When All The Girls Have Gone (22 page)

Madison Benson was not running. Not yet, at any rate. But Charlotte could tell that beneath her cool, controlled executive demeanor and her Armani armor, she was nervous.

“I agreed to talk to you,” Madison said, “because you are Jocelyn’s stepsister. But when you called a few minutes ago you didn’t say anything about bringing an investigator with you.”

She cast a grim look at Max.

“I told you, Max is helping me search for Jocelyn,” Charlotte said. “And he’s also looking into Louise’s death. If what Emily told us is even partially true, it seems to me that you and the other members of the club need all the help you can get.”

She and Max were standing in the living room of Madison’s elegant home. The big house was perched on the hillside of the upscale Queen Anne neighborhood. It was surrounded by lush gardens. The windows commanded a panoramic view of Elliott Bay.

Madison had not invited them to sit down and she had not offered coffee.

She had initially refused to talk to them, but upon being informed that Charlotte and Max had just had a long chat with Emily she had changed her mind.

Madison was not happy about Max’s presence, but it was clear that she
wanted information from them. Fair enough, Charlotte thought. They wanted information from her.

“What, exactly, did Emily tell you?” Madison asked.

“She said that your club is a cover for an online operation that targets abusive men,” Charlotte said. “Men that the five of you decide have gone unpunished by the law.”

“She seems to believe that Louise was murdered by one of your targets,” Max added. “Someone who figured out that your club was responsible for making his life a living hell. She said you and the others think that Jocelyn was the first to run and that she recently sent a message warning all of you.”

For the first time Madison looked as if she had been caught off guard.

“Emily told you that?” Madison said.

“Yes,” Charlotte said. “Isn’t that what you believe?”

Madison did not answer immediately. She walked to the wall of windows that looked out over the waterfront and Elliott Bay.

“I know that Victoria and Emily believe that is what is going on,” Madison said after a moment. She sounded as if she was choosing each word with great care. “Emily told you the truth about the original purpose of the club. We did target some of the men who, in at least one case, literally got away with murder. He beat his wife to death and managed to convince a jury that someone else did it. And, yes, we always knew there was a possibility that one of our targets might figure out who had destroyed his finances or his job or his social life. But I’m not so sure that’s why Louise was killed—assuming she was murdered, which is still an open question, in my mind.”

“What do you think is going on?” Charlotte asked.

Madison turned around, her eyes hardening. “You really want to know?”

“Yes,” Charlotte said.

“All right, I’ll tell you, but you aren’t going to like it and I doubt if you’ll believe me. Here’s the bottom line. Our club was established to punish abusers we believed had escaped the law. But we wanted our cover
to look good. So we did make legitimate investments. We focused on small start-ups, one of which is about to get bought out by a large tech firm. If the Keyworth deal goes through, the profits for the members of the club are going to be huge.”

Max studied her for a thoughtful moment and then he nodded once.

“You think Jocelyn murdered Louise so that there would be one less person in the club,” he said. “One less member to share the profits. And now you’re wondering if she’s going to try to take out the rest of you so that she’ll be the last one standing when the big payday comes in.”

“No.” Outrage swept through Charlotte. “That’s not true. You can’t possibly believe that, Madison.”

“I’m not saying it is true,” Madison said evenly, her eyes sharpening. “I’m telling you that I think it’s a possibility. Frankly, I’ve also wondered if Emily might have murdered Louise. But Victoria is convinced that it’s Jocelyn we have to worry about. There is a great deal of money at stake. In my world, that makes for motive.”

“It makes for a very good motive in my world, too,” Max said.

“Jocelyn is not a killer.” Charlotte tightened her hands into fists. “For God’s sake, Madison, you know her. You’re her friend. And Louise was her
best
friend. How can you think for even one moment that she would do something horrible like murder her closest friend?”

“I’m not saying she did.” Madison’s jaw jerked a little. “All I’m saying is that when there’s a lot of money at stake, people become . . . unpredictable.”

“Not Jocelyn,” Charlotte said.

She was still furious, but her voice had steadied. She was very certain of her ground.

“If Jocelyn has decided to get rid of some or all of the rest of the club members in order to maximize her profits, why would she send you and the others the coded warning?” Max asked.

He sounded mildly curious, not like he was trying to push a witness for answers, Charlotte thought.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Madison was visibly impatient now. “She wants to
make us think that the danger is coming from a different direction—from some unknown target who is out for revenge.”

“Seems like sending you all into hiding would only make things more difficult for her,” Max pointed out. “She knows where you live here in the city, but how will she find you if you all leave for parts unknown?”

