You Can't Hide (54 page)

“When Amy was two,” Gina whispered. “She killed herself.”

Vito frowned. “You never told us that.”

202

Karen Rose

[Suspense 5]

You Can't Hide

“Amy’s father never wanted her to know, so we never told her. We took her in. Made her our own. Vito, you’re wrong. Amy can’t be involved in this.”

“How was her father murdered?” Aidan asked tightly.

“He and his fiancй were stabbed in a robbery.” Vito dropped his eyes. “Amy was assaulted. Raped.” Vito paused meaningful y. “She said. They arrested a neighbor kid.”

“Leon Vanneti,” Gina said, her voice trembling. “He was a no-good boy. Ran wild with those motorcycle boys.” She swallowed hard. “You always said he was innocent.”

“Because I thought he was.”

“You said ‘she said,’” Murphy observed. “Why?”

“I knew Leon. He was wild, but he wasn’t bad. But the hospital did an exam. Found semen and some bruising. It all came out at the trial.”

“Along with the bloody knife they found under his bed,” Gina snapped. “Vito, how can you say these things?”

“Because it didn’t make sense. Leon wasn’t stupid. He would have hidden his tracks. He said he’d never touched her but the jury didn’t believe him. Bad-looking motorcycle dude versus a sweet little girl. There was no DNA analysis because it was about seven years too early. Now Leon’s serving a life sentence.”

“And Amy became a defense attorney,” Murphy mused. “Being a victim, I would have thought she’d go the opposite way and prosecute.”

Amy’s career motives were something to consider. Aidan tucked the thought away. “Why did you think Amy could hurt Tess?”

Vito shrugged uneasily. “It was more of a feeling. Tess was the only one of us to have her own room, because she was the only girl, but she was thrilled to share with Amy when she came to live with us. Amy wanted her own room. Made a hell of a fuss. She always wanted special treatment.”

“She’d just lost her parents,” Gina protested.

“So you said,” Vito said. “Many times. Then things would go missing. Little things, nothing big. And there was the crawl space thing.”

Gina shook her head, desperation in the gesture. “An accident. Vito, please.”

“What crawl space thing?” Aidan asked, but he thought he knew.

“When she was sixteen, Tess got locked in the crawl space under the house where we grew up.” Vito said. “It’s smal and dark, and-”

“That’s why she never takes the elevator,” Aidan murmured and Vito nodded.

“We’d gone away for a long weekend. Tess and Amy were supposed to go to a friend’s, but Amy changed her mind and came back to go with us. Apparently Tess fol owed her but got locked in the crawl space. She was down there for three days. No food or water. She’d pounded her hands to a pulp and scratched until her fingernails were broken to the quick.”

Aidan flinched. “God.”

“Amy claimed that she didn’t know Tess had decided to come home and go with us. But it was hard to blame Amy. She felt terrible. Nursed Tess for days.”

Gina pushed away from the table. “Vito, this is wrong.” Her arms crossed over her chest, she paced angrily. Then stopped abruptly in front of the whiteboard, her entire expression flattening in shock. “What is this?” Her question was hoarse.

Aidan got up and walked to the board. Her hand shook as her finger tentatively touched one of the corporations’ names. Deering. The key entity.

“This name. I’ve seen it before.” She turned to look at Vito, her eyes filled with horrified realization. “It was the customer that hired that woman.”

That woman
. Realization hit Aidan like a brick as Vito surged to his feet. Amy. Again. Tess’s and her father’s estrangement had been no misunderstanding. No accident. A fury bubbled from deep within him.

“What woman?” Murphy asked.

Aidan evenly, quickly, told the story.

203

Karen Rose

[Suspense 5]

You Can't Hide

“The one that’s ripped our family in two for five fucking years,” Vito fumed. “That conniving bitch. Amy wanted Tess out of the picture so she deliberately set Dad up.”

“While she came to our Thanksgiving table and sat in Tess’s chair.” Gina’s eyes filled with tears.

“And it worked for five years.” Wearily Aidan rubbed his head.

“Phillip Parks,” Murphy said behind him, very quietly and Aidan knew.

“Amy was Parks’s other woman.”

Murphy nodded. “When we questioned Parks he might have told us, exposing her.”

Aidan sank into his chair. “She’s been systematically ruining Tess’s life for years.”

“Why did Amy’s mother kill herself?” Spinnelli asked.

