Pretty Girls (48 page)

“I’ll pay you back.” Claire took the money and stuffed it into her purse. “I can’t believe you’re doing this.”

“Well, I want to make it clear to you that I’m terrified about what you’re involved in.” She was smiling, but her eyes glistened with tears. “The last time I was terrified about one of my children, I failed everyone in my family. I failed your father and I failed you and Lydia. I’m not going to do that ever again. So,
mea culpa
all the way to federal prison, if that’s what it takes.”

Claire realized that Helen thought this was about the embezzled money. The FBI and the police had questioned her. Nolan had brought in Claire for a twelve-hour interrogation. Claire was sending her to a bank in Hapeville. She clearly thought she’d put all the pieces together but she had absolutely no idea what was really happening.

Helen picked up Lydia’s phone. “The nice man at the store told me that you go into settings.”

Claire took the phone. “It needs the password.” She angled the screen so her mother couldn’t see the last thing she’d looked at—Paul’s photo of Lydia in the trunk. She got rid of the image and pretended to tap in the password before handing the phone back to Helen, then watched in amazement as her mother navigated the software.

Helen entered in the burner phone’s number, then exited out of the menu. “Oh, look.” She turned the screen toward Claire. “See that funny thing at the top, the image of a phone and an arrow? That means the calls are being forwarded.” She seemed impressed. “What a wonderful little device.”

Claire didn’t trust the funny thing at the top. “Call the number and make sure it’s working.”

Helen took out her iPhone. She found Lydia’s number under recent calls. They both waited. Several seconds passed, then the burner phone started to ring.

Helen disconnected the line. “My mother used to scold me for calling her on the phone. She said, ‘It’s so impersonal. Why don’t you write me a letter?’ And I scold you for emailing instead of calling. And all of my friends scold their grandchildren for their illiterate texting. Such a strange gallimaufry of needs.”

“I love you, Mom.”

“I love you, too, Sweetpea.” She cleaned up the mess Claire had left on the coffee table. Helen was trying to appear casual, but her hands were shaking. She still had tears in her eyes. She was obviously conflicted, but she was just as equally determined to do whatever she could to help. “I should get going. How long do I need to stay at the bank?”

Claire had no idea how long it took to access a safety deposit box. “At least half an hour.”

“And then?”

“Get back on seventy-five. I’ll call you on your phone and let you know.” She remembered what Paul had said. “Be careful. That’s not a great area, especially in the Tesla.”

“The bank will have a security guard in the parking lot.” Helen touched Claire’s cheek. There was still a slight tremor in her hand. “We’ll have dinner after this is over. With drinks—lots of drinks.”

“Okay.”

Claire checked the time so she didn’t have to watch Helen walk away. Adam Quinn had said his presentation was first thing this morning. The offices opened at nine, which meant that Claire had half an hour to walk ten blocks.

The burner phone went into her back pocket. Her purse went over her shoulder. She finished her coffee as she walked back toward the bathroom. Claire’s appearance had not improved since she’d seen her reflection in the mirror behind Fred Nolan. Her hair was plastered to her head. Her clothes were a mess. She probably smelled sweaty from running full-bore through the city.

The cut on her cheek was still tender. The dark circle under her eye was turning into a full-on black bruise. Claire touched her ingers to the skin. Paul had punched Lydia, too. He had made her forehead bleed. He had made her eye swell shut. He had done other things, too, things that had made Lydia give up, to believe that no matter what Claire did, she was already dead.

“You are not dead, Lydia.” Claire spoke the words aloud for her own sake as much as her sister’s. “I am not going to abandon you.”

Claire ran water in the sink. She couldn’t go to Adam Quinn looking like this. If Adam was clueless as to what Paul was really involved in, then he’d be much more likely to help Claire if she didn’t look like a homeless person. She washed her face, and then quickly took a whore’s bath. The underwear Helen had bought came up past Claire’s belly button, but she was in no position to complain.

She slicked back her hair with water, then fingered it into a soft wave to dry. There was make-up in her purse. Foundation. Concealer. Eye shadow. Blush. Powder. Mascara. Eyeliner. She winced as she patted her finger around the bruise. The pain was worth it, because she felt like she was slowly coming back to herself.