“You don’t know Jocelyn very well, do you?” Madison smiled a thin, humorless smile. “Well, let me tell you, she’s had over a year to get to know the club members. At one time or another she’s probably figured out exactly where we would go if we had to run.”

“But you’re not running?” Max asked.

“No. This thing will be over in ten days. That’s when the Keyworth buyout is set to conclude. In the meantime, I need to stay on top of it. Buyouts are fragile. This one could collapse if even one individual gets cold feet.”

“In other words, if Jocelyn is trying to get rid of the other club members, she’s on the clock,” Max said.

Charlotte glared at him, but he didn’t seem to notice.

“Exactly,” Madison said.

“But what if neither Jocelyn nor Emily is the killer?” Max said quietly. “What if one of the targets, as you call them, really is hunting the members of the club?”

“I have a gun,” Madison said. “I know how to use it.”

“You and everyone else in the club, it seems,” Max said.

Madison shrugged. “We knew there was some danger involved. We just didn’t expect it to come from one of the other members.”

Aunt Hildy had often claimed that the old trailer was a classic. Victoria didn’t doubt it. In the distant past its aluminum shell had shone mirror-bright in the sun, but time had oxidized the metal to a dull gray color. The rounded front end had been state-of-the-art back in the day, designed to make the trailer aerodynamic and, therefore, easier to pull.

But the trailer had not been moved in decades. It had served as Hildy’s home for as long as Victoria could remember. It had become a refuge for her and her mother after the nightmare of her mother’s second marriage had finally ended.

The trailer was set on a parcel of land that overlooked the rugged coastline, a mile outside of the small town where Victoria had finished high school. During the summer months the community was populated with tourists, weekenders and others who came to the coast to enjoy the dramatic, windswept beaches. But the tourist season was over, and that meant there were few strangers in the area. Those who did show up for a fall beach weekend stood out.

After Hildy’s death Victoria had told herself that she ought to sell the property. But the memories had been too strong. Besides, neither the land nor the trailer was worth much.

In the end she had decided to keep the trailer as a weekend place, at least until land values picked up. The trailer and the property it sat on were all she had left of the strong woman who had protected her and her mother.

She looked around the compact interior, remembering how safe she had felt there after she and her mother had moved in with Hildy. It had been crowded with the three of them in the small space, but Victoria hadn’t cared. Hildy had said she would take care of them, and Victoria had trusted her to do just that.

The bastard who had married her mother had shown up only once. Hildy had met him at the door of the trailer with a gun in her hand. He had never returned. But Victoria knew that Hildy had slept with the gun in the drawer beside her bed every night until they got word that the s.o.b. had been killed in a car crash.

Before that summer was over, Hildy had taught Victoria how to fire the weapon and how to keep it in good condition. She had given Victoria a pistol of her own as a high school graduation present. Victoria had slept with the weapon in a bedside drawer every night of her life since.

Some people might have found the relative isolation of the trailer’s location unnerving under the circumstances. But Victoria felt safer there where everyone in the community knew her than she had in the city where she was virtually anonymous.

It was the kind of small town where strangers asking for directions to the home of a local resident were automatically viewed with suspicion. There were other factors that ensured the safety of the trailer. The land around it was covered with scruffy, weather-beaten bushes and grasses. There were no tall trees to provide cover for someone who wanted to approach unobserved. Any vehicle coming up the graveled drive would make plenty of noise before it got near the trailer.

She was as safe here as she would be anywhere else, she thought. And if she did have to use the pistol, there would be a lot less explaining to do afterward than would be the case if she were forced to fire it in her condo tower. In this part of Washington State it was understood that a woman living alone had a right to protect herself.

Max and Charlotte went to the same neighborhood restaurant where they had eaten the night Max had first visited her apartment. Charlotte was amused when he ordered the crab cakes.

“Again?” she said.

“I’m a creature of habit,” Max said. “I did try to warn you. A one-foot-in-front-of-the-other kind of guy, remember?”

“Right. Personally, I’m going to take a walk on the wild side. Mostly because I’m starving.” She looked up at the waiter. “I’ll have the crab cakes, too.”

The waiter left with the order. Charlotte turned back to Max.

“I owe Anson a dinner,” she said. “Heck, a whole week of dinners. I can’t tell you how relieved I am to have my bag back with my wallet and credit cards. And I can’t believe my phone survived. I thought for sure I’d have to replace it.”

“You lucked out because you had your phone in a decent case and because your bag was waterproof nylon.”

“It’s my street bag and I live in Seattle,” she explained. “So, yes, it’s waterproof. What do we do now?”

“We look for the one member of the club we haven’t been able to interview—Victoria Mathis.”

“How do you propose to find her?”

