When All The Girls Have Gone (23 page)

An hour later Charlotte stood in the hallway outside of Victoria’s condo and watched Max do something she was pretty sure was highly illegal to the lock on the door.

She was doing her best to look like she had every right in the world to be there with a man who was performing a small act of breaking and entering. But she worried that she was not much of an actress.

Fortunately, none of the other residents had paid any attention to them thus far. The security in the building was standard. There was no manager or doorman on duty in the evenings. It had been unnervingly easy to follow one of the tenants into the lobby. The techy young man leading the way hadn’t even bothered to look up from his cell phone. Charlotte didn’t think he was aware of them.

“There’s always a lot of turnover in a big apartment complex,” Max had explained on the way over, to alleviate her worries. “People are used to seeing strangers in the hallways. And in this case, you’re a legitimate acquaintance of one of the tenants. The plant-watering story is just backup in case someone does stop us.”

They had headed downstairs to the parking garage first. Victoria’s car was not in the slot marked with her apartment number, more proof that she had fled. Now they were about to enter the apartment. Charlotte was so tense she was shivering. She hoped Max didn’t notice.

There was a small, muffled click from the lock and then Max was opening the door. Charlotte hurried inside. Max followed and closed the door. She noticed that he took the precaution of locking it. If someone did knock, they would have a little time to make the plant-watering story look good.

Max switched on a lamp.

“Makes our visit look more legit,” he said. “A couple of people moving around in here in the dark with a penlight might arouse curiosity.”

“No kidding.” Charlotte looked at the three potted plants on the window bench. The leaves were drooping. “Looks like the plant-watering story is going to be accurate. I’ll give those poor things a drink before we leave. Meanwhile, what are we looking for?”

“Anything that might tell us where Mathis went.”

“That kind of travel info would probably be stored on her phone or laptop,” Charlotte said. “I don’t see either one.”

“She may have taken the hardware with her and is keeping the devices turned off. Or maybe she left her phone and computer behind altogether.”

Charlotte surveyed the apartment. “Should we try to find them?”

“No, we can’t risk tearing the place apart. For all we know she stashed the tech in an off-site location.”

“How are we going to find her?”

“I think there’s a good chance she drove to her destination,” Max said.

“She might have just driven to the airport and left her car in the garage,” Charlotte said.

“Maybe. But leaving a car in an airport garage for an extended period of time is very expensive. Most people who intend to be gone for a while would take a cab. And there’s something else—Jocelyn aside, Mathis was the member of the club who got out of town the quickest. But you said she’s the one with the fewest financial resources.”

“I think so.”

“Sounds like she had an exit strategy planned for a while. If she didn’t
have a lot of money to finance an expensive getaway, maybe she went to stay with a friend or a relative.”

Charlotte looked at a photo on the wall. It showed a gray-haired woman dressed in baggy jeans and a faded shirt. She had a gardening trowel in one hand. Behind her was an old trailer.

A memory pinged.

“I don’t know anything about Victoria’s friends outside the investment club, but there was a relative—an aunt,” she said. “Jocelyn mentioned that Victoria was very close to her. The aunt died a few months ago.”

“Where did the aunt live?”

“She had a place over on the coast. Jocelyn said that Victoria used to spend weekends there, but then the aunt developed some serious health problems. She moved into an assisted living community here in Seattle for the last few months of her life.”

Max looked up from the file drawer. “Did she leave her estate to Victoria? That could explain how Victoria got the money to disappear.”

“Jocelyn told me that the aunt left everything to Victoria but that it didn’t amount to much. The care she needed toward the end ate up most of her savings. I think there was some property over on the coast. Jocelyn said it wasn’t worth much. She said Victoria intended to sell it eventually when the market improved.”

Max plucked a file out of the drawer. “Looks like Victoria boxed up her aunt’s financial files and brought them here to store. Lucky for us, the aunt was old-school. She kept paper files.”

It didn’t take long to find the tax records that related to the property on the coast.

“That picture on the wall was probably taken there,” Max said. “I think there’s a very real possibility that Victoria went there to hide.”

“She’s not answering her phone, so there’s no way to find out if she’s at her aunt’s old place unless we drive to the coast. That’s a hundred miles from here.”

“No point heading out there this evening,” Max said. “It would
probably scare her to death if a strange car pulled into her driveway in the middle of the night.”

“You’re right. Not a good idea. Jocelyn says that Victoria has owned a gun since she graduated from high school.”

Max whistled softly. “This is one well-armed investment club we’re dealing with.”

“A gun didn’t do Louise any good,” Charlotte pointed out.

