When All The Girls Have Gone (28 page)

“Ethel, I realize you want to go for a more dramatic effect with your memoir,” Charlotte said.

“It’s what they call high-concept,” Ethel explained.

“I understand,” Charlotte continued. “But as we discussed last time, you are writing your personal history—not fiction. Your children and your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren will want to know that they are reading the truth about their ancestors.”

It was late morning. Ethel Deeping had waylaid Charlotte in the hallway to argue her case for the shocking ending to the chapter on her marriage.

“Trust me, my kids will get plenty of truth,” Ethel said.

“Yes, but if they see one very dramatic element in your memoir that they know isn’t true, they’ll be inclined to doubt all of your story—including the really thrilling parts such as your work as a military nurse. You saved lives in war zones. You were a true heroine. You don’t want to give your descendants any reason to doubt those facts, do you?”

“There’s plenty of ways they can verify my military service.”

“Yes, but will they even bother to do that if they doubt some of the other details? I’m afraid that if they read that you killed your husband, they’ll conclude that the entire memoir is fiction.”

Ethel looked as if she was prepared to argue further, but Charlotte’s phone pinged. She looked down at the screen. The number was unfamiliar, but the photo and first line of the text turned her blood to ice.

If you want to see her alive, come outside. Alone. Bring your phone. Tell no one. Gray car parked on the street out front. You’ve got two minutes.

“Are you okay?” Ethel asked in sudden concern. “You look like you just saw a ghost.”

Charlotte turned off her phone. For a moment she stared at Ethel, trying to think clearly. She grabbed the notebook and pen that Ethel carried in the basket of her walker and wrote Max’s number down on a page in the notebook.

“Something very bad is happening, Ethel,” she said. “Please call that number and tell Max Cutler that someone came to pick me up. Tell him that person says he’s taking me to see my stepsister. Tell him he sent a picture of Jocelyn.”

“Sure, I’ll tell him. But you don’t look good, dear.”

“I don’t feel good, either.” Charlotte paused at the door, trying to think. “Would you do me another favor?”

“Of course.”

“The person who is picking me up is driving a gray car that is parked in front of this building. Before you call Max Cutler, I would really appreciate it if you would use your cell phone camera to take as many pictures of me getting into the car as you can. Try for a photo of the license plate. But whatever you do, don’t go outside. Take the shots through the lobby window. Understood? Promise me you won’t let the driver of the car see you.”

Ethel’s eyes narrowed. “You’re in danger, aren’t you?”

“Yes. And so is Jocelyn. Whatever happens, the driver of the car must not see you take the photos.”

“You’re being kidnapped.”

“Yes.”

Ethel didn’t argue. She rummaged around inside her bag, which was attached to the walker, and pulled out her cell phone with a shaking hand.

“Don’t you worry,” she said. “I’ll get the picture. Hell, I used to hold bleeding wounds together with my bare hands while we were taking fire.”

“I know. Call that number right after you take the photos.”

Charlotte opened the door and hurried through the lobby. Ethel clanked along behind her, making excellent speed on her walker.

Two minutes, Charlotte thought. She did not dare take time to alert anyone else. There were only seconds left.

She rushed outside, barely noticing the snap of the chilly wind. She saw the gray car waiting at the curb, its engine idling. An eerie, light-headed sensation swept over her. Part of her could not believe what was happening.

The windows of the vehicle were tinted, but when she got closer she could make out the impression of a man behind the wheel. She opened the passenger-side door.

She barely had time to register the fact that he looked familiar before she saw the gun.

“Get in the back,” he ordered.

She slammed the door shut and opened the rear door. For the first time she realized there was a second man inside the vehicle. He, too, held a gun. Something about him was off. He looked excited. His eyes were a little too bright. His face was flushed.

“You’re not as pretty as the other one,” he said. “Give me your phone.”

He was high, she thought. In that instant she realized that he, too, looked vaguely familiar.

She gave her phone to him.

“What do you want me to do with it?” he said to the driver.

“Toss it out the window. Cutler might be able to use it to find her. Can’t have that.”

The jittery man with the gun lowered his window and threw the phone into the street.

“Don’t make any sudden moves,” the driver said. “Nolan, here, is a bit unstable. If you make him nervous, he’ll pull that trigger. You’ll be dead long before Jocelyn Pruett is.”

“I recognize you,” Charlotte said. “You were here at Rainy Creek Gardens the other day. You stopped me just as I was leaving. You asked questions about the community. Who are you?”

