Dead Shot (18 page)

27

Maddie gave Ray an aloof stare. “Never come into your room when you’re not there and snoop through your personal things?”

He watched her slink in. She looked like she’d had a hard night, her normally immaculate black hair now mussed and a little knotted on one side, her makeup smeared. Seemed Gillian wasn’t the only one who didn’t sleep alone.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Maddie said. “I wouldn’t.”

“Did you write these?” Ray demanded.

She looked from him to Gillian and back again. “What do you think?” Something indefinable crossed her face. Indecision? Guilt? Ray was taking no chances.

“I think it’s possible.”

She snorted and came farther into the room. “You would.”

Gillian looked down at the pages she was holding. “Maddie, what are these?”

“Nothing. They’re nothing.”

“The hell they are,” Ray said. “Those are threats. Did you send them?”

Gillian said, “Shut up, Ray. Of course she didn’t.

They’re from him, aren’t they?” Her voice was low and keyed up.

“Him?” Ray asked. “Who is ‘him’?”

“The big bad bogeyman,” Maddie said, and snatched the papers out of Gillian’s hand.

“Wait—let me see that!”

Maddie started to rip up the messages. Both Ray and Gillian jumped at her.

“Don’t!”

Ray got there first. “This is evidence. It could lead us to the killer.”

Maddie laughed. “I don’t think so.”

Ray peered at her closely. “You’re pretty certain. What do you know about it?”

“Nothing,” she said calmly, and when Ray continued gazing at her, “All right. I confess. I did it.” She held out her hands to be cuffed. “Arrest me, Officer.”

“Why didn’t you show these to me?” Gillian asked.

“Why?” She gave a mirthless laugh. “Take a look at yourself. You’re practically strapping on your six-gun.”

“That’s not your call,” Gillian said. “You don’t make decisions for me.”

Maddie shrugged. “Why not? I’m the one picking up the pieces.”

Gillian opened her mouth to respond, then didn’t. There was a pinprick of hurt in her eyes, and an equal measure in Maddie’s. She softened, reached out.

“Gillian—”

“You should have let me see them.”

Maddie’s face hardened, and she threw up her hands. Busied herself slamming the suitcase shut and flinging it in a corner.

Ray waved the paper in the air. “These are Internet messages.”

“From my Web site,” Gillian said.

“You have a Web site?”

“Deadshots.com,” Gillian said, pointing to the Web site address at the bottom. “Maddie runs it for me.”

Maddie. It always came back to Maddie. She ran Gillian’s career, her schedule. What else did she run?

“Don’t look at me like that, watcher boy.”

“You could have manufactured this.”

“I could have, but I didn’t.”

“Stop it.” Gillian got between them, turned to Ray. “Why would Maddie do something like that?”

“Keep you scared. Give you a reason to let her keep hanging on.”

“She’s my friend. I don’t need a reason,” Gillian said.

“Her position would be a hell of a lot more secure if you had one.”

“They’re not from Maddie,” Gillian said emphatically. “Don’t you see? They’re from the killer.” Excitement made her voice breathy. “My mother’s killer.”

That was a leap Ray wasn’t ready to take. “We don’t know that.”

“I do. Who else would send them?”

“I don’t know. Let’s see what Maddie thinks. She seems to run everything around here.” Ray swung his head to look at Maddie. Her face was stony, her lips pressed into a grim line. “Who else, Maddie? If not you, or Holland Gray’s killer, who else is there?”

Maddie looked from him to Gillian, struggling with some decision. Then her mouth softened and she gazed down at her hands. “We’ve been getting them . . .” She paused, then looked back up at Gillian, almost pleading for understanding. “We’ve been getting them on and off for the last six months.”

Gillian gasped. “And you didn’t tell me?”

“There are others like this?” Ray asked.

She breathed out the admission. “Yes.”

“All in the last six months?”

Maddie nodded and avoided Gillian’s eyes. Gillian sank onto the bed, refusal to believe in every line of her body.

Ray looked between the two of them. “What happened six months ago?” No one answered, and he repeated the question, a little louder and more insistent.
“What hap-pened six months ago?”

But Gillian only looked at Maddie and said, “You think it’s Kenny?”

Maddie said nothing, but knowledge was there in her eyes.

“He’s vicious enough,” Gillian muttered.

“Who the hell is Kenny?” Ray asked.

“And jealous,” she added.

“Who the hell is Kenny?”

The two women looked at him. “Kenny Post, rock-and- roll star,” Gillian said. “Well, no, hardly a star, is he, Mad-die? You ever hear of Black Roach?” she asked Ray.

“No.”

“Yeah, most people haven’t. Which is why Kenny is also a drunk, cheat, and all-around scumbag,” Gillian said.

“Her ex-boyfriend,” Maddie clarified.

“Violent and jealous ex-boyfriend,” Gillian said.

Ray stared. No one had mentioned an ex-boyfriend during the threat assessment.

“Where’s your computer? I want to check this out.”

Maddie picked up a briefcase and hauled out a laptop. “So, you believe me now?”

“I didn’t say that. But I want to see the messages for myself.”

She stopped in midgesture, the machine half in and half out of the case. “You can’t.”

“Why the hell not?”

Maddie flushed. “I deleted them.”

“You what?” Ray roared. “Why?”

“Maddie!” Gillian groaned.

A pause, a beat, in which Maddie lost her infamous composure. She stuttered. Seemed to search desperately for an explanation.

“Why, Maddie?” Ray persisted.

“I didn’t want Gillian to see them!” she burst out at last. “Okay?”

“Or they were never there in the first place, and you created them yourself,” Ray said.

“So we’re back to that?”

“Stop it,” Gillian said to Ray.

