Nine Years Gone (18 page)

I did as Traffort suggested. Eventually they’d discover Tess for who and what she was, but until then, I was on my own. At least someone else would be watching her now. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, but Traffort had a tendency to jerk the steering wheel hard every time he switched lanes, keeping me awake.

Eventually, we arrived at the Super 8 Motel in Wentzville. Built beside I-70 and sandwiched between a barbecue place on one side and a Rural King farm store on the other, it had three St. Louis news vans already broadcasting from its parking lot, likely preparing stories for their station’s morning shows. Traffort pulled past at least a dozen marked cruisers from various Missouri law enforcement agencies before coming to a stop beneath the carport in front of the motel’s lobby. Upon seeing us, several men, including Captain Morgan, stepped out of the building and into the early morning air, their breaths coming out in puffs of frost. I couldn’t see it, but a helicopter flew somewhere near overhead.

“Morning,” I said, opening my door.

“Mr. Hale,” said Morgan, nodding. He introduced each of the officers he was standing with, but I barely paid attention beyond noting that he had representatives from local law enforcement agencies that I didn’t even know existed.

“Detective Traffort briefed me on the way,” I said, stepping a little closer to Captain Morgan. “Can I talk to you in private?”

Morgan looked to the other officers. “I’ll drive you home and we can talk then. In the meantime, we’re a little pressed for time here, and there’s someone who would very much like to see you.”

“Do I have to see her?”

Morgan’s eyes narrowed slightly. “I understand that this is awkward considering the circumstances, but Ms. Girard has been through a lot. We asked if she’d like us to call her mother or her sister, but she asked for you. I’m asking you, as a favor to me, to see her.”

I didn’t like the idea of seeing her again, but I didn’t think she could do much with so many other people around us.

“Shouldn’t you be taking her to the hospital first?”

“Paramedics have already checked her out,” said Morgan. “Aside from a few bruises, she’s physically in good shape.”

“All right, then,” I said, nodding toward the front door. “Lead on.”

“Thank you,” said Morgan, seemingly sincerely. He held open the motel’s glass front door and gestured for me to come inside. The lobby had a dark blue, checkered carpet and a pass-through window along one wall that served as the front desk. A chipped and painted wooden horse, the sort of thing I’d expect to find on a carousel, stood beside the staircase that led to the second floor. Morgan didn’t wait for me to take in my surroundings nor did he acknowledge the clerk behind the front desk. We simply walked up those stairs and down a long hallway to the left.

Three uniformed officers stood outside an open door on the right side of the hallway, but we walked past them with nothing but a nod. I did manage to peek inside to see a simple hotel room with dated red carpet and furniture constructed of lightly stained oak. Someone had stripped the bed to the mattress, and a man about my age and wearing a navy blue vinyl jacket and hospital slipcovers over his shoes photographed everything. Even from the hallway, I could smell bleach, which made me doubt they’d find much inside.

We stopped outside a nondescript room, four doors down and on the other side of the hallway. No police officers stood guard, but then there were so many police officers in the lobby and outside the building that nobody could enter or leave the premises without scrutiny. Morgan knocked and waited as Tess undid the latch. When she pulled the door open, she left the chain attached, limiting how far I could see into the room.

Tess looked at Captain Morgan, but then she saw past him and focused on me. Her face seemed to fall, and fresh tears came to her cheeks. She wasn’t wearing makeup, I could tell that even from a glance, and it probably says what a sucker I am, but I felt for her in that moment, felt deeply for her. I wanted to protect her. But then I caught myself and held back, knowing that everything in front of me was a lie.

Tess slammed the door shut and unlatched the chain before opening it again. She launched herself at me, tears flowing freely down her cheeks as she sobbed against my chest. I put my arms around her back, more because it felt awkward to stand with them at my sides than anything else. The police officers up and down the hallway were pointedly not watching us.

“You’re safe now, Ms. Girard,” said Captain Morgan. “No one’s going to hurt you any more.”

“That’s right,” I said. “You’re safe with the police now.”

Tess took a small step back from me, causing her hair to stick to the stubble on my chin like Velcro. “Can I have a moment alone with Steven?”

Morgan hesitated and then looked at me. I wanted to shake my head no, but I knew that would set the police off.

“Sure,” he said, nodding. “We’ll just wait outside.”

“We’ll leave the door open,” I said. “So Tess can see the officers outside.”

Tess reached out to me and brushed my cheek with her fingertips, her blue eyes shimmering with tears not yet wept. “I’m tired of people watching me.”

Morgan grimaced and looked at me sympathetically. I had to hand it to Tess; she did know how to play a crowd. I put my hand on her wrist and gently took it from my cheek. When it was below the point that the officers would have seen it, I squeezed hard.

