Jackson 07 - Where All the Dead Lie (25 page)

Taylor held up both hands. “No. You can’t go in there. I’ll lose her if you do. She’s not stupid, she’ll know something’s up immediately.”

“You’ll lose who?”

Time to gamble. If the family was getting death threats, if there was a chance Evan had been murdered, and Taylor had been poisoned, perhaps one person was responsible for all that. And knowing what she knew about Madeira James’s background, Taylor wasn’t all that surprised.

“Dr. James. Madeira James. She’s up at the house, got stuck there last night with her husband Roland MacDonald.”

“That nut? She’s a headshrinker. Crazy, but harmless. We’ve checked her out. The only thing we have on her is a name change. She went to James a few years back, when she stopped practicing. No one knows why.”

Stopped practicing after she changed her name. That’s why Sam hadn’t seen her listed with the licensing boards. And I know why. She’s in love with Memphis and wants part of him. What better way to share a person than by taking his name? God, the woman was sick
.

“Did your investigation find her extensive juvenile record?”

His forehead creased. “No. Tell me.”

“You’re Security Service. Look it up.”

She was pissing him off now, she could tell. But she needed to get back to the house and get that laptop, and they were wasting time.

“If you think it’s her, let’s just go get her. My people are on the road. We’ll hold her until they arrive.”

“It’s not that simple. You go barging in there, she’ll clam up and we’ll get nothing. Let me do this my way. Then y’all are welcome to her.”

“‘Y’all.’ I like that.”

She had him.

“What the hell is your name?”

He gave her another of those pretty Chiclet smiles. “It actually is Jacques. My mum’s French.”

“All right then, Jacques. I still need that weapon.”

He stared at her for a few moments. “If you tell anyone I provided this to you, I’ll deny it. I’ll claim you forced your way into my desk and stole it. You got me?”

“Your name will never come up.”

He opened the desk drawer and withdrew a key. The bottom drawer on the right had a lock. He used the key to open it. Handed her a Glock 26 and a full magazine of ammunition.

She loaded the weapon, felt the familiar comfort of it in her hand, and smiled. She was starting to feel like normal.

Jacques locked the drawer back up, tossed the key into the drawer, then stood.

“I’m going in with you. I don’t care what you say. If she’s dangerous, you need protection. You’re a guest of the family. They’d have my head if something happened to you on my watch.”

“Too late for that.”

She filled him in about thinking she’d been drugged.

“You know, that’s weird. Before the wife died, there were reports that she was acting abnormally. Seeing things. That does fit, then.”

Oh, poor Evan. Poor, poor Evan. Driven off the edge, literally, by her best friend.

Jacques press-checked his weapon. “Don’t worry about me. I can be circumspect. I’ll stay around the staff, that’s what I normally do. Here’s my number. You ring if you need me. I’m a damn sight closer to you up there than down here.”

A small, soft voice rang out.

“Erm, mum? I’m needing to get back to the house.”

Shit. Maisrie. She’d completely forgotten.

Taylor turned and expertly stashed the weapon in the back of her jeans, pulled her sweater over it. No sense spooking the girl further.

“Okay, Maisrie. We’re all set. Jacques is coming back with us. Again, honey, let me stress, don’t tell anyone about this, okay?”

The girl nodded her head. Taylor turned back to Jacques. “Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” he said.

He sounded confident. She hoped she could say the same.

They got back to the house undetected.

Maisrie led the way, through the kitchens, where Jacques, seeking to distract the crew of servants about to exit into the hallway to bring food to the dining room, made a show of entering, shaking snow off his thick hair, jovially tossing French compliments out to disarm the cook. Taylor and her small companion snuck on alone now.

Taylor heard noises coming from the hallway, a familiar voice. Maisrie stopped full, her face showing alarm. It was Trixie. Well, there’d be no helping it. With a smile, Taylor pushed Maisrie out in front of her, hoping the girl would be enterprising enough to improvise, at least long enough for Taylor to get into the drawing room.

She was hoping that Maddee would be set up in the drawing room like she had been the past two days, waiting for her, unaware of Taylor’s suspicions.

Yeah, that was probably too much to wish for.

Taylor looked at her watch. It was past two. Surely Trixie had told Maddee that she was up and about, and that Taylor knew she and Roland were in the castle.

She got to the drawing room, listening carefully for signs of someone nearby. Hearing nothing, she stuck her head in. No one was there. What luck. Perfect. She that asketh, getteth.

She slipped in. For their sessions, Maddee had kept her laptop out on the table for Taylor to use while her voice wasn’t working. When they finished the sessions, Maddee put the laptop into her bag.

Oh, this was too lucky for words. The bag was there. Now, was the laptop inside?

A flash of silver caught Taylor’s eye.

Score one for the good guys.

Taylor dove into the bag and grabbed the little laptop. She didn’t waste any more time. She needed to get back to her room. The drawing room only had one exit. Taylor went back to that door, listened, heard nothing, and slipped out into the hallway. Her heart was beating double time in her chest.

Just keep them occupied, Maisrie.

