Cut & Run (16 page)

Stacy shook her head slowly before jumping into the investigative reporter mode that Rachel knew so well. “Okay, let’s break this down. First off, why did Melinda lie about her friendship with Erin?”

“Obviously, she wanted to paint a pretty picture about her friendship with Erin and her happy home life,” said Rachel. “So we’d never think of her as a possible suspect.”

“And now you are thinking of her as a suspect,” Stacy said in more of a statement than a question.

“I don’t know yet,” said Rachel. “But she definitely has a dark side that she didn’t want us to know about. Melinda was jealous of Erin and all that she had acquired. The husband Melinda wanted, the house she wanted, the kids she couldn’t have on her own. And she knew about the affair Erin was having, yet didn’t share that information with her own husband.”

“Because she knew Chris would say something to Matt? Maybe she didn’t want to betray Erin’s confidence.” Stacy was silent for a moment, deep in thought. “It really boils down to one question. Does Melinda have the balls to kill Erin?”

“Maybe. But Melinda is not the type to get her hands dirty. She would have someone else do it,” Rachel answered. “That I’m sure of.”

“Like the art dealer?”

“Maybe. We’ll know more once Red does a background check on him.”

“If Melinda’s really behind it all, maybe that explains why Matt is still alive and Erin is dead. Maybe Melinda wants him all to herself? What about the kids?” Stacy asked.

“Maybe Chris and Melinda have guardianship of the children if anything happens to Erin and Matt. We should have Red look into that.”

“With Matt still alive, they wouldn’t, though,” Stacy speculated. “Maybe he wasn’t supposed to be alive. Maybe they left him, thinking he was dead. He sustained a pretty big head injury, right?”

“Hold up. I’m not sold on the idea that Melinda had anything to do with this. She could just be putting up a front so she doesn’t
seem suspicious. It doesn’t mean she actually killed her sister-in-law,” Rachel said.

“Agreed. But I definitely think we should go have a little talk with her. Run this by Red and see what he thinks we should do.” Stacy grabbed her towel. “I’m going to hit the pool for some laps before we go to dinner.”

“I’ll stay here. I need to be by the phone in case Matt calls. We need to get him to take a look at this photo of Gavin Beckwith. Maybe he’s our missing piece of the puzzle.”

Rachel watched as Stacy expertly dove into the pool. Stacy was petite and had the body of an Olympic swimmer. Being a Florida native, she had a perpetual tan complete with freckles on her face, making her look younger than her thirty-six years. Rachel admired Stacy’s tenacity and competiveness to go after what she wanted and the wherewithal to hang in there until she got it. Rachel saw a little of herself in Stacy. Before she’d met Rick and got married, she was a successful agent selling high-end real estate in Miami. She’d put in sixty hours a week learning everything about the business. She’d always been the first person in the office and the last person to leave. Rachel never took no for an answer and closed twenty-five million in sales her first year in real estate. Stacy worked just as hard as Rachel and chased down every lead until she had the story she needed.

With the O’Malley kids still missing and time running out, Rachel was glad Stacy had joined her team.

M
att sat across from Rachel at Flora, trying not to think about the fact that this very spot was the place he’d seen Erin kissing another man. It wasn’t busy at this time of the day. It was late afternoon, and only a couple of patrons were present, enjoying their cups of coffee. Matt drummed his fingers on the scarred wooden table while studying the picture.

“It’s him,” Matt said. “How did you track him down so fast?” Looking at the photo of the art dealer, he was amazed at how quickly they had found him. The man his wife was supposedly having an affair with. The private investigator he’d called on his own hadn’t even called him back yet. Matt was becoming more impressed with Rachel and her team by the minute.

Rachel gave a small smile. “Red found him. It was really a combination of luck and good timing.”

Matt nursed his cup of Ethiopian coffee while staring at the art gallery brochure Stacy had pilfered.

“I’ve heard his name somewhere before.” Matt read the brochure. “Gavin Beckwith. Huh.”

“Gavin’s an art dealer and owns a gallery near Jackson Square. From what Red can gather, he and Erin were introduced by a mutual friend. Gavin wanted to sign Erin on as a client.”

