â€œYou know, Mom, this is July second, and there’s been no [alimony] payment made into my account,” she said.
    Because Ruth stopped hearing the water running, she later wondered if her daughter might have walked with the cordless phone down the hallway near the laundry room, where she kept the dogs’ crates and food, and toward the back bedroom. Carol had been using that room as her office since Charlotte had moved out. Had Carol heard a noise?
    After Ike’s javelina incident he was still barking at wild animals—and strangers, when they came to the door. But as Ruth thought about it later, she didn’t recall hearing any barking in the background that night.
    â€œI suppose I will call my lawyer tomorrow,” Carol said, sighing. “Welllll,” she said, drawing out the word, as if she had run out of things to say.
    It was 7:59 P.M ., when Ruth heard her daughter utter these last two words: “Oh, no.”
    Although Ruth reported to police that night that Carol had screamed these words, Ruth said later that she’d misspoken because she was anxious, and that she was referring to her