Taking Maddee’s laptop was dangerous, but there might be something on there that gave some answers to her past. And Taylor needed to delete their session notes. There was just too much personal information in them, words she’d said under hypnosis that could come back to haunt her. And God knew what sort of notes Maddee had inserted herself to make Taylor’s actions look even worse.

Up the stairs now, to the keypadded door leading to the family’s private quarters. Taylor had no idea if Maddee knew the combination. Now she understood the newly enhanced security measures: the castle being closed for the season, electronically locked doors. Jacques had started to share something that had alarmed Special Branch, something they’d found. She could only imagine what that might be. Personal protection from the government wasn’t cheap. The threat must have been very real for them to cover a continuous protection detail.

She was in the hallway now. Her room was two doors away. One door. There. She breathed a huge sigh of relief and went inside, locking it behind her. Nice to know she had a future in cat burgling, if she wanted it.

She set Maddee’s laptop on the desk. She knew it was password protected. She was going to need Lincoln’s help. But she needed to talk to Baldwin first. She dialed his number. It went to voice mail.

“Come on, Baldwin. Pick up your phone.”

She didn’t know what to think. It could be the storm had killed cellular service. Or it could be something much, much worse. She was starting to get completely freaked out by all of this. And there was no place she could go. She was stuck at the castle. If he were in trouble, she couldn’t help him. He was a capable man. He said he was in Atlantic’s offices in Amsterdam, was going to be here soon. She didn’t know how he would manage with the storm. She would have to fend for herself. He was safe, for now at least. She had her own issues she needed to deal with.

She left a message—“Call me”—then clicked off and dialed Lincoln’s phone. She wasn’t surprised when he answered immediately.

“Did you get it?” he asked.

“Yeah. Right here. I don’t know how much time I have.”

“I’ve been thinking about possible passwords. If you were using an alias, and no one knew your real name, what would you use?”

“You’re clever, Lincoln. It’s worth a try.”

Taylor typed the letters, holding her breath.

R-A-C-H-A-E-L-M-A-C-K

The screen saver disappeared, and the desktop background appeared. A beautiful shot of Loch Ness at sunset. Taylor remembered it from their first session.

“We’re in. And you’re amazing.”

“Okay. I emailed you the list of places to look and steps to take if there are barriers. Get to it. Call me if you need any help.”

“Will do, Linc. Thank you so much.”

She hung up with him, set the phone on the desk next to Maddee’s MacBook Air. Opened her own laptop, read through Lincoln’s instructions. Started combing through the doctor’s computer files.

Taylor quickly found the session notes from their two meetings. Taylor scanned through them, deleted the most egregious bits, then emailed them to herself and to Lincoln. Best-case scenario, she would have opened a file-sharing folder on Dropbox and uploaded all the files, but that would take more time than she had. Email wasn’t as secure, but it worked quicker.

She trekked her way through the past few days of files, opening, perusing, sending, then found what she was looking for.

Maddee’s online journal. Surely this would provide them with some answers.

She mailed the folder to Lincoln for him to look through as well, then went to most recent entries, the ones that had been made since she arrived at Dulsie Castle.

What she read turned her cold.

Like a child, Maddee, or Rachael, as Taylor needed to start thinking of her, started each entry the same way.

Dear Diary
.

Dear Diary—The bitch has arrived…

Dear Diary—That stupid cunt thinks he actually loves her. She’s here to find out if she loves him, too…

Dear Diary—I can tell Memphis still has feelings for me. I saw the way he looked at me when he introduced his newest slut.

All I can remember is the feel of him under me, my hands so full of him…

Dear Diary—There’s no help for it. She has to go. She wants him, and he wants her. I can’t go through that again. Not again.

Taylor’s phone rang, startling her. It was Lincoln.

“Are you reading this?” she asked.

“Go to December 21, 2008,” he said.

“That’s the day Evan died.” She clicked back onto the dates, happy to get out of the woman’s psychotic head, even if only for a moment.

She read the entry, her mouth dropping open in shock.

Dec. 21, 2008

Dear Diary,

Everyone thinks she’s dead. Now she’s going to feel what it’s like to be in my shoes for a while. The bitch deserves every horrible thing that’s going to happen to her. She should have never doubted me. I tried to help her. Everything we did, hypnosis, medications, it was all working. And then she had to grow a spine, decide to tell Memphis about our sessions. I couldn’t take the chance that he’d find out.

“Lincoln, what the hell?”

“If what I’m reading is right, and not the ravings of a complete lunatic, Evan Highsmythe isn’t dead. She is very much alive.”

“Lincoln, that’s absurd. Evan Highsmythe died in a car accident. The earl identified her body.”

“They didn’t do an autopsy. Why didn’t Memphis identify her?”

Taylor thought back to the conversation she and Memphis had right after she arrived, that night in his study, before everything had spun so far out of control.

“I never got to see her, you know. After the accident. Father wouldn’t let me. He said it would be a very bad idea indeed. She’d gone through the windscreen, was cut to ribbons. He thought I would carry the image with me forever, what she looked like
.”