“From what I saw that day, he wanted to do more than just sign my wife on.” Matt folded up the brochure and stuck it in his pocket.

“Sorry,” Rachel said sincerely. It had to be a double whammy for Matt. To find out his wife was cheating on him and then lose her along with his kids. Rachel cleared her throat. “I had an interesting phone call yesterday. Do you know Alanna Brennan?”

“We went to school together. She’s friends with my wife.”

“I ran into her yesterday. She was with Melinda at the voodoo shop that Erin frequented. Alanna told me about your previous relationship with Melinda.”

Matt looked around the café, his eyes resting on the glass deli case, which was filled with French pastry treats. “Melinda and I dated in high school. It’s no secret.”

Rachel felt the need to apologize. “Sorry to be prying into your personal life, but the more I know about your family and work history, the better chance we have of finding your kids.”

“I get that. I just don’t see what Melinda and I dating in high school has to do with finding my kids. That was almost twenty years ago. She married my brother and they’re happy,” Matt said. “I guess.”

“Were you and your wife happy?” Rachel asked.

Matt stood up, his chair scraping the wood floor. “Well, I thought we were. I mean, we had our ups and downs like any other marriage, but I would’ve never thought she’d cheat on me.”

“Are you planning on calling Gavin Beckwith?”

“I think the situation warrants a personal visit.”

R
achel went back to her hotel room, where Red and Stacy were waiting for her. She gave them the rundown of her conversation with Matt and told them that he had confirmed Gavin as the man he saw with Erin at Flora.

“Good,” said Red. “Now that we have a positive ID on Gavin, I can proceed with a full background check on him as well. When he gets back from his business trip, I’ll pay him a visit. His wife expects him back in a couple of days.”

“Well, that’s settled. You work on Beckwith, and Stacy and I’ll spend a little more time looking into Melinda’s past. Did you hear anything on that background search we started on her?”

“Not yet,” said Red, walking to the door.

“I’ll kick it off by combing through the yearbook Alanna left for me at the front desk,” said Rachel.

“I gotta make some phone calls. Let me know if y’all find anything interesting.” Red left the room.

Stacy climbed onto the bed next to Rachel, and they opened the Sacred Heart Academy’s navy-and-silver yearbook. The first half of the book was filled with pages for clubs, sports, the band, and the usual popularity photos. They spotted Melinda in a lot
of those pages. However, Erin stole the spotlight in the Most Beautiful and Best All-Around categories in the popular pages. Melinda garnered the Best Dressed honor.

“Ouch. I bet Melinda would’ve liked to have won ‘Most Beautiful.’” Rachel flipped through more of the pages. “If this is what Erin looked like their senior year, I’d like to see what she looked like when she was a sophomore or junior.”

“Do high schools still have this junk? I can’t believe people would condone such superficial behavior. ‘Most Beautiful’ and ‘Prettiest Smile’? Really?”

“What did you get in high school? Most Likely to Spill a Secret?” Rachel chuckled.

Stacy grabbed a pillow and hit Rachel with it. “I was a geek in high school. Always had my head buried in a book or working the school newspaper. Hair in pigtails, braces, and skinny as a twig.”

“I find that hard to believe.” Rachel looked at her friend. She was still on the small side, but her body was toned and athletic. She also had a vibrant personality, and Rachel had noticed the way men sneaked glances at her when Stacy walked into the room.

“I came out of my shell in college.” Stacy flipped through the pages and stopped. She stared at a picture of a young man and pointed to him. “Adam Donnelly. Did Alanna mention a younger brother when you talked to her?”

Rachel leaned over and studied the page. The heading was “Sophomores,” and the page was full of class pictures. Adam looked very similar to Melinda. He had shaggy blond hair, the same heart-shaped face as Melinda, blue eyes, and full pouty lips. His eyes didn’t quite meet the camera lens, looking slightly off to the left instead. “I believe she did. I can call her and confirm. She seemed more than willing to give me information last time.”

Stacy waited while Rachel tried Alanna on her cell phone.

After a short polite conversation with Alanna, Rachel hung up.

“Well?” Stacy asked. “The suspense is killing me.”

“Adam Donnelly is in fact Melinda’s younger brother. And…he has an extensive criminal history,” Rachel answered. “We just might be on to something here.”

