Authors: Gregg Olsen
Closer Than Blood (26 page)
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Tacoma
No one who was not a twin would ever comprehend the connection shared between the two halves of a whole. It is Hells Canyon deep and Mount Rainier high. It is both unbendable and unbreakable. From the womb to the sandbox to college graduation, events were more complicated when they came in twos. Lainie and Tori were always competitors and supporters, both jealous of and comforting to each other. They came home from the hospital as a cherub-faced pair in matching lavender infant sleepers. The only thing to differentiate them was the color of ribbon looped around their pink wrists. When one cried, the other chimed in. It took Dex and Vonnie a week or two to tell them apart, but even though they could do so, the girls were considered a unit. Close, combined, and with a bond that could never be denied by those outside their private little world. And yet, as close as two people can be, there was always a flip side.
A dark, disturbing flip side, indeed.
When Tori indicated she was going to visit her lawyer in downtown Tacoma, Lainie said she didn't mind being left alone.
“Unless, of course, you need me,” she said, although other plans she'd made kept her from being persistent.
“Oh, it might be fun to have you along. But I can manage. I always have,” Tori said, calling from the top of the stairs as she made her way to the landing where Lainie waited.
Her sister, as always, was a sight.
Tori was dressed to the nines in a charcoal suit and black boots that bent at the knees. She had a black handbag that Lainie figured would take two months to pay for with her web content work. Her makeup, once more, was a little more evening than daytime. Lainie was unsure if it was a Tacoma society thing or the remnants of her sister's short-lived career as a singer. In general, Pacific Northwest women favored a less glamorous, less fussy appearance.
“I'll be fine,” Lainie said. “I'll catch up on e-mail. Maybe watch some TV.” She paused for a beat, resisting the expected compliment that Tori always courted from onlookers as she made her grand entrance. “What are you talking to the lawyer about?”
“The estate, the investigation, whatever,” Tori said, hearing the town car pull up. “You know, I don't really have a head for legal matters despite my unfortunate background.”
Her tone was cool and the remark was meant as a little dig.
Lainie pretended not to notice. Giving her sister any ammunition for an argument or challenge was to be on the losing end of a proposition. Tori always won. Though neither twin would concede the matter, Tori had won even the one time when she'd lost her freedom.
Lainie locked the front door and dialed Kendall on her crappy replacement phone and huddled by the doorway, making sure that her sister was really gone.
“She just left,” she said.
“Finally,” Kendall said. “What are you going to do?”
“I'm going to find out what I can. Anything that points to her being the liar that we both know she is.”
“You are not doing this as an agent of the Kitsap County Sheriff's Office,” Kendall said. “You understand that?”
“I get that, Kendall. I'm doing this because I'm scared. I don't trust her. She's planning something and she has to be stopped.”
“Be careful,” Kendall said.
“You can bet on that. Later.”
Lainie had already gone through the medicine cabinet the first night thereâthe kind of thing that many overly curious houseguests probably engage in, but never admit to. Other than of a few prescriptions for antidepressants for Alex and a script for codeine for Toriâapparently for the residual pain for her gunshot woundâthere was little to pique Lainie's interest. A few things merely confirmed what she already knewâeverything Lainie had was the best that money could buy. Her makeup was Chanel, her perfume was French.
If you can't pronounce it, you can't afford it,
she could hear her sister say.
she could hear her sister say.
She moved quickly to the first-floor study and the immense mahogany desk, library bookshelves running the length of the room, floor to ceiling. She wasn't sure what she was trying to find out. She told herself as she neatly put back each envelope and folder that she was only curious.
Tori is a mystery to me and she shouldn't be
.
Her affect about her dead husband is off. She is too cool. Tori cool.
.
Her affect about her dead husband is off. She is too cool. Tori cool.
Most of the paperwork in a folder on top of the desk was related to Alex's business affairs. As she flipped through the mix of originals and photocopies, she found that her dead brother-in-law had a sizable, though dwindling, stock portfolio.
Like my lousy 401K from the paper,
she thought
. We're all going down the drain. Some people like Tori and Alex simply have a bigger reserve.
she thought
. We're all going down the drain. Some people like Tori and Alex simply have a bigger reserve.
Next, she went upstairs to the master bedroom. In her time as a houseguest she barely set foot inside. Her sister, possibly rightly so, considered it her private sanctuary. The door was unlocked and she went into the room. The white linens and pillowy duvet cover made the large antique Rice bed look like it was topped by a cloud. A painting of Tori hung over the bed, which signaled in no uncertain terms who was the most important person in that room. Apart from a crystal dish that held two pairs of cufflinks, there was nothing in the room that remotely suggested a man had lived there after her sister's discharge. It was all perfume bottles, sachets, and an étagère that displayed pink art glass.
You can take a girl out of Port Orchard . . .
Lainie thought. Lainie moved quickly to the dresser and started to prod through Tori's belongings. It was wrong and she knew it, but she couldn't stop herself. The compulsion to find out whatever it was that she was looking for was too great. She gingerly lifted her sister's lingerie, all beautiful, white and ivory silk. Nothing trashy. Everything was tasteful and expensiveâthe kind of undergarments a woman buys for her lover, not because she needs them for herself.
Lainie thought. Lainie moved quickly to the dresser and started to prod through Tori's belongings. It was wrong and she knew it, but she couldn't stop herself. The compulsion to find out whatever it was that she was looking for was too great. She gingerly lifted her sister's lingerie, all beautiful, white and ivory silk. Nothing trashy. Everything was tasteful and expensiveâthe kind of undergarments a woman buys for her lover, not because she needs them for herself.