“We have a lot to talk about,” I said. “Let’s go inside.”

She looked at me right in the eye, blinking rapidly. “Are you really here?”

“Yes, I’m here.”

Morgan cleared his throat and took a step away from us. “My men and I will be at the other end of the hall. If you need anything, please let us know.”

“Thank you,” said Tess, her voice so weak I could barely hear it.

Morgan looked at his feet. “Yeah, well, good luck to you two.”

He took another step back, and Tess took my hand and gently pulled me through the door. The room looked very much like the room we had passed earlier, except that it had two queen-sized beds, both of which had comforters still on them. Inside the room, she hugged me again, tears still periodically falling, but as soon as I shut the door, those tears stopped and she took a step back.

“We were doing just fine on our own,” she said. “You had no reason to bring the police in, honey.”

“Please don’t call me honey,” I said.

“Fine, then,” she said, throwing up her hands and walking deeper into the room. She sat on one of the beds and patted the comforter beside her. I walked over, leaned against the dresser in front of the room, and crossed my arms. “Are you pouting?”

“I’m pissed off,” I said.

She reached behind her and leaned back on her hands. “Am I not giving you enough attention? Is that it?”

“Are you out of your mind? You killed my dog and one of my best friends and then asked me to kill your mother.”

Tess leaned forward and shook her head. “If you had just left with me when I asked, none of this would have happened. Isaac would be alive, your dog would be alive, Katherine and little Ashley would be safe. Everything would be wonderful.”

“And I could live my life in quiet wedded bliss with a murderer.”

“I’m not a murderer, but we could have been together. It would have been nice.”

I lowered my chin. “You don’t think you’re a murderer? I’m sure Holly Olson’s father would feel differently if he knew the truth.”

Tess shook her head again. “I’ve never killed anyone in my life. I’ve thought about it, sure, planned it and wanted to, but I’ve never done it.”

“But you’ve convinced others to do it.”

She shrugged. “That’s different. I can’t control the actions of other people.”

I walked to the window and opened the blinds. The sun threatened to peek over the horizon, turning the sky a deep mauve. I put my hands against the window frame and stared at my reflection, and at Tess’s. “This is your chance. You can stab me in the back now and be done with everything or you can leave town, but you can’t stay. Leonard Morgan is smarter than he lets on. He’s going to find out what you’ve done and where you’ve been.”

“You’re worried about the things I’ve done?” she asked, crossing the room to stand beside me. “What about the things you’ve done? What about Dominique?”

“I’m ready to face those consequences.”

“Do you really believe that?” asked Tess. “Do you really believe you’re ready to lose everything you’ve ever cared about? To watch your life disintegrate around you? It’s not as easy as you’d think.” She paused, and I looked at her, waiting for her to continue. Her eyes were flat, emotionless. “Our timetable has changed. I want my mother’s will by tonight at five, and I want her dead by the end of the day tomorrow.”

“I’m not going to be ready by then.”

“You should have thought of that before you went to the police.” She took a step toward me; instinctively, I took a step away. “I hope you understand what I’m doing for you, the sacrifices I’m making.”

“You’re ruining my life,” I said, turning and starting toward the door. I paused before reaching it and looked over my shoulder. “How’d you know the police were coming?”

“Samantha told me you had visited her. She was worried about us and thought you might do something that would hurt us both. I took precautions.”

“You handcuffed yourself to a toilet,” I said. “That’s not a precaution. That’s crazy.” She started to say something, but I spoke over her. “How’d you plan to get out if the police couldn’t find you?”

“I hid a key.”

“Where?”

Tess raised her eyebrows. “So you can run to Mr. Morgan and tell him that I tied myself up and hid a key within arm’s reach?”

“The thought never entered my mind,” I said. “I was just curious. Your sweatpants don’t have pockets.”

“I swallowed it. I knew it’d pass eventually.”

“Clever,” I said. “I hope that works out for you.”

As I started to open the door, Tess walked toward me and put her hand on my shoulder. “See you tomorrow?”

I looked back at her. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

A uniformed officer drove me home, but not before Captain Morgan said he’d be in touch. I couldn’t pinpoint anything specific about his word choice or tone that set me off, but the words felt ominous nonetheless.

By the time the officer dropped me off in front of my house, the sun was just beginning to rise in the east, and my eyelids could barely stay open. I went inside, where I closed all the blinds in the house and fell asleep on the couch in my living room.

I don’t know how long I slept or what I dreamt about, but I woke up when my phone rang. The sun beat against the blinds, so I must have been out for a couple of hours at least. Before answering, I looked at the caller ID. It was from my wife.

“Hey, sweetheart,” I said.

“Are you all right?” she asked. “You sound a little garbled.”

