Stalked (25 page)

Three names he didn’t know.

The fourth was Tanjy’s ex-boyfriend. Mitchell Brandt.

Serena didn’t have the same feeling of being watched as she climbed the steps of the courthouse. She hoped that destroying the GPS device had given her a temporary escape from the blackmailer’s prying eyes.

The photograph he had given her was now in a large manila envelope addressed to Dan Erickson, marked personal and confidential. She wasn’t sure if she was doing the right thing by keeping Jonny in the dark, but she didn’t see any alternatives. She couldn’t destroy Dan’s life if he was guilty of nothing more than kinky sex practices. The trouble was that Tanjy was dead. A photo like this would vault Dan to the top of the suspect list, if only because he would do anything to keep it hidden. Even so, Dan was a client. He was paying her. Until she knew something different, she couldn’t expose him.

In Dan’s office, Serena handed the envelope to the receptionist and told her to take it inside. A minute later, she came back and told Serena to go in. Serena closed the office door behind her and clicked the lock in place. Dan was standing behind his mahogany desk, with the photograph in his hand. His other fist was clenched. He took the envelope and photo to a crosscut shredder on the wall and fed them in. The machine whirred as it diced the evidence. He checked the bin to make sure the papers had been cut into confetti, then whirled around on Serena.

“Where the fuck did you get that? What are you trying to do to me?”

Serena held up her hands. “Blackmail is an ugly business. I told you it was going to get worse.”

“
He
gave this to you?”

She nodded.

“How did he get it?”

“You’d know that better than me.”

“This is a fucking disaster. You realize that, don’t you?
A disaster
. What does he want?”

“One hundred thousand dollars.”

“Son of a bitch.” He pointed an accusing finger at her. “Are the two of you in this together? Are you gaming me?”

Serena came closer and slapped his hand away. “Don’t insult me. You’re lucky I didn’t turn this over to Jonny instead of coming here. And I’m
going
to tell Jonny all about it unless you can convince me right now that you had nothing to do with Tanjy’s murder.”

“That’s crazy.”

“Then tell me about you and Tanjy. Is the photo legit? Is that you and her together?”

Dan shoved his hand back roughly through his blond hair. “Yeah.”

“Did you rape her?”

“Hell, no. Rape was her fantasy, remember? This was just a game. We went down there in the middle of the night, and we took pictures.”

“Do I have to tell you how incredibly stupid that was?”

His cheeks were tomato-red with fury. “No, I knew the risks, but Tanjy was worth it.”

Serena didn’t need details. “How did you and she hook up?”

“I met her in the dress shop. We had chemistry.”

“Did Lauren know?”

Dan snorted. “No one knew.”

“Well, someone did. You could have destroyed your career. You still might.”

“That’s why I broke it off. I ended it months ago.”

“Despite the great sex?”

Dan went to a cabinet and opened the bottom door, revealing a small refrigerator. He extracted a bottle of Bombay gin from the freezer, filled a lowball glass with ice, and took a long drink. He extended the bottle to Serena, and she shook her head. “The whole fake rape thing was a nightmare,” he said. “I couldn’t afford to keep the affair going, not after all her rape fantasies came to light in the press.”

“Weren’t you afraid she’d go public about your affair after you dumped her?”

“Yeah, but she didn’t have much credibility left. No one would have believed her.”

“Except she obviously had pictures.”

Dan shook his head. “I went to her place. I had a key. I deleted all the pictures from her digital camera and from the hard drive.”

“Shit, Dan, do you know how easy it is to recover deleted files?”

“Not for Tanjy. She was beautiful, but she was hopeless about technology. She had to have someone show her how to do everything. Believe me, she couldn’t have found those files again.”

“Someone did.”

Dan gestured angrily, and gin slopped over the side of the crystal. “No one knew the pictures were there! She and I were the only ones who knew about that night in the park.”

Serena shook her head. “Wrong.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Tanjy really was raped. It happened in Grassy Point Park, just like in that photograph. Do you think that’s a coincidence?”

