The Cinderella Murder (36 page)

“Let me drive you. Please. We can talk on the ride there. Or not. Whatever you want.”

“How will I even get home?”

“I’ll wait. Or you can call a cab. Whatever you’d like.”

He thought back to that two-second pause as she pondered her options. He just needed her to get in the car, and he was certain he could convince her that what he was doing was the right thing.

“Okay,” she agreed. “We can talk. And honestly, I just need a ride.”

When Susan strapped on her seat belt and began putting on her necklace, he was certain he’d avoided a potential crisis.

But that moment of relief had been fleeting. Once he started to drive, he laid out the same argument for her that he’d offered to Dwight Cook. The bureaucrats in the UCLA administration could never begin to understand the potential of this technology. It would be tied up for years awaiting layers of approval, while competitors in the private sector worked at a rapid-fire pace. Besides, crediting Dwight with the technology was only a thin stretch of the truth, given how much programming work he’d put into the project.

He was certain Susan would go along, either out of dedication to technological development or to support Dwight. If worst came to worst, he would offer her a cut of the action. But Susan was too principled and, more important, too smart. Her father was an intellectual property lawyer. She knew from his work how important the creator of technology was to its development. In her eyes, Hathaway’s plan was not only stealing from the university but from potential investors.

“With dot-coms,” she had argued, “the face of the company is half of the product. You’re leading people to think that a creative genius like Dwight—someone who doesn’t care in the least about money, someone who looks at the world and sees only the best—was the seed for all this. That he’ll be calling the shots. That’s fundamentally a different company from one run by you. It’s
fraud
.”

He began to slow at the curves, buying time to build his case. “But a company run by me would be worth more,” he had insisted. “I have more experience. I’m a tenured professor. I don’t have Dwight’s personality quirks.”

“The tech market loves quirks,” she had said. “Besides, it’s not simply a matter of dollar value. It’s just dishonest. Aren’t we getting close now? Why are you slowing down?”

When they were half a mile from her audition, he pulled the car to the side of the road. “Susan, you can’t tell anyone what you heard. It will ruin my career.”

“Then you shouldn’t have done it. You offered to drive me to my audition. I’ve heard you out. Now I need to get to my appointment.”

“Not until you understand—”

Just like that, she was out of the car, determined to make the rest of the trip on foot. He had to go after her. She ran faster in those heels than he would have thought possible. By the time he caught up with her in the park, one of her shoes had fallen off.

His first move had been to grab her by the arm. “You’re being naive.” He was still trying to persuade her. Why couldn’t she be as gullible as Dwight?

And before he knew it, she was beneath him, hitting him, kicking at him. Sometimes he even convinced himself he couldn’t remember what happened afterward.

But of course he did.

Once it was over, he made a quick decision that his best option was to leave her body. All her friends knew she was coming up here for an audition, so hopefully that would distract the investigation.

He called Dwight immediately, not long past seven o’clock, asking him to meet at Hamburger Haven to explore his suggestion further. If anyone ever asked, Dwight could vouch for his whereabouts for all but this short window of time.

Just as he hoped, the investigation had focused on Frank Parker,
with Susan’s boyfriend, Keith, the alternative suspect. For twenty years, he was convinced he’d gotten away with it, until he arrived at Dwight’s boat last night. Now here he was, wondering how much Laurie Moran knew.

And that was the second piece of good luck to come in Hathaway’s direction. First, the ex-cop had driven away. And now here was Laurie Moran, keys in hand, all by herself.

74

A
s Laurie walked through the parking garage toward the Land Cruiser, she realized that the clues pointing to Hathaway had been there all along. Susan had fled her dorm room after her fight with Nicole, eager to find her lucky necklace before her audition. Where would she have gone? To her desk at the lab.

And what would she have seen when she got there?

Laurie wasn’t certain about this part yet, but if Susan went into the lab on a Saturday, she could have walked in on a moment that Hathaway assumed would be private. Maybe she’d caught him in one of those rumored liaisons with a female student or in the midst of some kind of academic impropriety. Hathaway could have talked Susan into getting into his car to discuss whatever she’d seen, especially since her own car had been acting up and she was set on getting to her audition.

Hathaway claimed to have been with Dwight the night Susan was killed, but the timeline was hazy, and now Dwight was dead. There was no way to know with certainty where Hathaway was that evening, but that’s where the phone call to Madison came in.