“No, he didn’t. The earl wouldn’t let him. She had extensive facial lacerations.”

“That’s doubt enough for me.”

“But if it wasn’t Evan in the car, who was it?”

“I don’t know. They’ll have to exhume the body, run DNA. Probably some transient passing through. Rachael got her hands on them and used them to her own end. She’s good at that.”

“Christ. That seems awfully risky.”

“You’re dealing with a stone-cold psychopath, Taylor. Risks are her specialty.”

“Okay. Assume that you’re right, that this is all a huge cover-up. That Rachael managed to wreck the car with some one else in it, spirit Evan away. So where is Evan now? Her death was splashed across the covers of every newspaper in the country. It would be difficult to hide her. Her face would be recognized.”

“Look at what she says in the entry. ‘Now Evan is going to feel what it’s like to be in my shoes for a while.’ Rachael was locked away for seven years.”

“Committed. So you think Evan has been committed somewhere?”

“In an insane asylum. That would be the perfect punishment.”

“Oh, my God, Lincoln. I can’t believe Rachael would be able to manage it.”

“Look at her past, Taylor. Rachael succeeded by manipulating others to do her work for her. It’s possible. And with a doctor’s license, she could fake the papers. She’s a master forger, family signatures would be nothing to her. We just need to find out where she put her.”

Evan’s suicide note. Could Maddee have written it? Could she have sent the email from Memphis’s account, too?

A voice rang out from the hallway. “Taylor? You should come to lunch. We’ve been waiting for you.”

Rachael.

She had the electronic code to the family’s private quarters after all.

The Highsmythes had let the wolf into the chicken coop.

Taylor’s voice was mouse quiet. “Lincoln. She’s at my door.”

“Did you send me all the files?”

“Yes.”

“Then find a way to get her computer back into her bag, and don’t let her know we’re on to her. I’ll get looking for places Evan might be.”

“You know what name to look under, right?”

“Yes. Rachael Mack.”

“Right. Do me a favor and get Baldwin. I’ve been trying to reach him without luck. He’s supposed to be heading here, so he may be en route. Find him and let him know what’s happening. Talk to you in a bit.”

“Taylor. Watch yourself.”

“I will.”

Rachael was knocking on the door now. Hard. Taylor slapped the laptop shut. Looked at it critically. It was so thin… She stood and put the computer down the front of her jeans, sending a mental thank-you to Steve Jobs’s design team. The heavy wool sweater she wore covered both the laptop and the gun at the small of her back perfectly.

She went to the door and opened it. Rachael had a huge, winning smile on her face. If she knew something was up, she was one hell of an actress.

“Hiya. Hey there. How you feeling? Trixie said you were up and about. Want to come down and have lunch? You can meet Roland—properly, this time. I’m afraid he was a bit put out that I was so trashed last night. Then we couldn’t get down the drive. The truck kept sliding off to the side of the road. He’d forgotten the chains. So we gave up, hiked back up to the house. We had to stay here last night. He wasn’t all that thrilled, let me tell you. The kids are home with the nanny, and God knows what sort of trouble they’ve managed to get into.”

Taylor forced her voice to stay in a normal range. “That’s quite an adventure. Lunch sounds great. I’m actually starved, and I’d love to meet Roland.”

But I don’t plan to eat a bite with you anywhere around, you psycho bitch
.

Dr. Maddee James, née Rachael Mack, didn’t seem to have a clue that Taylor was on to her. Which was helpful. Taylor shut the door to her suite and the two started off down the hall together.

“I was hoping you’d come down for our session this morning. Did you at least do the exercises I gave you?”

Taylor gave her own winning smile. She wasn’t too bad of an actress herself.

“Yeah. We maybe hit it too hard last night. Getting up this morning wasn’t exactly easy. Despite the hangover from hell, I did do the exercises. And I listened to the biofeedback tape. I kind of passed out last night after our party—haven’t done
that
in a while—woke up in the middle of the night with a horrid headache. I took all my meds, got back in bed and slept through till Trixie woke me. That melatonin is amazing. I need to get some back in the States. I owe you—no doctor has ever been able to cure my insomnia.”

Rachael touched Taylor’s back with the palm of her hand, between her shoulder blades. A reassuring pat. Taylor did her best not to cringe.

“You are so welcome. I’m glad it helped. So you listened to the tape. How did it make you feel?”

“So relaxed. I am feeling so much better. You’re doing wonders for me. I really don’t know how to thank you.”

“You just did,” Rachael said. The cold snap in her voice was hard to miss. She didn’t want Taylor getting better. She wanted her dead. The tape proved it.

They were at the door to the second dining room now.

This would be Taylor’s only shot. She patted her front pocket.

“Oh, crap. I forgot my phone. I’m waiting for my fiancé to call. Listen, you go on in and sit down. I’ll be right back, okay?”

“Oh, sure. No problem. See you in a minute.” Rachael went into the dining room without a backward glance.

The moment Rachael was inside the door, Taylor reversed course. She ran down the stairs, down the hall, back to the drawing room. All the while, the same three words ran through her head.

Evan’s not dead.