“She was paranoid schizophrenic.” Gina was trembling uncontrol ably. “We watched Amy so careful y. We knew it was inherited sometimes. But Amy always seemed so normal. So happy. We didn’t want to scare her so we never told her.”

Vito closed his eyes. “God.”

“Did Tess know this?” Aidan demanded and Gina shook her head.

“It was Amy’s father’s wish that nobody ever know. So we kept it hidden.”

The phone on the conference room table rang and Murphy snapped it up. “Thanks,” he said and hung up. “Patrick says he’l meet us at Miller’s with the warrant. Let’s go.”

Friday, March 17, 6:45 P.M.

Sometimes the best approach was to hide in plain sight. A brisk knock brought a man to the door. The boyfriend… what was his name? Keith. Must remember the details. But the boyfriend was not the desired party. Joanna Carmichael was.

“Can I help you?” he asked with a deep drawl.

“I’m here to meet with Miss Carmichael regarding her ongoing investigative piece.”

Keith’s jaw tightened. “Oh,” he said flatly. “That. Well, she’s not home right now. You’l have to come back later.” He started to shut the door, then his eyes widened with shock as he stared at the pistol, complete with a silencer.

“Now where is that Southern hospitality I’ve heard so much about? Invite me in.”

He backed up at a suspicious angle, hitting a desk that sat just inside the door, his hands behind his back. He moved quickly, but ultimately not quickly enough. His knees hit the floor before he could point the gun he’d pul ed from the drawer, a red stain quickly spreading across the front of his starched white shirt. It was just as well. He’d been a dead man from the moment he’d opened the door. He’d just sped up the timetable when he’d pul ed the gun. Foolish, really. He probably wouldn’t have had the guts to use it anyway. He fell forward, his gun slipping from his grasp to lie harmlessly on the carpet. It would make a charming souvenir. The floorplan of this place was much like Cynthia Adams’s apartment, ten floors up. Carmichael would be home soon. The closet would be a reasonable place-The boom of Keith’s gun shook the air in the same moment that pain speared, hot and sharp. And then pain gave way to shock.
He shot me. My arm.
He propped himself up on his elbows, the gun held unsteadily in both hands. A grim smile stamped on his mouth. The sonofabitch really did have the guts after all.

“Fuck you,” he rasped. Then he col apsed, trapping the gun beneath him. Shock gave way to fear. Run.
Run.
A second passed before her feet obeyed. The stairwell was closer.
Run. Down one floor, now two. Breathe.
The sleeve of the tan coat had a neat hole around which blood had already soaked.

Careful y she took it off and walked out onto the tenth floor, the coat draped to cover the wound. The elevator came quickly and with no further ado, descended quickly to the lobby. From there, walking out as cool as a cucumber was no issue at all.
Friday, March 17, 7:00 P.M.

204

Karen Rose

[Suspense 5]

You Can't Hide

She wasn’t here.
Aidan stood in the middle of Amy Miller’s living room watching Jack’s team look for anything that might indicate Tess had been here. But there was nothing. Nothing. And he felt true fear. Cold. Debilitating. Paralyzing in its intensity. Tess and her father weren’t here. Neither was Amy. Fury bubbled up and he silently clenched his fists at his sides. Made himself take a deep breath. Losing his temper wouldn’t bring Tess back safely. Understanding Amy would bring Tess back. Figuring out Amy’s next step before she made it would bring Tess back.

I’m not a mind reader,
Tess had said. Suddenly, fiercely, Aidan wished that he was. He needed to be. Needed to get inside Amy’s head.

Don’t be a mind reader. Be a cop. Do your job like you do every day.
The fist that clenched his gut eased, just enough to get his focus back.
Get inside her head.
Aidan did a slow turn around the room, examining the movie posters that covered the walls. “She’s a col ector,” he murmured, vaguely surprised. It was a rather eclectic col ection, spanning the 1930s to the 1990s. Some movies were classics, others more obscure.

All had a common theme. His heart started to thud. “Murphy! Come here.”

Murphy came from the kitchen holding two glass jars, one in each hand. “What?” He looked up and whistled. “These must be worth a mint.”

“They are, but it’s not the money. It’s the meaning. Look.” He started at the end of one wall, pointing. “
Double Indemnity
with Barbara Stanwyck.”

“I’ve never seen it,” Murphy said.

“Woman uses a man to kill her husband and gets away with it.
All About Eve
.”