Max sipped some beer. “How would you characterize her financial situation?”

“I told you, I don’t know any of Jocelyn’s friends well. Everything I do know about them I’ve picked up from Jocelyn. She and Louise and Madison had the highest-paying jobs, I can tell you that much. I think Emily and Victoria were doing okay, but they certainly weren’t rich. Why do you ask?”

“Because it costs money to go into hiding. Not everyone can pick up and leave for some no-name island in the Caribbean at a moment’s notice.”

“Oh, right. I see what you mean. Well, for what it’s worth, Victoria probably qualifies as the one with the fewest resources.”

“Then we should be able to find her.”

“We’ve already talked to Madison and Emily. What more can Victoria tell us?”

“I have no idea,” Max said.

His phone pinged. He took it out of the pocket of his jacket. Charlotte watched his face as he read the e-mail. His eyes tightened a little at the corners. He shut down his phone without comment.

“News?” she asked, unable to squelch her curiosity.

“Yeah, but not about your stepsister or this case.”

“Another case you’re working on?”

“Another case I
was
working on.” Max drank some of his beer. “I’ve dropped it.”

Charlotte waited to see if he would add any additional details. But he didn’t. She could tell from his eyes and the set of his jaw that he had retreated into some other dimension again.

The subtle transition was jolting. It made her realize that ever since they had returned from the harrowing trip to the mountains, a sense of intimacy had infused their relationship.

Or maybe that was just her imagination.

She was suddenly consumed with the urge to haul him out into the light.

“Why did you drop the case?” she asked. “Did the client fail to pay his bill?”

For a moment she didn’t think he was going to answer. But in the end he looked at her over the top of his glass.

“I never got around to sending a bill,” he said. “Not that I had planned to send one.”

“Ah. Pro bono stuff.” Charlotte smiled. “Like a lawyer, you do some jobs for free. I suppose it’s a private investigator’s version of charity work. That is very nice of you.”

“Just to be clear, I am not in the charity business.”

“Oh.”

Max hesitated. “This was . . . personal.”

“I don’t understand. Why did you drop the case if it was personal?”

Once again she was sure he was going to refuse to answer.

“Hey, it’s not like you haven’t learned a heck of a lot about my personal life recently,
partner
,” she said.

She was a little surprised when the tactic worked. Max set his glass down, leaned forward and folded his arms on the table. There was a dark, disturbing intensity in his eyes.

“You really want to hear more about my personal life?” he asked.

She refused to be intimidated. “Yes, I do want to hear about it.”

“Fair warning. It’s boring.”

She smiled. “You’re talking to the other plodder on this team, remember?”

Max contemplated her for a long moment.

“All right, I’ll try to keep this short and simple. I told you my mother was a single mom.”

“Right.”

“She was a single mom by choice. When she decided to have a child, she used the services of a sperm donor clinic. I’m the result.”

Charlotte gripped the stem of her wineglass. “I see.”

“I grew up knowing that my father was an anonymous file in a clinic database.”

“But eventually you went looking for him, didn’t you?”

“Think so?”

“I know you well enough to know that is exactly what you would do. What’s more, I’m willing to bet you found him, because you are very good at what you do.”

“It’s true what they say, you can find anyone online these days. So, yes, I found him.”

“When?”

“A few years ago, right after I got the job with the profiling agency. I guess I had some vague idea that he might be interested in meeting me. I e-mailed him.”

“How’d that go?”

“Not well. He e-mailed me back and accused me of stalking him. He said he had legal documents making it clear that he had no obligation to me and that if I ever contacted him or anyone in his family he would contact a lawyer.”

She thought she had been prepared for anything in the way of an unhappy ending to the story, but she was stunned almost speechless.

“That was—” She could not find the right words. “Awful.”

“No, it was clarifying. I had my answer. I promised myself I would never contact him again.”

“Does he have other children?”

“A son and a daughter,” Max said. “And they’re not kids. They’re adults now.”

“Which means that you have a half brother and a half sister.”

“Biologically speaking, yes. One of the sons is an executive in the family business, a commercial real estate development company in Portland. The daughter is an interior designer, a very successful one, I might add.”

“In other words, your siblings are both entrepreneurial.”

“You could say that.”

She smiled. “None of the apples fell very far from the tree, did they?”

Max unfolded his arms and picked up his glass. “Meaning?”

“Meaning you and your half sibs seem to have a lot in common.”

“No,” Max said. He set the glass down with great precision. “We don’t. We have nothing in common. They both went to private schools and
graduated from very good colleges. They’re both successful in their careers. The son is married with a son of his own and the daughter has recently become engaged. I got my education in a war zone followed by some community college classes, followed by a few years spent hunting human monsters, followed by a failed marriage. I am now starting over as a private investigator who is just beginning to make enough money to pay the mortgage on a house that needs a lot of expensive work done.”