“Oh, bullshit,” Dan insisted. “The rape story was a lie. Tanjy made it up.”

“Jonny already knows about two other victims. We think Eric was helping Tanjy find out who assaulted her. That’s what got both of them killed.”

“The rape was a
fantasy
,” Dan insisted.

“Did Tanjy tell you that?”

He hesitated. “No. She always swore it really happened.”

“You should have listened to her.”

“I just wanted to get her away from me. I was scared to death the media was going to find out about us.”

Serena nodded. “You know that if I tell Jonny about you and Tanjy, he’ll think you’re good for both murders.”

“I didn’t kill anyone. I didn’t rape anyone, either.”

“Where were you on the Monday night that Tanjy disappeared?” Serena asked.

“I was in Saint Paul. I was telling the attorney general about my move to Washington. I stayed overnight.”

“Where?”

“The Saint Paul Hotel.”

“Do you know a woman named Helen Danning?” she asked.

“No.”

“She worked at the Ordway as an usher. Right across the park from your hotel. She’s disappeared. Eric saw her shortly before he was killed.”

“I don’t know her.”

Serena watched him. He looked away and finished his gin.

“Do you have any idea who’s doing this to you?” she asked.

“I wish I did. I’d kick his ass.”

“I don’t think this is someone you want to mess with, Dan. When did he first contact you?”

“Last Tuesday.”

“
Tuesday
? That was the day after Tanjy disappeared. You didn’t think that was significant?”

“I didn’t
know
she had disappeared at that point.”

“You know what that means. This guy may have raped and killed Tanjy himself. And set you up to take the fall.”

“This can’t become public,” Dan said.

“It’s going to come out sooner or later.”

“Are you going to tell Stride?”

Serena hesitated. She had to make a judgment about Dan’s credibility, which was like guessing what was in the pockets of a magician. “Not right now.”

Dan looked relieved.

“But that’s only until we’re sure what’s going on,” Serena added. “As soon as I have any hard evidence, I have to tell Jonny. If this guy really is involved in rape and murder, he’s got to be stopped, even if it means the truth about you and Tanjy coming out.”

“I can’t believe this,” he said.

“Believe it. You’re in big trouble.”

Maggie typed the e-mail on her laptop:

HD. If this is you, we need to talk. I think you know what happened to my husband after he found you. I think that’s why you left. I need your help. Please contact me. M.

She clicked the Send button, and the e-mail disappeared. The handle of the blogger she had found was “The Lady in Me.” The contents of the blog had been stripped, but Maggie had located a posting on another blog, in which a woman who signed herself as “The Lady in Me” mentioned seeing the musical
Les Miserables
at least sixty times as an usher at the Ordway Theater. It had to be Helen Danning. Before leaving town, she had wiped her past clean, deleting every posting and every response on her blog, but there was still a link to send electronic mail. Maggie didn’t know if the e-mail link was live, or if Helen would ever check it, but she tried anyway.

She wore half-glasses pushed down her small nose. Her bare feet dangled off the recliner. She had a plastic bottle of Diet Coke on one side of her and a half-eaten bag of sour cream and cheddar potato chips on the other. The fingertips on her right hand were orange, and she had to lick them before she typed. She clicked through pages of search results on the name Helen Danning, but she was no closer to finding out who she was, or why Eric had gone to so much trouble to find her.

Headlights cut across the outside windows as Stride’s Bronco pulled into the driveway. A couple of minutes later, she heard the door open and his heavy footsteps in the kitchen. She called out, “I’m in here.”

It was his house. Maggie had a key. After Cindy died, she used Stride’s house as a sort of second home, dropping in with doughnuts and coffee and bringing over movies. Sometimes Stride joined her, sometimes he didn’t. That was the kind of casual relationship they had. She had pulled back during Stride’s second marriage, but when he and Serena returned from Las Vegas and bought a place out on the Point again, Maggie gradually resumed her old ways. Neither of them complained about it. Most of the time, they spent evenings talking about open cases anyway, so it was easier for her to be here.

She knew that she was using his place as an escape to get away from Eric. And, despite Serena, to be close to Stride.

