The Cinderella Murder (9 page)

Nicole understood why Susan’s mother put so much stock into this producer.

“If you think your show can help bring attention back to Susan’s case, I’m happy to help.”

“That’s fantastic.”

“And I hope you don’t mind, but I took the liberty of contacting another college friend of Susan.” She briefly described Dwight Cook’s working relationship with Susan in the computer lab, followed by the news that Dwight was willing to participate in the show. The producer sounded thrilled, just as Nicole expected.

As Nicole pulled out of the office park’s lot, she looked in the rearview mirror and felt incredibly proud of Dwight Cook. Susan’s death had presented a gigantic challenge to the lives of everyone she knew. Both Nicole and Keith Ratner had quit college. Rosemary had told her she barely left her bed for a full year.

But somehow Dwight had managed to create something transformative in the aftermath. She wondered if whatever made him different from other people had enabled him to channel his grief in a way the rest of them could not.

She was so wrapped up in her own thoughts that she never saw the off-white pickup truck pull out of the parking lot behind her.

15

D
wight Cook closed and locked the door to his office, located far from most of REACH’s employees. That was the way he liked it.

Dwight constantly felt all these kids looking at him, wanting to know the tall, lanky billionaire who still dressed like a teenage nerd but was nevertheless pursued by several well-known supermodels. His employees assumed that Dwight’s office was isolated because he did not want to be disturbed. The truth was that Dwight could not possibly run this business the way it needed to be run if he made too many connections to the people who worked for him.

Dwight had realized in middle school that he wasn’t like other people. It wasn’t that his own behavior was so unusual, at least not that he could determine. Instead, he was different in his
reactions
to other people. It was as if he heard voices more loudly, perceived movements to be bigger and faster, and felt every single handshake and hug more intensely. Some people—too many of them—were simply too
much
for him.

For one year, in ninth grade, his school placed him on a “special” education track, suspecting that he suffered from some form of “autism-related disorder,” despite the absence of an official diagnosis. He remained in regular classes and still dominated the grading curves. But the teachers treated him differently. They stood a little farther from him, spoke more slowly. He had been labeled.

On the last day of school, he told his parents that he would run away unless he could start tenth grade in a new school. No special treatment, no labels. Because although Dwight was different from other people, he’d read enough books about autism, Asperger’s, ADD, and ADHD to know that those labels didn’t apply to him. Each of those conditions was supposedly accompanied by a lack of emotional connection. Dwight, in his view, was the opposite. He had the ability to feel so connected to a person that the sensation was overwhelming.

Take today’s reunion with Nicole, for example. He had forced himself to sit still in his seat across from her, to not touch her. He had a hard time maintaining eye contact because to hold her gaze too long would have brought him to tears. She was a living, breathing, vivid memory of Susan. He couldn’t look at her without remembering the searing pain he had felt at Susan’s kindhearted attempts to play matchmaker between him and Nicole. How could Susan have been blind to the fact that he loved her?

He hit the space bar of his computer’s keyboard to wake up the screen. Every once in a while, misperceptions about him came in handy. Right now, for instance, the physical separation between him and his employees would ensure that nothing interrupted his activities.

He opened the Internet browser and Googled “Cinderella Murder Susan Dempsey.” He suppressed a bite of anger at the fact that even
he
used Google most of the time as his search engine. REACH was a pioneer in changing the way people searched for information on the Internet. But then Google came along, extended the idea a step or two, and added some cool graphics and a name that was fun to say. The rest was high-tech history.

Still, Dwight couldn’t complain about his success. He’d made enough money to live comfortably for ten lifetimes.

He clicked through the search results. He found nothing new
since the last time—probably a year ago—that he had checked for any developments about his friend’s unsolved murder.

He remembered sitting at his computer twenty years earlier, knowing that he was probably among the top twenty people in the world when it came to maneuvering his way around the quickly changing online world. Back then, people still used telephones and in-person conversations to convey information. The police department produced hard copies of reports and faxed them to prosecutors. He had wanted to know the truth about the investigation into Susan’s death so desperately—who knew what? What did the police know?—but his skills could only get him so far at the time. The information simply wasn’t digitized.

Now every private thought had a way of casting a technological footprint that he could track. But he was the founder, chairman, and CEO of a Fortune 500 company, and hacking into private servers and e-mail accounts was a serious crime.

He closed his eyes and pictured Susan. How many times had he sat outside her dorm, hoping to catch a glimpse of her as she led an entirely separate life from the one they had together at the lab? This television show would be a onetime opportunity—every suspect on camera, questioned anew. Frank Parker, the man who seemed to care more about the success of his movie than Susan’s death. Madison Meyer, who always seemed resentful of Nicole and Susan. Keith Ratner, who never realized how lucky he was to have a girl like Susan.

