The Cinderella Murder (37 page)

A
lex had never heard Leo sound so panicked. “What do you mean, Hathaway has Laurie?” Leo demanded.

“She thinks Hathaway killed Susan Dempsey, and Timmy just saw her drive out of the garage with someone in the passenger seat. She was only alone for a minute—”

Alex heard the beep of an incoming call. He checked the screen and saw one name:
Laurie.

“Wait, that’s her now,” Alex said. “I’ll call you right back.” He clicked over to the incoming call. “Laurie, where are you?”

But he didn’t hear Laurie’s voice in response. He heard silence, then eventually the sound of a man’s voice. It was Hathaway. “Slow down,” he ordered, “and stop swerving. I know what you’re doing. If you get pulled over by a cop, I’ll shoot you both, and that’s a promise.”

“Where are you taking me?” Alex heard Laurie say. “Are we going to your house? Why are we heading into the Hollywood Hills?”

Alex hit the mute button on his phone to block his end of the line. “Grace,” he said, waving her over to the alcove. “Call Leo back and have him put Detective Reilly on the line. Laurie’s giving us clues about their location.”

Within seconds, Grace handed Alex her phone.

“Reilly,” Alex said, “I’m certain of it now: Hathaway has Laurie and is taking her to the Hollywood Hills.”

If something happened to Laurie, he would never forgive himself.

78

L
aurie didn’t dare steal another glance at her phone. She just had to hope that the call had connected and that Alex was able to hear her.

“Just do what I say, and no one else will be hurt,” Hathaway said. “Your son and your father will be fine.”

But not me, she thought. You have other plans for me.

Maybe if she kept him talking, she could buy herself more time. “Why did you do it? What did Susan see in the lab that afternoon to make her such a threat to you?”

“It didn’t need to be such a big deal. Dwight had already done so much of the code work. Whether REACH was his idea or mine was just a matter of semantics. She overheard us and completely overreacted. It was worth millions. Did she really expect me to turn it over to a bunch of academic know-nothings?”

Hathaway was almost talking to himself at this point, but Laurie was able to piece the story together. She remembered the article published in the campus newspaper when Hathaway retired. It mentioned that, as a faculty member, Hathaway did not own any of his own research. She pictured Susan walking into the lab as Hathaway enlisted his favorite student to take the credit for his work so they could both profit from it.

Hathaway suddenly stopped muttering and told her to take another turn. His expression was cold and determined.

“Don’t do this, Hathaway.” She made it a point to say his name. If nothing else, maybe Alex would know who did this. “You’ll never get away with it.”

“I may live my life under suspicion, as you call it,” Hathaway said, “but I won’t be convicted. There’s no real proof I killed Susan. As for Dwight, I can find the video files from his boat faster than any low-level hack working for the LAPD. And once I’m done with you, my next stop will be to Keith Ratner. He’ll kill himself, leaving behind a distraught note confessing to the murders of both you and Susan. This entire thing will go down in the history books as being wrapped up with Advocates for God.”

Laurie remembered taking this exact route when they’d driven to the spot where Susan Dempsey’s body was found.

“You’re taking me to Laurel Canyon Park, aren’t you? We’re going to the place where you killed Susan.”

“Of course that’s where we are going,” Hathaway said. “It’s exactly what Keith Ratner would do in a meltdown over the downfall of his beloved church leader—a demise that
you
brought about.”

Laurie thought about the terror Susan must have felt when she realized Hathaway was trying to kill her. It was about to happen to her, too.

She had to find a way to save herself.

79

A
lex felt helpless as he continued to listen to the open line. Hathaway was forcing Laurie to drive to the spot where he killed Susan Dempsey.

Good, Laurie
, he whispered.
Just keep talking.

She had already gotten Hathaway to admit to killing Susan Dempsey, and now he had a plan to kill Laurie and pin all his crimes on Keith Ratner.

“He’s taking her to Laurel Canyon Park,” Alex said to Reilly, who was doing his best to overhear through Grace’s phone. “You have to send police cars there now, Reilly. You have to find Laurie.”

•  •  •

Laurie could see the park entrance approaching. They were just seconds from what Hathaway intended to be her final destination.

Just as she knew he would, Hathaway instructed her, “Take the left turn up here, into the park.”

She turned slowly, hoping to see a cavalry of police cars waiting for them, but the park was empty, dark as pitch.

This was it—her one chance. She remembered the exact location of the sycamore tree she’d noticed when they were filming here with Frank Parker.

She thought about making a quick move to latch her seat belt
before impact. But she did not want to risk alerting Hathaway to her plan. If she was unable to buckle the seat belt, she wanted to have two hands on the wheel when they hit.

As they approached the sycamore she gunned the gas as hard as she could. Hathaway began to yell—“What are you—?” She swerved left and piloted the front side of the SUV squarely into the tree.