The hour and a half of sleep had probably helped more than the ninety-dollar concealer. She felt her thoughts whirring back awake. She remembered the question she had told Nolan he needed to ask: Why was Paul sticking around?

He wanted the USB drive. Claire was not so narcissistic to think that her husband was waiting around for her. Paul was a survivor. He was risking his safety in order to get the USB drive, and he was telling Claire the things he thought she wanted to hear because keeping her onside was the best way to get it.

Saying he loved her was the carrot. Lydia was the stick.

Nolan thought that Paul was offering evidence of the masked man’s identity, but Claire knew that Paul wasn’t going to give the FBI evidence against himself. So what did that leave? What information could be on the drive that was so valuable that Paul was risking his freedom?

“His customer list,” Claire told her reflection. It was the only thing that made sense. On the phone yesterday, Paul had claimed he got into the family business because he needed tuition. Setting aside that he had graduated years ago, what kind of money were people willing to pay to watch his movies? And just how many names were on his customer list?

Gerald Scott’s VHS collection went back at least twenty-four years. There were at least one hundred videotapes in the garage. The archived equipment on the metal shelves pointed to various other means of duplication. Floppy drives for photographs. DVDs for movies. The super Mac to upload edited footage to the Internet. There had to be an international component. Paul had taken Claire to Germany and Holland more times than she could count. He’d said he was going to conferences during the day, but she had no way of knowing exactly what he did with his time.

Paul couldn’t be the only man in this business, but if she knew her husband, he was the best. He would franchise the concept to other men in other parts of the world. He would demand top dollar. He would control every aspect of the market.

So long as he had his client list, Paul could operate the business from anywhere in the world.

The bathroom door opened. Two young girls came in. They were giggling and happy and carrying large Starbucks cups filled with sugary, iced concoctions.

Claire drained the water from the sink. She checked her makeup. The bruise still showed in a certain light, but she could easily explain the damage. Adam had seen her at the funeral. He knew that her cheek was scraped.

The lobby was filled with travelers in search of breakfast. Claire looked for Jacob Mayhew and Harvey Falke, but they were nowhere in sight. She knew from movies that FBI agents tended to wear earbuds, so she scanned the ears of all the single men in the vicinity. And then she looked at the women, because women were in the FBI, too. Claire was fairly certain that she was looking at tourists and businesspeople because they were all vastly out of shape and she assumed you had to be fit to work for the FBI.

Her refreshed brain easily jumped to the next conclusion: No one had found her in the Hyatt, which meant that Paul had not given them her location, which meant that Paul was not working with Jacob Mayhew or the FBI, which meant that by extension, he was not working with Johnny Jackson.

Probably.

A quick look outside the hotel revealed that the light mist had turned into a steady rain. Claire went up one floor and took the skybridge, which was part of an eighteen-building, ten-block project to help tourists navigate the convention corridor without passing out in the sweltering summer heat.

Quinn + Scott had worked on two of the skybridges. Paul had given Claire a tour of all eighteen, taking her up and down elevators and escalators to access the glass-enclosed bridges spanning countless downtown streets. He’d pointed out various architectural details and told her stories about the buildings that had been torn down to clear way for new ones. The last part of the tour had ended at the Hyatt skybridge, which was closed off for construction. The sun had been setting over the skyline. The Hyatt’s pool had sparkled below. They’d had a picnic on a blanket with chocolate cake and champagne.

Claire looked away from the pool as she walked across the bridge toward the Marriott Marquis. Traffic was clogging the streets as commuters filled the Peachtree Center complex, which was comprised of fourteen different buildings that housed everything from corporate offices to several shopping areas. She felt like her head was mounted on a swivel as she looked for earbuds or Mayhew or Harvey or Nolan or any other face that seemed threatening or familiar. If none of them were aligned with Paul, then all of them would have a reason to use Claire as leverage. She couldn’t afford another twelve-hour detour while Lydia was waiting.