I cleared my throat. “I just woke up. Are you guys okay?”

Katherine paused. “You and Tess made the news.”

“Already?” I asked.

“Yeah. It’s a big story.” She hesitated again. “Do you want to talk about it?”

I sighed. “Tess is the last thing I want to talk about right now.”

“The news said you saved her life, though. They also said the police arrested Moses Tarawally.”

“Yeah. He’s in jail. They popped him for Isaac’s murder, but they’ll probably add charges to that.”

“What about Tess?”

“She wants me to kill her mother.”

“Oh,” said Katherine. “Did you tell the police?”

“They’re not going to believe me,” I said, walking to a window. I peered through our venetian blinds. There were two news vans out front, but neither had the antenna up to broadcast live. “Tess has this wrapped up too tightly. It’s going to fall apart, I know it will, but that will take time.”

“The news says she was kept prisoner.”

“Tess will say and do anything to get what she wants. She chained herself to a toilet and swallowed a key so the police would think Moses held her captive.”

Katherine didn’t respond for a moment. “Are you sure she’s faking it? Even if she wasn’t chained at all times, he might have been forcing her to do things.”

“She’s not the victim here. You’ll see that.”

“What if she is the victim?” asked Katherine. “Have you considered that?”

“I wish that were the case, but it’s not,” I said, running my hands through my hair and squeezing a fistful. “Looking into her eyes, it’s like I’m staring at the darkest hole I’ve ever seen. There’s no bottom there, just black.”

Katherine hesitated. “I believe you.”

I sighed and sat down on the nearest chair. “You and Vince are about the only ones.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m not okay, but I’m doing the best I can.”

“Have you talked to a lawyer yet?”

I shook my head, even though I was alone. “Not yet, but I will.”

“Do that. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

I hung up and went to the kitchen, where I checked my answering machine for messages. I had missed half a dozen calls while I slept, including one from my literary agent. She congratulated me for being part of such a big story and wanted to know if I would feel comfortable writing a book about my place in Tess’s rescue. She also mentioned that as soon as the story broke, my most recent book rocketed up in the sales charts to number one on Amazon. I declined to return her call and instead went to the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee. I hadn’t slept well, but the coffee would at least help me keep my eyes open. Once I had a cup, I opened my wife’s laptop on the dining room table.

The lead story on the
St. Louis Post-Dispatch’
s website, not surprisingly, was about Tess and her rescue, and while I didn’t look at any of the national news websites, I assumed they had picked up the story, too. From a news standpoint, the story had legs, long ones, which meant it ought to provide front-page fodder for at least a week or two. Eventually, some enterprising reporter would dig into Tess’s story and discover the discrepancies, but that would take time I didn’t have. I needed to move things along before she hurt somebody else.

I pulled out my cell phone and searched though the list of recently made calls until I found the number of Detective Roger Arteaga, the retired Idaho Falls detective who first looked into Holly Olson’s disappearance. He grunted before speaking.

“More questions about missing-persons cases, Mr. Hale?”

“Not questions,” I said. “And I know Captain Morgan from the St. Louis police department called you, so you don’t need to dance around that.”

“Oh, so we’re going to be straightforward this time,” said Arteaga. “Can you guess who else called me?”

“Lauren Hampton?”

“Oh, no,” said Arteaga. “An aide to our esteemed Lieutenant Governor. He was less than pleased to make my acquaintance. Seems your Captain Morgan contacted a whole lot of people, not just me, and at least two of those people contacted Alan Yates. He wondered why a detective from St. Louis is digging into ancient history, history that happens to involve his deceased son.”

I adjusted my grip on the phone and leaned forward. “So Captain Morgan called about Brandon Yates?”

“Among other things.”

“What did he say? Is he looking into Holly Olson’s death?”

“I don’t make a habit of recounting my private conversations. Now, did you have a reason for calling me?”

“Yeah, I called for a reason,” I said. “The police here recently found a woman who’s been missing for the past nine years. She was my girlfriend.”

Arteaga took a breath. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“She wasn’t dead,” I said, shaking my head. “They found her in a hotel room west of St. Louis. She claims she was kidnapped nine years ago and held hostage by a man who worked for her stepfather.”

“That’s terrible.”

“It is,” I said, nodding. “It’s a big story, but it’s going to be bigger. I think you should see her.”

“Why do you think that?”

I stood and walked to the paneled glass door that led to my backyard and looked out. Simon used to stand in that same spot and bark at birds on those rare days I tried to work from home. At the time, nothing annoyed me more than his interruptions, but looking back, they had somehow become almost endearing.

“Because she’s Lauren Hampton. That’s not her real name, but that’s what she went by when she lived in Utah. Her real name is Tess Girard.”

Arteaga paused. “You do realize that I’m retired, don’t you?”