She didn’t look up as Stride came into the living room. She was in his chair. “Chip?” she asked, holding up the bag.

“No thanks.” He added, “Does Abel know you’re here?”

“No, Guppo had the job of babysitting me tonight. I promised to bring him a bag of tacos when I came back, and he looked the other way.”

“He’s a credit to the badge,” Stride said.

“Yeah. I hear that Pete McKay lost a patrol car.”

Stride nodded. “He got a call up to the high school and heard some firecrackers around back. When he came back, his car was gone. Nice.”

“Kids are getting smarter than the cops these days.”

“Tell me about it.”

“I think we should buy McKay a scooter with a siren.”

“I’ll tell him you said that.”

Maggie smiled at their usual banter but knew it wouldn’t last. Stride sat down on the brick hearth of the fireplace. He was still wearing his black leather jacket, and he smelled of cold and smoke. Maggie knew what to expect from him.

“Do I get the lecture now, Dad?” She adopted a deep voice and said, “I’m very disappointed in you, young lady.”

“Come on, Mags.”

“So now you know what your little girl does on weekends,” she said.

“I’m not really in a mood to joke about this.”

Maggie stripped off her glasses. “Hey, this is still me, okay? I joke about everything. I don’t care what you think of me right now, it’s still a riot to think about me playing Jenna Jameson in a sex club.”

He looked at her in a way that made her feel as if he was seeing her for the first time. His face was drawn and tight.

“Please don’t tell me you wore a blond wig,” he said.

Maggie laughed. “And one of those cone-shaped bras, too. Like Madonna.”

Stride smiled enough that she could see his white teeth showing. Relief bubbled out of her like a fountain.

“I guess you want to know why,” she said.

“You don’t owe me any explanations. It’s your life.”

“But you want one anyway.”

He shrugged. “Sure, I’d like to know why you did it. I can’t pretend I get it, Mags. Not from you.”

“Why, because I’m not supposed to have sex? I’m not supposed to enjoy it?”

“That’s not what I mean at all.”

“Then spit it out. You don’t have to sugarcoat things for me.”

“Sex is one thing,” he said. “This is women spreading their legs for strangers. With fucking gold masks.”

“So what does that make me? A whore?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then what?”

He looked frustrated. “I just hate the idea of
you
doing something like that.”

“Tell me why.”

“Because you deserve better. Okay? Because you’re something special. Because I don’t think a woman could do that unless, on some level, she hated herself, and I don’t want to think of you feeling that way.”

Maggie stared at the ceiling, not wanting to meet his eyes. “Lately, I have hated myself a little.”

“You could have talked to me about it.”

“About my marriage falling apart? About my husband cheating on me? About trying to rescue our sex life? I don’t think so. Unless you’re prepared to go all the way—and I know you’re not, you don’t need to say it—there are parts of my life I’m never going to share with you.”

“So maybe I should just drop this. It’s none of my business anyway.”

“No, it’s not. But since you know about it, I’ll tell you anyway, because there really isn’t that much to tell. I felt empty and was looking for something to fill the void. I thought it might bring Eric and me closer together, which it didn’t do. And, yeah, okay, I was intrigued. For once in my life, I thought, what the hell. It was a mistake, if that’s what you want to hear.”

“You don’t need to say that.”

“Well, it’s true.”

He changed the subject. She was relieved to stop talking about it.

“Did Serena tell you? Katrina was assaulted, too. Right after the last party.”

“Yeah, she did. I had no idea. I feel like a shit for not calling her.”

“This guy is smart,” Stride said. “He’s making a bet that women in this sex club won’t risk the humiliation of going public.”

“When is Sonia’s next party?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Son of a bitch,” Maggie said.

“Exactly. We need to move fast.”

They both looked up as the back door opened. It was Serena, carrying a bag of groceries that she deposited on the kitchen counter. She kicked off her heels and joined them, taking a seat on the carpet and crossing her legs. Maggie noticed that she sat close enough to Stride that their clothes touched.

“You two okay?” Serena asked.