Under a set of cranberry-colored satin sheets, which seemed so '80s that it gave Lainie some temporary relief from her jealousy of her sister's lavish life, she unearthed a battered manila envelope. It was clasped shut but not sealed, making it fair game for an interloper. She went over to the bed and sat down, fanning out photographs and papers inside. Among them were images of the sisters, their father, their mother. It nearly brought tears to her eyes to think that Tori cared enough about any of them that she'd keep the photographs.
Lainie soaked in each image. There was proof in the faded snapshots that indeed there had been happy times in the O'Neal household. Their mother sat on the old camelback sofa with her babies in each arm, their Siamese cat Ling-Ling at her feet. One photo showed their father with Tori . . . or was it Lainie? . . . at the seagull-calling contest in Port Orchard. Several pictures revealed the family as they opened Christmas presents under an obviously fake Christmas tree.
Dad hated that tree, but Mom insisted it was wrong to cut down a living tree for the holidays,
Lainie thought.
Lainie thought.
Her blue eyes pooled with tears. Vonnie O'Neal had her moments. She was not always the tragic figure that she later became. For a time, she did love life. She loved her husband and her girls. She loved the family cat. She made chocolate chip cookies for the twins and never failed to put extra chips on the top of each cookieâ“because you can never have too much of a good thing, girls.”
Under the last photo Lainie found an envelope marked “Hawaii.” She instantly knew the connection her sister had with the Aloha State and her heartbeat quickened a little. It was a part of her sister's life about which she knew very, very little. She pulled out the contents of the envelopeâphotocopies of a police report, a couple of photographs of her sister, and some other notes related to the accident that took Zach Campbell's life. His photo, the Washington state driver's license image, brought few memories. She'd seen him only once or twice before her sister called and said she'd married him.
“He's handsome, has some money, and wants to have a family,” Tori had said.
“I'm happy for you,” Lainie said, though she really wanted to say, “Since when did you want kids?”
As she flipped through the pages she noticed a couple of other photosâa young man and a car. As she wondered about their inclusion in the packet, the security alarm sounded its quiet chime that someone was coming up the steps.
Lainie turned toward the sound and crept toward the hallway to the staircase. She heard footsteps coming up the walk. It was the smacking of heels. Expensive boots against the pavement.
Tori was back.
As quickly as she could, Lainie hurried back to the bedroom. She shut the drawers, fluffed up the spot on the bed, and ran down the hallway to her bedroom. She went into the bathroom and locked the door. Her heart was pounding and sweat collected under her arms.
What to do? How to explain what she was up to?
“Lainie, I'm here! Forgot some paperwork,” Tori said, calling up the staircase.
Lainie splashed water on her face and patted herself dry. She waited a beat and flushed the toilet, as if she'd been using it. She ran the water, taking another moment to eat up some time. She wanted the redness from her face to fade. She realized she'd taken the Hawaii envelope with her. Whatever panic had seized her when she heard her sister return was ratcheted up tenfold.
Where to put it?
She lifted the toilet seat cover and put the envelope on top before setting the lid back down.
When she opened the bathroom door, Tori was right outside in her black boots and charcoal suit, with a wary expression on her face.
“I'm not feeling well,” Lainie said, pressing her hand gently against her abdomen. “Must be something I ate.”
Tori studied her sister. “We had the same thing,” she said. “I feel fine.”
“I don't feel good,” Lainie repeated, which was the truth, though not for the stated reason. It was more about what she'd been doing and what she saw. She lingered in the doorway.
Tori looked past Lainie. “Oh, I see,” she said. “There are some antacids in my bathroom. I'll get you some.”
“No,” Lainie said, a little too forcefully. She didn't want her sister to go into the bedroom. In her haste to put things back, there was room for error. “I just took some.”
Tori studied her sister. She could always see when she was hiding something.
“All right. I'll be back at four or so.”
“I'm sure I'll feel better then.”
“Good, because I want to take you out for a nice dinner to celebrate our reconnection, our sisterhood.”
Lainie smiled and nodded as she watched her sister leave, hesitate for a moment, then head back to her bedroom before going down the staircase to the waiting car and driver.
That was odd,
Lainie thought,
Tori didn't pick up any paperwork.
Lainie thought,
Tori didn't pick up any paperwork.
Lainie O'Neal had no idea that the whole time she was rifling her sister's belongings in search of God-knows-what, the eye of a webcam was on her. On the other side of Tacoma, in his bedroom in Fircrest, Parker Connelly watched the goings-on in the master bedroom that had once belonged to his father and stepmother.
But now, in some strange way, he felt it belonged to him.
Tori had told him so.
“All of this will be ours,” she said, not long after they first started making love in that very bed. “Yours and mine.”
Tori had kept the two-way webcam on for his pleasure.
“I have no secrets, baby,” she said. “I want you to see me, as I am.”
Sometimes she would linger a little as she undressed, teasing him with the beauty of her body. One time, she turned to the camera and fondled her breasts.
“When I was your age, I was told I had nice titties,” she said. “I still do, don't I?”
“I want to touch them,” he said. “No fair.”
“Soon, baby.”
They had talked the morning before she was to go to her lawyer's to discuss the estate. Tori showed Parker different outfits, and he selected the black boots and the charcoal suit.
“Makes your hair look really sexy,” he said of the color he chose over a dark blue dress. “And your legs, the boots make your legs look hot.”
A few minutes after she left, he saw Lainie go into the bedroom.
What's she doing in there?
he thought. He picked up his phone and texted Tori.
he thought. He picked up his phone and texted Tori.
YR bitch sister is in YR RM.
Tori texted back: What is she doing?
looking where she shouldnt.
Ill take care of it, she texted. Ill give her a surprise. LOL.
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