Laurie realized what had been nagging her about her conversation with Madison after Laurie spotted Hathaway leaving Madison’s hotel room. Madison had said that she had nothing to hide
now
that they were both grown-ups. She said they were
rekindling
. This wasn’t a new relationship for them.

Laurie was certain that once Alex called Madison, she would confirm that Hathaway was the love interest who never showed up to her dorm room the night Susan was murdered. He never showed up because he was killing Susan in Laurel Canyon Park.

She opened the car door and paused to glance at her cell phone. No signal, as she suspected. Oh well, she thought, once I pull around to the hospital entrance, Alex can tell me if he reached Madison.

She had just slipped her cell phone in the pocket of the driver’s-side door when she felt a hard object pressed against her back. In the side-view mirror, she saw the reflection of Hathaway standing behind her.

“Get in,” he ordered, shoving her behind the wheel. Keeping the gun on her, he climbed over her into the passenger seat. “Now drive!”

75

A
lex knew there was no stopping Laurie once her mind was on a mission. So when she asked him to call Madison about the identity of the love interest who turned down her invitation the night of Susan’s murder, he did, even though he did not understand the significance.

“Madison,” Alex said once he had her on the phone, “you sent a note to someone inviting him to see you the night Susan was killed. We’d like to know who that was, if you don’t mind.”

Alex was shocked when she responded, “Professor Hathaway. We’d had some flirtatious interactions already, so I thought we might spend a Saturday night together. But he was a complete and total no-show. No phone call, no nada. It’s the kind of slight I take seriously—I blew him off after that and never spoke to him again. Until two days ago.”

“Thanks, Madison,” Alex said. “That’s helpful.”

Alex could see now the theory Laurie had been mulling over. From what they’d heard about Hathaway, he wasn’t the type to have ignored a beautiful young woman’s overture.

Then Alex realized why Laurie had mentioned the necklace. Susan had been searching for her lucky necklace during the argument with Nicole. From there, she might have gone to Hathaway’s lab to look for it.

He found himself fiddling anxiously as he waited for Laurie to pull the car around so they could connect all the dots.

“Mom just turned the wrong way,” Timmy said.

They were standing just inside the double doors of the hospital exit.

“You saw your mother?” Grace asked.

“She’s over there,” he said while pointing to an SUV heading to the hospital exit. “Is that Grandpa in the car with her?”

Alex pulled up Leo’s number on his phone and hit
ENTER
. “Leo, it’s Alex. Are you with Laurie?”

“No, I’m just pulling into the police station to catch up with Detective Reilly. Is everything okay?”

“I have a horrible feeling,” Alex said. “Laurie figured out who killed Susan. And now he has her. Richard Hathaway has our Laurie.”

76

L
aurie felt a surprising sense of relief when Hathaway ordered her to turn left out of the parking garage, away from the hospital. No matter what happened, at least Timmy, Alex, and Grace, who were waiting for her, would be safe.

“Up here,” Hathaway barked. “Take a left at the next light.”

This was not the same cool, confident man she’d seen over the past week. He was ranting to himself under his breath. She could almost smell his desperation.

“You must have access to cash and a plane,” she said. “Just let me out. You take the car.”

“And give up everything I’ve worked for my whole life? No, thank you. Take a right up here, after we pass Santa Monica Boulevard.”

She did as instructed.

“Tell me about the video, Laurie. What exactly did Dwight see? And don’t play stupid or this will be worse for you than it needs to be. Tell me what Dwight knew.”

“I’ll never be certain,” she said. “He left a message but died before I could speak to him. But I think he was calling me about you,” she added. “To tell me that Susan went to your lab before her audition.”

“And the boat?”

“What boat?”

“Were there cameras on Dwight’s boat?” Hathaway yelled. “And
don’t forget, I can go back for your son if you need an incentive to talk.”

Not Timmy
, she thought. “Yes,” she blurted, “Dwight had hidden cameras on his yacht.”

“What do they show?”

“I have no idea. The police haven’t found the digital upload yet.”

“Take the next left.”

As she hit her blinker, she could feel him calming down in the passenger seat. He mumbled something about his ability to find the data files before the police.

She slipped a hand into the pocket of the door to awaken her phone. She risked a glance at the screen and saw a list of recent calls.

As she took the turn, she let her hand drop into the door pocket one more time. She tapped the screen to redial her most recent caller.

Please, God
, she thought,
please let this work.

77