Not waiting, because Lydia had already given up.

Claire jogged down another set of escalators as she headed toward the next skybridge. She couldn’t let herself dwell on what was happening to Lydia. Claire was making progress. That was what mattered right now. She had to focus on the task at hand, which was getting the USB drive from Adam. She kept reminding herself of something Nolan had revealed during the interrogation: They had checked Paul’s computer.

Adam had been the one who called in the FBI in the first place. He would know that they would search Paul’s office and computer. Actually, if Adam was part of an operation that produced and distributed snuff porn, no matter how much money Paul stole from him, there was no way in hell he would be stupid enough to involve any law enforcement agencies, let alone the FBI.

She felt some of the weight lift off her shoulders as she made her way up to the skybridge that connected the last AmericasMart building to the Museum Tower. From there, it was just a brisk walk outside to the Olympic Tower on Centennial Park Drive.

Claire darted under awnings to avoid the pelting rain. She usually drove downtown every few weeks to have lunch with Paul. She had a Quinn + Scott ID in her purse, which she used in the main lobby to get through the turnstiles. The office was on the top floor of the tower, overlooking Centennial Park, a twenty-one-acre remnant from the Olympics. As part of a fundraising effort, the Olympic committee had sold personalized engraved bricks that lined the walkways. One of the last presents her father had given her was a brick in the park with Claire’s name on it. He’d purchased one for Lydia and Julia, too.

Claire had shown Paul the bricks. She wondered if he sometimes looked down from his penthouse office and smiled.

The elevator opened onto the Quinn + Scott floor. It was 9:05 in the morning. The secretaries and underlings had probably been ten minutes early. They were all bustling around their desks and rushing around with cups of coffee in their hands and donuts stuck in their mouths.

They all came to a stop when they saw Claire.

There were awkward looks and nervous glances, which confused Claire until she remembered that the last time they had seen her, she’d been standing in front of her husband’s coffin.

“Mrs. Scott?” One of the receptionists came around the high desk that separated the lobby from the offices. Everything was open-plan and highly designed with satin chromes and bleached woods and no obstructions to the usually spectacular view of the park.

Claire had stood right on this spot while Paul and Adam celebrated their new, larger space with picklebacks and pizza, a disgusting holdover from their college years.

“Mrs. Scott?” the receptionist repeated. She was young and pretty and blonde and exactly Paul’s type. Both Pauls, because the girl could be a young Claire.

Claire said, “I need to see Adam.”

“I’ll buzz him.” She reached over the counter for the phone. Her skirt was tight around her ass. Her left foot came up as she bent her knee. “There’s a presentation in the—”

“I’ll find him.” Claire couldn’t wait any longer. She walked through the open offices. Every eye followed her across the room. She went down the long hallway that housed the associates who’d earned the luxury of an office door. The presentation room was opposite the conference room, which looked over the park. Paul had explained the reasoning to Claire when they toured the empty shell of the top floor. Wow the customers with the million-dollar view, then take them into the presentation room and wow them with the work.

Presentation Studio
. That’s what Paul had called it. Claire had forgotten until she saw the sign on the closed door. She didn’t bother knocking.

Adam swiveled around in his chair. He was watching a dry run of the presentation. Claire saw a slew of numbers alongside a quote from the mayor boasting that Atlanta was set to surpass Las Vegas for number of convention visitors.

“Claire?” Adam turned on the lights. He closed the door. He took her hands. “Is something wrong?”

She looked down at their hands. She would never feel another man’s touch without wondering whether or not she could really trust him.

She told Adam, “I’m sorry to bother you.”

“I’m glad you’re here.” He indicated the chairs, but Claire didn’t sit down. “I was shitty to you with that note. I’m sorry I threatened you. I want you to know that I would’ve never gotten the lawyers involved. I needed the files, but I didn’t have to act like a thug.”

Claire wasn’t sure what to say. Her wariness had returned. Paul was such a good actor. Was Adam a good actor, too? Nolan claimed he’d grilled the shit out of Adam, but Nolan was a spectacular liar. They were all so much better at this than Claire.