“Yes, but—”

“Do you know what slander is, Mr. Hale?”

I didn’t know where he was going with the question, so I nodded. “Yeah, I know what slander is.”

“Have you ever been sued for slander?”

“No.” I paused. “I’m a writer, so, if anything, I’d be sued for libel.”

“Allen Yates, our Lieutenant Governor, threatened me with a lawsuit if I looked into Holly’s death and so much as intimidated that his son was involved. It was bluster and bullshit, but I’m retired, which means I don’t have liability insurance to protect me from that kind of suit. If Yates sues me, even if I win—and I think I would—I lose. Do you understand?”

“I can pay you,” I said. “I’ll even pay your legal bills if Yates sues you.”

“I’m not looking for money, son,” said Arteaga. “If you believe you have information pertinent to an investigation, please contact your local law enforcement agency. That’s all I’m going to say.”

“Can you just look at the
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
’s website? Tess’s picture is on the front page. You’ll recognize her.”

“Have a nice day, Mr. Hale. And good luck.”

“Just wai—”

I didn’t even get to finish my thought before he hung up. His advice may have been worthwhile in most circumstances, but somehow I doubted Morgan would be open to my pleas. It was time for plan B. I called Vince and waited for him to answer.

“Hey, it’s Steve. Where are you?”

“In the Willis Tower. Katherine and Ashley are here. What’s up?”

“I need you to go to Utah.”

“Aside from a couple of million Mormons, what’s in Utah?”

“Maybe a way out of this mess,” I said. “The police picked up Tess last night, and she said Moses Tarawally has kept her locked up for the past nine years. I need you to show that she’s a liar.”

“Okaaaay,” said Vince, drawing the word out. “How do you propose I do that?”

“Fly to Salt Lake City and prove that she spent several years at the University of Utah.”

“If that’s all you want, we can just call up the Admissions Department and ask them.”

“They might be able to tell us that someone named Lauren Hampton was enrolled, but they won’t be able to tell us that it was Tess. If we do this right, we can bring her down before she hurts anyone else.”

Ashley said something, but I couldn’t make out what in the background. Vince told her that he’d be another minute.

“Are you sure leaving Katherine and Ashley alone is a good idea?” he asked.

“It’s a risk, but it’s a calculated one. Moses is out of the picture, and I think I can keep Tess busy for the next few days. That should give you enough time to prove she lied about her captivity. If we prove she lied about that, Captain Morgan is bound to start putting the pieces together. I think he already is. He’s been calling people and asking them about Brandon Yates and Holly Olson.”

“I’ll try to get a flight out tonight.”

“Charter a plane if you have to. I’ll pay for it.”

Vince lowered his voice. “All right, then. Looks like I’m going to Utah.”

I wished him luck and then hung up. Vince could find almost anything about almost anyone, and eventually, he’d prove Tess was a liar and maybe even that she played a role in Holly’s death. That’d take time, though, and I didn’t have a lot to spare. I peered through the blinds in my living room. The reporters were still outside, but I didn’t think they’d slow me down too much. Tess wanted a modified copy of her mother’s will by tonight. I didn’t know what she’d do if she didn’t get it, but I figured she had something planned and I doubted I’d enjoy it.

I left my house through the back door and walked through my rear neighbor’s yard to the street, bypassing the reporters. Even if my father had drafted Annette Girard’s will, it long since would have been moved out of the office. I thought I had a way to get around that, though.

I walked to my office and immediately opened the filing cabinet in which I kept important papers. My dad had drafted his own will, so I used it as a template. In my forgery, I specified that ten percent of Annette Girard’s would go to the charity Tess mentioned and the rest would go to Samantha. Those provisions might not raise any red flags, but a couple of other details I inserted would. I signed it “Bill Hale” instead of “William Hale.” It was a small thing, but my father thought Bill was a hillbilly’s name, an opinion he voiced to almost anyone who would listen. The St. Louis legal community was small enough that someone somewhere ought to remember that.

I also forged the signatures of the witnesses, my grandfather and Betty Wachowski, my father’s administrative assistant ten years ago, purposefully misspelling her last name. Most people would look at those errors and dismiss them as simple mistakes, but not lawyers, especially not lawyers looking to dispute the will. I even used Betty’s old notary public stamp—she had left it in her desk when she retired—to “notarize” the will, dating it almost six months after my grandfather would have died. If all else failed, if Tess killed me, the will would be my parting shot from the grave.

I called her cell phone and spoke before she could.

“I’ve got that document you wanted from me.”

“I’m so glad,” said Tess, her voice bright. “I’m at my mom’s house. Why don’t you bring it by? We’ve got a few things to talk about.”

“I’m sure we do. I’ll see you in twenty minutes.”