Maddie turned a hot gaze on Gillian. “I don’t need you to defend me.” And to Ray, “Yeah, you’re right. I wrote them, then hid them for six months.”

“Not very well, since I found them,” Ray said.

“You didn’t ‘find’ them; you hunted them down. And you had to go in my room and through my suitcase to do it. Find anything else you like, Ray? Silk undies?” She waved a pair under his nose, which he grabbed and threw back on the bed.

“And, remember, we only have your word on the six months.”

“Back off, Ray,” Gillian said.

“And what the hell is wrong with my word? It’s been good enough—”

“Not for me.”

“I didn’t—”

“Back off!”
In the wake of Gillian’s raised voice, silence descended. “She didn’t do this,” Gillian said at last. “Maybe it’s Kenny; maybe it’s someone else. But it isn’t Maddie.”

“Friendship and love are the easiest things to manipulate,” said Ray.

“What is that,” said Gillian, “Confucius? We’re not talking about you, here, Ray. Or Nancy, or whatever sad misery you made of your life.”

That hit like a missile, straight to his heart. But he shook it off, taking refuge in frigid calm. “That’s right, Gillian, we’re talking about you. You and
your
witch.”

“You know what?” Maddie jerked open a drawer, grabbed some clothes, and banged it shut. “I need a shower. And so do you,” she said to Gillian. “You’re scheduled for the Art House this morning.” The Art House was the biggest visual arts educator in Nashville, with classes for kindergartners up through adults in every media.

“Shit,” said Gillian, “I forgot.”

“If you’d check the schedule every once in a while—”

“I know, I know.” Gillian sent Maddie an unrepentant grin. “Life in the fast lane.”

“And wear something outrageous. You have dinner with Grandmaw and Pappy this evening.”

A shadow passed over Gillian’s face. She looked decidedly unhappy about that.

No more than him. He hated surprises, especially piled on. “You’re supposed to tell me if you’ve got something scheduled.”

“I did tell you,” Maddie said coolly.

“In time to check out the sites.”

“Look, I always do a gig at the Art House when I’m in town,” Gillian said. “I sponsor a photography scholarship.”

Ray didn’t like the sound of that. Anything routine was public knowledge and could be tracked. “What do you mean, always?”

“Just what it sounds like,” Maddie said, and gestured to the bedroom door. “Now—do you mind?”

Ray clamped down on his jaw and gestured to her computer. “Do you?”

She gave him a cheerless laugh. “Be my guest.” And swept into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

Ray grabbed Gillian’s arm and led her out of Maddie’s room. “I want her gone,” he said to Gillian.

“Go to hell.”

“I don’t trust her. I can’t protect you like this.”

“Tough luck, baby, because I’m not sending her away.” And she, too, strode off, slamming her bedroom door behind her.

Shut out and frustrated, Ray clenched his fists, looked around for something to throw. Or punch. But he did neither. Seething with manufactured calm, he made himself breathe instead. In and out to a steady count until the calm was real enough.

Because the threat was, whether Gillian wanted to acknowledge the danger or not. And it could be coming from the people closest to her.

Maddie leaned against the closed bathroom door. Beneath her clothes, she was sweating. She didn’t need the mirror to know she looked horrible, because she felt horrible. Sick and swirly and anxious.

She remembered those bitches at Hadley calling her the coal miner’s daughter, and how many times Gillian had stood up for her. They’d thumbed their noses at the snobs and to hell with everyone else.

And now?

She tossed the clothes she’d grabbed from the drawer on the toilet, leaving the cell phone she snagged beneath them in her hand. For an instant, she stared at it as if it might howl at her. Then she closed her eyes and punched in a number.

The call rang and was answered. Maddie identified herself and her reason for calling. Five minutes later, she got the assurance she’d been seeking, but it didn’t make her feel better. Didn’t make her trust that they wouldn’t be caught. They were skirting too close to the edge. Someone was bound to slip up.

28

While Gillian was getting ready, Ray called the office and had them check the databases for Kenny Post. He also asked them to find a photo and scan whatever crowd footage of the museum party they could get to see if Post was there. If the threats were from him, and he was in Nashville, protection would rise to a whole new level.

In the meantime, they would check with contacts in New York and see if they could track him down. Finally, he asked someone to pick up Maddie’s laptop. There were ways of retrieving deleted messages off the hard drive, and Carlson kept two IT experts on staff. If Maddie created those threats, they’d find out.

“And send someone over to the Art House now,” he said at last. “Miss Gray has an appointment, and I want to make sure we have exit strategies in place, just in case.”

Then he called Jimmy. He wasn’t there, but he left a message about Gillian’s ex.

While he waited for more definitive information on Kenny Post, he used Maddie’s computer to check out the basics for himself.

Reviewers called Black Roach’s music “head-pounding,” “brutal,” and “aggressive,” and touted Kenny Post as the band’s Sid Vicious–inspired front man. A picture showed him tall and lanky, with ripped jeans and heavy, motorcycle boots. He had greasy dark hair, wore a goatee and a sneer. Past the reviews, there were also some blotter reports, one an incident in SoHo where he’d ripped apart a bar and was hauled off by the cops. Another in Chicago, where he attacked a hotel room.

Bad news all around.

Bad enough to want Gillian dead?

“Been reading up on your boy,” Ray said to Gillian when she came out of her room. She wore a tiny jean skirt that cupped her ass, a floaty, see-through blouse that hid and revealed her breasts, and black boots with fuck-me heels that added a good four inches to her petite frame. Tough, vulnerable, and sexy all at the same time. A silent groan of self-pity went off inside Ray.

“He’s not my boy anymore,” she said, pouring herself another cup of coffee and sitting on a stool by the counter. She crossed her legs, the skirt riding high on her thighs, and Ray looked away.

“Sounds like a real heartbreaker.”