She was almost certain she knew the answer, but there didn’t seem to be any reason to let him know that she had figured out his identity.

“Trey Greenslade,” Trey said. He pulled away from the curb. “I’m touched that you remember our meeting the other day. I wanted to get a good look at you because I realized you might be the bait I needed to force Pruett to come out of hiding. This would have gone a lot more smoothly if you hadn’t brought that damned PI into the picture.”

The jittery guy with the gun wiped the sweat from his forehead.

“I think I need another hit, Trey,” he said.

“Take it, but don’t take your eyes off her,” Trey ordered.

“Okay, okay.”

Trey met Charlotte’s eyes briefly in the rearview mirror.

“His name is Nolan Briggs, by the way,” he said. “He’s been assisting me in exchange for some very good meds.”

“I thought I recognized him,” Charlotte said quietly. “There are photos of him on the mantel in the Briggses’ cabin.” She looked at Nolan. “You do know your father is dead, don’t you?”

“Yeah.” Nolan popped a couple of tablets into his mouth and swallowed hard. “No loss.”

Max studied the maps and the timelines he had spread out on his office desk. After all the murk and confusion, the picture was finally starting to come into focus.

There had been a Loring-Greenslade sales rep convention taking place on Maui during the time period that Madison Benson had traveled there. One more data point had just fallen into place. Madison had gone to the islands to meet her lover—Trey Greenslade. Greenslade was not married, as Drew Irby had speculated, but he certainly had an excellent reason for keeping his relationship with Madison off the radar.

The real question was whether Madison Benson had ever realized that the man she was seeing was a stone-cold rapist and murderer.

Max took out his phone and texted a message to Charlotte.
May have a new lead
. She would be excited, he thought. That knowledge buoyed his spirits.

When she didn’t return the text, he started to get the old edgy feeling that told him something was very, very wrong. She was probably busy, he thought; but he had never been good at lying to himself.

He tried a phone call—and wound up in voice mail.

He took the gun and holster out of his desk drawer, pulled on his windbreaker to conceal the weapon and headed for the door.

His phone rang just as he emerged from the lobby elevator. For a few seconds he knew an almost overwhelming sense of relief. Then he saw the unfamiliar number on the screen.

“Cutler,” he said.

“Mr. Cutler, this is Ethel Deeping,
Lieutenant
Ethel Deeping.”

The voice on the other end was hoarse with age but firm and resolute.

“I remember you, Mrs.—I mean, Lieutenant Deeping. What’s the problem?”

“A couple of bastards in a gray car just kidnapped Charlotte. Charlotte said to call you.”

Everything inside him went ice-cold.

“I’m on my way,” he said.

“I’ve got pictures.”

“You shouldn’t have let him take you,” Jocelyn said.

But she didn’t sound angry or even fearful, Charlotte thought. Instead Jocelyn’s voice was dulled with bleak despair—and for some reason that was more worrisome than anything else that had happened.

She had seen Jocelyn in a variety of moods. Anger, excitement, delight, outrage, laughter—Jocelyn did them all well. But never had she sounded like a beaten woman.

A fresh wave of alarm swept through Charlotte. “Is he keeping you drugged with something?”

Jocelyn frowned. “What?”

Charlotte studied her closely. In the gloom cast by the low-watt bulb in the overhead fixture, Jocelyn appeared exhausted.

“I asked if he had drugged you,” Charlotte repeated. “I’ve never seen you like this.”

“Madison Benson drugged me. That’s how I wound up here. But Greenslade hasn’t used any more drugs on me.”

“You do know that Madison Benson is dead, don’t you?”

“He murdered her, too?”

“Well, Greenslade has a perfect alibi. He was in Loring at the time. But now that I’ve met Nolan Briggs, I think I can understand how he pulled it off.”

“He sent Nolan to kill her?”

“Evidently. She was shot twice.”

“She must have been working with Greenslade all along. Why kill her now?”

“Maybe because he didn’t need her any longer. She had become a liability. She probably knew too much about him.”

“Louise and Madison are both dead. I’m sitting here in this basement with you. What about Victoria and Emily?”

“Victoria is still in the hospital, but according to the last report, she’s going to recover. As for Emily, there’s been no word. Max says that’s probably a good thing. He says it indicates she’s still alive.”

“Charlotte, I am so damned sorry. The last thing I wanted was for you to get sucked into this quagmire.”