M
att woke up drenched in sweat, with his heart banging like a jackhammer. A glance at the clock on his bedside revealed that it was almost one a.m. He reached for a bottle of water that sat next to the clock, twisting it open and taking a long sip. A framed photo of Erin sat on the other side of the clock. It was Matt’s favorite picture of her and was taken at their beach house in Florida. The photo brought back memories of the dream he’d just had. A dream so vivid, so real in his mind. He leaned his head back onto the pillow and took deep breaths. The images from the dream kept flashing through his mind.

Erin and the kids were on a boat in a swamp. It was dark and I was trying to find them. I could hear them crying out for help, but I couldn’t see them. Then the clouds parted and moonlight spread over the water, illuminating the small boat carrying my family. I took off my shoes and yelled to them. “Hold on! I’m coming!” The ground was mucky and made it hard for me to walk. The more steps I took, the more the mud gripped my feet. When I finally made it to the water’s edge, I heard my family’s screams. I stopped and
looked around the inky dark water. A pair of yellow eyes stared back at me, then another pair and another. I realized the boat carrying Erin and the kids was surrounded by alligators. My daughter, Mary Kate, panicked and stood up in the middle of the small boat. “Nooo!” I yelled. “Stay down! Stay down!” Mary Kate lost her balance, and the boat flipped into the alligator-infested swamp. I stood on the bank, helplessly watching my family splash around, trying to make it to shore. Their horrendous screams filled my ears.

Matt took another sip of water before pounding his fist on his forehead as if that might pulverize the images and make them go away. He went downstairs and grabbed a six-pack of beer from the refrigerator. Walking outside onto the back patio, he sat down, popped the top on a bottle, and drank the pale ale in two long pulls.

“Screw it,” Matt said to himself. He drank the next bottle as fast as the first. As he cast his gaze over the pool, another forgotten memory popped into his head. The neurologist had told him it might happen this way. One or two small memories giving way to another and then another until eventually he had regained all of them. He knit his brow, concentrating on recovering the details of the memory—it was of a Wednesday dinner when Chris and Melinda had been over, a dinner not long after the fateful day when he’d spotted Erin kissing another man.

It hadn’t just been Chris and Melinda over for that Wednesday dinner. Alanna Brennan and her two boys were over as well. When I had gone to the garage to switch out the propane tanks for the grill, I’d heard female voices. I’d realized suddenly that Erin, Melinda, and Alanna were in the upstairs apartment checking out Erin’s latest painting. From where I was standing in the garage, a vent led directly to the floor above, and I could hear their conversation clearly. Normally, I wouldn’t eavesdrop, but something in my wife’s tone made me stop what I was doing and listen.

“Ran into him at the coffee shop by his gallery. I finally gave in and had lunch with him.”

“Really? I thought you didn’t want to work with anyone,” Alanna said.

“Well, at first I didn’t, but you know Gavin. He’s very, um…persistent,” Erin said.

“Very persistent and very cute,” Alanna said and then laughed. “Although his wife is a bit of a bitch.”

“I didn’t meet his wife.” Erin paused for a minute. “She was out of town when I toured the gallery. Gavin and I usually meet at the coffee shop. You know the one where I have a couple of paintings on display?”

“Flora?” Alanna asked.

“Yep. That’s the one. Anyway, Gavin liked what he saw and asked if I had any other works in progress,” Erin said.

“And?” Melinda prompted.

“And I brought him back here to my studio and showed him these two pieces,” Erin said. “He said he wanted me to do a gallery showing.”

I had felt my stomach clench. This was the first I’d heard of Erin bringing another man to the house to view her work. I thought of the guy I’d seen kissing Erin at Flora. This must be the same guy. I still couldn’t bring myself to ask Erin about it. Part of me didn’t want to admit my marriage was failing and that Erin maybe had fallen out of love with me.

“What kind of cut does Gavin get for any pieces that sell?” Melinda asked.

“Ten percent of gross sales. He said I’d need to have at least fifteen pieces done to make it worth his time,” Erin answered.

“What does Matt say about all this?” Melinda asked.

I stood very still at the mention of my name. I waited patiently for her answer, straining to hear.