“Here’s the way I see it,” Charlotte said. “You have established your own business and in time it will be successful because you are smart and you are good at what you do. You are showing the same entrepreneurial spirit that your siblings have demonstrated.”

Max gave her a pitying look. “Just when I conclude that you are not nearly as naïve as everyone seems to think you are, you go and prove me wrong.”

“I think that is an insult, but I will pretend I didn’t hear it. Let’s get back to this case you say you dropped. What does it have to do with your family history?”

“If I tell you, will you let the subject go?”

“Depends,” she said crisply. “I make no promises.”

Before Max could respond, the waiter returned with the crab cakes. When they were alone again, Charlotte picked up her fork.

“Talk to me, Max,” she said. “After all we’ve been through together I deserve some answers.”

“What the hell,” Max said.

“That’s the spirit.”

He ignored that. “After I got that e-mail from Decatur telling me to stay out of his life I respected his privacy. But from time to time I sort of checked in from afar. I swear I didn’t stalk the family, but it’s easy enough to keep track of business news.”

“So when Decatur’s name showed up in the press, you read the articles. That’s not stalking. That’s plain, old-fashioned curiosity. You’ve got a biological link to that family. You’ve got every right to be curious.”

“Trust me when I tell you that Davis Decatur would not agree with you.”

“Decatur.” She frowned. “Why does that name sound vaguely familiar?”

“I told you, Decatur is in commercial real estate. He’s a developer. The firm has been successful—very, very successful. They’ve handled some major projects here in Seattle as well as down in Portland.”

“That explains it. I’ve seen the name go by in the press occasionally, too.”

“For the most part the news that shows up in the business media is pretty ordinary stuff—ordinary for a highly successful firm, that is. But about three months ago, Decatur’s daughter—”

“Your half sister.”

Max exhaled slowly. “Her name is Brooke. She got involved with a hedge fund operator named Gatley. Simon Gatley. Now they’re engaged. The name rang a bell and not in a good way. I took a look at him online.”

“This isn’t going to end well, is it?”

“No. I’ve got evidence that Gatley is a very sharp scam artist. He’s been conning people since college. Amazingly good at it, too. Right now he’s operating what looks like a Ponzi scheme. Not his first. It’s eventually going to come crashing down, but meanwhile, he is moving his clients’ funds into his own offshore account.”

“You tried to warn your father—Davis Decatur—didn’t you?”

“It was a stupid thing to do,” Max said. “I couldn’t warn Brooke. She doesn’t know I exist. She’d probably think I was the real scam artist. So, yeah, I e-mailed Decatur and suggested that he have his financial and legal people take a close look at Gatley. I got an e-mail back informing me that if I made another attempt to contact anyone in the Decatur family, I would be looking at charges of malicious harassment.”

“You did what you could to warn Decatur about Brooke’s new boyfriend. Decatur chose to dismiss your warning. So now you’ve decided to drop the case?”

“There’s not much else I can do.” Max exhaled slowly. “That last e-mail I got a few minutes ago was just more confirmation that Gatley is a con man.”

“You know,” Charlotte said, “some people might see this scenario as a
nice example of karma. Decatur ignores you for your entire life and now he’s going to pay a price.”

“Yeah.” Max ate some of his crab cakes. He did not look enthusiastic.

“But you hate knowing that Gatley is using your half sister to get close to the Decatur family in order to get his hands on their money.”

“Pisses me off that he’s going to get away with it. Don’t ask me why.”

“You don’t have to explain why it pisses you off,” Charlotte said. “It’s perfectly obvious. It’s your family that’s going to get hurt.”

“It’s not my family. There’s a biological connection, but that’s it.”

“Fine. It’s a biological connection. But after the fallout comes down on the clan, there is an innocent person—your half sister, biologically speaking—who is going to be left with an enormous load of guilt. She’ll probably be convinced that the disaster was her fault because she’s the one who brought the snake into the family circle.”

“Assuming there is a disaster. It’s possible someone will figure out that Gatley is bad news before things go south.”

“Two words: Bernie Madoff. He managed to con people for years—some of them were very smart people. You and I both know you can’t give up. We need a plan.”

Max raised his brows. “What’s this
we
stuff?”

“We’re partners, remember? Don’t worry, we’ll come up with an angle.”

“Be sure to let me know when inspiration strikes. Meanwhile, we’ve got other priorities.”

“Victoria.”

“Right.”

“Where do we start?”

“After dinner you’re going to water a friend’s plants.”