“Yeah, well, what are sisters for, right? Anyhow, the good news is that Trey Greenslade needs to keep both of us alive until he can figure out how to get rid of Max Cutler. And that won’t be easy.”

“Why does he have to get rid of Cutler?”

Charlotte felt a rush of icy certainty. “Probably because he realizes that Max won’t stop looking until he finds me.”

Jocelyn’s eyes tightened. “You’re sure of that?”

“Positive.”

“For all the good it will do. The problem is, I’m pretty sure Greenslade has gone crazy and his partner is a junkie. That is not a good combination.”

“Jocelyn, why did you try to disappear and make me think you were on some sort of tech-free retreat? What scared you?”

“I freaked out one day when I realized my computer and probably my phone had been hacked. Someone was watching me—Greenslade, as it turns out. But at the time I had no way of knowing who was spying on me or how long he had been doing it. I didn’t even know why someone was watching me. But I was convinced it had something to do with the past.”

“Your past in Loring.”

“Yes.”

“What made you think that?”

“The two murders that I was investigating,” Jocelyn said. “Both occurred in recent months. I was sure they had been committed by the same man who had attacked me all those years ago. The question was, why, after all these years, had he suddenly started killing his victims?”

“He was escalating.”

“Yes.”

“You should have told me what you were doing.”

“You would have worried about me.”

“No shit.”

“I’m sorry,” Jocelyn said. “I thought I was protecting you. The only person I told was Louise.”

“Why only her?”

“She was my closest friend in the club. She had helped me do some of the research on the two murders and the three most recent rape cases. We were trying to find some sort of pattern—methods and locations. I didn’t tell the others because I didn’t want to drag them into it.”

“Just like you didn’t want to bring me into it. Jocelyn, I love you like a sister, but at times you are an idiot.”

“Look, there was nothing you or the other members of the club could do and every chance that someone would slip up and accidentally alert whoever we were hunting. It’s so easy to get careless with a text message or an e-mail.”

“Okay, I get that. I don’t like it that you felt you had to keep secrets from me, but I understand it.”‘

“I’m sorry.”

“Never mind,” Charlotte said. “What did you hope to accomplish by disappearing for a while?”

“I thought that if I went off the grid I could somehow force the bastard to reveal himself. I wasn’t sure how that might happen, but I assumed that when he couldn’t find me online, he would come looking—expose himself. And then, the next thing I knew, Louise was dead.”

“So you sent the coded message warning the other members of the club.”

“I had no choice. I thought that I’d been wrong all along. I decided that it was one of our targets who’d hacked my computer. After Louise was murdered I was afraid everyone in the club was at risk.”

“When did you realize Trey Greenslade was the killer you were hunting?”

“I didn’t realize it until I woke up in this damn basement.” Jocelyn groaned. “He was always on my list, but I could never find a way to tie him to any of the rapes that occurred in the years after I was attacked. He was too careful. I knew I had to have some solid evidence before I could go to the police. The Greenslades are still the most powerful family in Loring.”

“Did you know that Louise went to Loring the day she died?”

“Not until Greenslade told me that he was sure she had picked up the old evidence box that day.”

“Max and I assumed she went there to talk to Briggs, but Briggs denied it.”

“You can’t believe anything that bastard told you,” Jocelyn said.

“Yeah, we figured that out right after he tried to kill us.”

“Oh, God, Charlotte, I swear I didn’t want you to get involved—”

“You shouldn’t have kept secrets from me—starting with that stupid investment club. Whatever made you think you and your pals could get away with playing female avengers? Didn’t it occur to you that sooner or later one of your targets would figure out what was going on?”

“Yes, that’s why we set up the escape plan.”

“Oh, yeah, that worked well, didn’t it?”

“You know, I could do without the lectures.”

There was some real energy in Jocelyn’s voice now. She no longer sounded so despondent, Charlotte thought.

“Sorry.” She looked around. “So, you’ve been here longer than me. Any thoughts on how to complicate the lives of those two creeps upstairs?”

Jocelyn hitched herself up against the wall. She held up her bound wrists. And then, like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat, she separated her hands. Charlotte saw that she had slit the duct tape. In the shadows it had not been apparent.

“Ah,” Charlotte said. “I knew you hadn’t been sitting around down here feeling sorry for yourself.”

“I found an old fishing tackle box in the corner,” Jocelyn said. “There was a knife inside.”

“Where is the knife now?”

“Tucked into the waistband of my jeans under my shirt. The problem is that we’re dealing with two guys who have guns.”

“Lucky for you I was a Girl Scout.”