Being on this television show would be a small price to pay. He would know far more than even the show’s producers. Dwight spun his office chair in a circle and cracked his knuckles.

It was time to get to work.

16

L
aurie checked the time on her computer screen once again. Two forty-five
P.M
. Surely Brett Young was back from lunch by now. She had called him yesterday from Los Angeles and left a voice mail with an update. This morning, she had e-mailed him a more complete summary of the Susan Dempsey case. Still no response.

She closed her office door and allowed herself to kick off her pumps and lie down on the white sofa beneath her windows. Flying out to Los Angeles, just to catch Madison Meyer unguarded, had taken its toll. The coast-to-coast red-eye was unbearable, but not so much as being away from Timmy any longer than necessary. She was feeling the sleep deprivation now. She shut her eyes and took a deep breath. She just needed a little rest.

Before she knew it, she was no longer in her office above Rockefeller Center. She was in another place, in a different time. She recognized the playground on Fifteenth Street, back when they still lived downtown.

Timmy is so tiny, only three years old. His legs are straight in front of him, like pins, as he squeals from the swing. “Whheeeee! Higher, Daddy, higher!”

She knows precisely what day this is. She knows what will happen next, even though she was not there to see it with her own eyes. She has replayed this scene countless times.

As Greg pushes his son once more on the swing, he lets out a grunt, feigning physical exertion, even as he is careful not to let his toddler sail too high. As an emergency room doctor, he has seen more than his fair share of children injured during overly exuberant play. “This is the last one,” he announces. “Time to go home and see Mommy. One-minute warning.”

“Doctor!” a voice calls out.

In the last of countless selfless demonstrations of his love for his son, Greg sees the gun and steps away from Timmy in an attempt to pull this stranger’s attention from the boy.

A gunshot.

“DADDY!!!”

•  •  •

Laurie bolted upright at the sound of her son’s scream.

Grace was staring at her from the doorway, her hand still on the office doorknob.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to surprise you. I knocked but you didn’t answer.”

“It’s okay,” Laurie assured her, even though she knew she wasn’t really okay. Would the nightmares ever end? “I must have dozed off. That red-eye was a killer.” She felt a pang in her chest as the last word left her mouth.

“Really? I slept the whole way and feel fine,” she said.

Laurie resisted the temptation to throw a pillow at Grace’s sky-high upsweep. “And that’s the difference between being twenty-six and thirty-seven. Anyway, what’s up?”

“Brett called. He wants to see you in his office.”

Laurie ran her fingers through her hair. Nothing like seeing your boss for an important meeting straight from a nap.

“You look fine,” Grace said. “Good luck, Laurie. I know how much you want this.”

17

B
rett’s secretary, Jennifer, waved Laurie past her guard station into the inner sanctum. But when Laurie opened Brett’s office door, she didn’t find Brett alone. A second man was in one of his guest chairs, his back to the door.

“Excellent timing,” Brett declared, rising from his desk. “Look who we have here.”

The second man also stood, and then turned to greet her. It was Alex Buckley. A former college basketball player, he rose at least four inches taller than Brett. She hadn’t seen him for at least a month, but he was as gorgeous as she remembered. No wonder juries and television cameras loved him. She took in his dark, wavy hair; firm chin; and blue-green eyes behind black-rimmed glasses. Everything about his appearance made him seem strong and trustworthy.

She was glad that Brett was now positioned behind Alex so her boss could not see the way Alex was looking at her. It was the way he always looked at her when she walked into a room. Though he was clearly happy to see her, there was a tinge of sadness—almost longing—in his eyes. That look made her feel like she needed to apologize—both to Greg for somehow making another man feel that way about her, and to Alex for not being able to return the feelings he so obviously had for her (at least, not yet).

She looked away before either Alex or Brett could sense her thoughts. “What a nice surprise,” she said with a smile. She held out her hand for a shake, and he leaned in for a quick hug.

She pulled her pencil skirt to her knees before taking the unoccupied chair across from Brett’s desk.

“I know I’ve kept you on pins and needles all day, Laurie. But I wanted to make sure I had all the facts on your pitch for the Cinderella Murder. Your summary was helpful. But it also made it clear that your budget’s going to skyrocket.”

“Our costs are low compared to what we can bring in in ad revenue—”

Brett held up a palm to silence her. “I don’t need you to explain the economics of television to me. You’re planning to interview people who are sprawled all over the state of California, one of the most expensive places to film, by the way. Not to mention that last-minute trip you already made yesterday, just to get Madison Meyer on board.”