Murphy’s eyes were bright. “Anne Baxter plays another manipulative bitch. They’re all movies where women win.”

Aidan stared at the poster that was centered on one wall and the last piece of the puzzle fell into place. His heart was racing now. “Murphy, listen.” He read off the actresses’ names.

“Stanwyck, Turner, Davis, Baxter.”

Murphy’s eyes widened. “The corporations you had on the white board.” He scanned the posters. “But Deering was the name in the middle. I don’t see that.”

Aidan tapped the poster in the middle. “This one is from
Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte
. Olivia de Havilland drives her ‘friend’ Bette Davis insane. De Havilland’s character’s name was Miriam Deering. Each one of these movies is about a woman manipulating either men or other women. It’s a fucking road map. She must have thought she was so damn clever. Tess would have seen the posters a million times.”

“And she never suspected a thing. Amy taunted her with the information and Tess never suspected. How much are these posters worth, Aidan?”

“If they’re original? Close to two hundred grand total.”

“You took a film appreciation class when you were getting your degree, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” Aidan said flatly. The thrill of cracking the code had quickly cooled. “Hel of a lot of good it does me now. What does any of this have to do with where Miller is right now?”

Murphy clasped his shoulder and gave him an encouraging squeeze. “Try to relax your mind, Aidan. Think about what we know, not about what we don’t. Think about this. Two hundred grand is a lot of cash to plunk down for wall decor. I looked at Miller’s 1040 for last year and she only declared sixty in income. The rent on this apartment is consistent with that. The posters aren’t.”

Aidan lifted his brows. “Earlier, you said you were surprised she didn’t become a prosecutor. If you’re looking for shady minions to do your bidding…”

“As a defense attorney, she has access to all the bad guys she needs to do any little thing she wants done.” Murphy looked around the living room. “You know the one thing I expected to see was a big computer system. When Rick showed us all the cameras I had a vision of this James Bond-like console that had ten monitors and covered a whole wall. There’s no computer here. Not even a monitor.”

205

Karen Rose

[Suspense 5]

You Can't Hide

“She probably has a laptop.”

“Probably, but she had all this footage to watch. Cameras in Tess’s apartment, her office, Cynthia Adams’s apartment… I can’t imagine her spending the time watching one feed at a time, especially since she still puts in time on her job. She’s got to have at least two or three monitors, Aidan. Otherwise, it’s not logistically possible.”

Aidan nodded grimly. “Then she’s got another place where she plays. I’l check into any realestate holdings of her corporations, starting with Deering.”

“Aidan, Murphy,” Jack called from the bedroom urgently. “Come and see.”

Aidan stopped short at the sight. The armoire doors were thrown back, revealing dozens of pictures. One face was common to all. “Swanson,” Aidan murmured. Vito stood at the foot of Amy’s bed, his head bent under a frilly pink canopy. “There are more under here,” he said flatly.

Aidan and Murphy bent close to the pictures on the armoire. Many were group photos. “This was taken at Robin Archer’s bistro. Tess has one just like it.” But closer inspection had his gut clenching once again. “She’s cut Tess out of this picture.”

“Out of all the pictures,” Murphy murmured. “Looks like Swanson sat next to Tess every chance he got. Miller is obsessed with this guy.”

Aidan glanced at Vito. “Swanson went missing three months ago.”

“I was thinking he was dead, but if Miller was stalking him and he felt threatened, he might have used the Doctors Without Borders ruse to disappear,” Murphy said.

“Look at these,” was all Vito said and stepped back from the bed. Aidan stuck his head under the canopy and blinked. “Holy shit.” The entire area of the canopy was filled with more pictures of Swanson in various stages of undress. “Looks like he was in his bedroom when she took these through the window.”

“I went by his last known address yesterday.” Murphy frowned. “The bedroom faced the street. These pictures would have had to be taken from an apartment across the street.” He lifted a brow. “It could be where she plays.”

Aidan felt a little lift of hope. “Let’s get over there.”

“I’l call Spinnelli. He can start checking addresses. Get us a warrant.”

“Wait. Before you go…” Standing in the bedroom closet doorway, Jack held up a pair of wingtips. “Right size. Blood on the laces.” He turned them over. “No mud on the soles. We’l test to see if the blood is Bacon’s.”

“Then she had two pairs of shoes,” Murphy mused. “Those and the ones she wore this afternoon when she hit Vito.”