Laurie cringed when she heard the loud bang, at first believing that Hathaway had shot her. The bang was not a gunshot but the sound of the airbag deploying. Laurie felt a jolt in every part of her body as the airbag flung her back against her seat. For a moment she wasn’t sure where she was.

As Laurie’s head began to clear she looked over at Hathaway. He too had been stunned by the impact but was beginning to stir. She looked in his hands and on the floor for the gun but couldn’t find it. Should she try to fight him now? No, if he woke up quickly, he would easily be able to overpower her. There was only one thing to do: run!

•  •  •

Detective Reilly spoke quickly as Alex pressed his ear to the cell phone. “We dispatched all local units to Laurel Canyon Park. One unit is in the park interior. I’ve been tracking the movements of Laurie’s cell phone. It stopped moving about one minute ago. Either the phone is no longer in the vehicle or the vehicle has stopped.”

•  •  •

With her body protesting every move, Laurie managed to open her door. She slid out of the car’s raised seat and briefly lost her balance as her feet hit the sandy soil. She heard a groan and saw Hathaway raising his hand and massaging his forehead. Reaching into the driver’s door side pocket, her hands groped for the cell phone in the darkness. It was gone.

Laurie ran a few strides until she felt her feet on pavement. Disoriented, she looked up and down the road, which was faintly illuminated
by the moonlight. She wasn’t sure which direction would take her toward Frank Parker’s former house or deeper into the park. Her time to decide ended when she heard the crunching squeal of metal from the car. The passenger-side door was beginning to open.

Laurie began running as fast as her bruised legs would allow. How many times had she wondered what her beloved Greg was thinking in the final moments of his life? In trying to understand Susan Dempsey she had imagined Susan’s terror as she fled through Laurel Canyon in a desperate attempt to outrun her killer—Our killer, she thought—Richard Hathaway! She thought of Timmy. She could not let him go through the loss of another parent. She had promised him she would always be there for him. She then heard Richard Hathaway’s footsteps growing ever closer.

•  •  •

Highway Patrolman Carl Simoni had been inside Laurel Canyon Park investigating a complaint about illegal campers when he received the emergency dispatch about a carjacking. It had taken him several minutes to hustle back to his cruiser from the elevated campground. He was now pushing his cruiser as fast as he dared through the winding roads that led to the entrance of the park.

•  •  •

Laurie wasn’t sure if the burning feeling in her chest was the result of the jolt from the airbags or if her lungs were unable to accept more air as she approached exhaustion. The quiet of the canyon was no longer disturbed only by her. Interspacing the sound of Laurie’s footsteps was the faint wail of a siren.

•  •  •

Patrolman Simoni rounded a winding curve as the latest dispatch cackled from this radio. The carjacking victim’s cell phone signal
had been traced to an area just inside the park. He would be there in less than a minute. He squinted as he believed he saw a silhouette moving on the park road.

•  •  •

As Laurie ran, she looked back over her shoulder. The hulking figure of Hathaway grew larger every time she turned. Without realizing it she stepped on the border of the road and the soft soil to the side sent her sprawling to the ground. She flipped over and tried to get up. Hathaway had stopped a few feet away. She watched as he extended his arm toward her. There was a glint of moonlight off the gun in his hand. “Laurie, would you prefer that I shoot you or do you want to die the way Susan Dempsey did? Either way, they’ll find your body in the same spot they found hers.”

Before Laurie could respond, a bright light briefly covered her body from behind. It then moved quickly over to Hathaway, who raised one hand to shield his eyes from the blinding glare. Over a megaphone she could hear a voice echoing across the canyon ordering him to put his gun down and drop to his knees.

The gun was still pointed at her head. He was laughing, a maniacal, defiant sound. With all the strength she could muster, she swung her leg up and managed to kick his hand. The gun went off, with the bullet exploding in the sand next to her. The patrol car was rocketing toward them. Before Hathaway could aim again, it had slammed into him, knocking him to the ground.

As a swarm of patrol cars thundered down the road, she struggled to her feet. The force with which she had kicked Hathaway’s hand had caused her shoe to slip off. As she reached for it, she could only think of the shoe Susan Dempsey had lost when she was trying to escape her killer.

80

L
aurie had assumed that her next visit to Cedars-Sinai hospital would be to escort Jerry from the ICU. But she was back in the lobby again, Alex at her side. Once the doctors pronounced Laurie in good health after the collision, Grace had taken Timmy back to the house. Now she was waiting to hear about Richard Hathaway’s injuries.

“I was so afraid,” Alex said, “and then when your cell phone stopped moving, it was unbearable.”

“I didn’t think I’d make it,” Laurie said. “I counted on you to pick up the phone.” She managed a laugh. “Thank God you didn’t put me on hold!”

Leo appeared from the ICU, his expression ambiguous. “Hathaway’s got two broken legs but he’ll make a full recovery.”

“You sound disappointed,” she said.

“He killed two people in cold blood, then came after my only daughter tonight,” Leo said. “I wouldn’t have lost sleep if he’d broken every bone in his body.”