“No, it didn’t. We’ll drive out to the coast first thing in the morning.”

Charlotte awoke to the steady patter of rain and the knowledge that she was alone in the bed. She opened her eyes and saw Max silhouetted against the window, steeped in shadows. He was in his briefs and the black crew-neck T-shirt that he had worn to bed earlier. He seemed to be contemplating the night.

She knew that he was once again in that other dimension.

It was maddening, she thought; rather like reeling in a big fish that is fighting the line. That, of course, led to another question—why was she struggling so hard to land her catch?

“Hey,” she said softly. “Everything okay?”

He turned his head to look at her. “Yes. Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you.”

“It’s all right. I wasn’t sleeping well, anyway. Just sort of drifting in and out.”

“Same here. I keep thinking that I’m missing something important in this case.”

She sat up and wrapped her arms around her knees. “I’d say we’re both missing something important. We’re in this together, remember?”

“Yes, but this is my job. I’m supposed to be the one who can see the pattern.”

“Is there any one particular element that is worrying you more than the others?”

“The road maps.”

“The ones we found in that suitcase in Louise Flint’s storage locker and in Jocelyn’s safe-deposit box?”

“Right. Louise and Jocelyn both circled the locations where the three rapes took place and the two towns where the women supposedly died of overdoses. What was so important about those five cases?”

“Maybe Jocelyn and Louise were tracking one of their targets for the investment club.”

“Maybe,” Max said. “But Madison Benson and Emily Kelly both confirmed that the club selected their targets from the files at the women’s shelter where Louise volunteered. There’s nothing to indicate that the three rape victims or the two women who died were connected to the shelter. And then there’s that note that Louise wrote to Jocelyn confirming that those five files were in hard copy only.”

“Maybe Victoria will be able to give us some answers.” Charlotte glanced at the clock. “It’s four thirty. No point trying to go back to sleep. We might as well get ready for the drive to the coast.”

Max turned away from the window. “Yeah.”

She tossed the covers aside and slipped out of bed. “I’ll shower first and fix us some breakfast while you shower and shave. Oh, by the way—”

“What?”

She paused in the doorway and looked back over her shoulder. “I had a thought about your family problem.”

“I don’t have a family problem. I’ve got a business issue involving some biological relatives.”

“Call it what you want, I’ve got a suggestion.”

He eyed her with unwilling curiosity. “What?”

“You said Decatur will not accept any contact from you; that he would be suspicious of anything you told him. But he’s a successful businessman, right?”

“So?”

“He probably has a lawyer on retainer.”

“Probably an entire firm. What about it?”

“Businessmen listen to their lawyers. Do you know any lawyers?”

“I do some work for a couple here in town. One of them has become a friend. Why?”

“Why not take your file on Gatley to him? Ask him to contact Decatur’s lawyers and show them the file. If they see the same red flags that you noticed, they’ll talk to their client.”

“Huh.”

“That way you remain one step removed from the situation.”

“Once he finds out that the file came from me, Decatur will probably decide I’m the scam artist and ignore the information.”

“Yes, but at least you’d know that he saw the file. I think it’s far more likely that if Decatur’s lawyers take the file seriously, Decatur will, too. He’d be a fool to ignore the data right in front of his eyes. After all, the information can be verified, right?”

“Yes.”

She waited for him to say something else, but he didn’t. He just stood there, looking at her.

“Well, it was just a thought,” she said. “I’ll go take my shower.”

She started to turn away.

“Charlotte.”

She stopped and looked at him.

“Thanks,” he said. “It’s a logical approach to the problem. The obvious approach. Hell, I should have thought of it myself.”

She realized then that he thought he had somehow failed to do his job; failed to live up to his own personal code.

She smiled. “The only reason you didn’t come up with the plan is because you’re too close to the situation. You’re emotionally involved. Perfectly natural under the circumstances.”

“No, it’s not. I should have thought of the lawyer-to-lawyer angle.”

“Cut yourself some slack, Max. You’ve got a right to some very complicated emotions when it comes to family.
Everyone
has complicated emotions when it comes to family.”

He crossed the room to the doorway where she stood and stopped a
few inches away. He raised his hands, gripped the doorjambs on either side of her and leaned in very close.

“My feelings about the Decaturs may be complicated, but my feelings about you are not complicated.”

She held her breath. “Really?”

“Talking to you helps me clarify my thinking.”

Okay, not exactly a declaration of love, but coming from Max it seemed like a major statement of some kind. Before she could request a little clarification herself, he leaned in and kissed her.

It wasn’t one of the slow, drugging kisses that left her clutching at his shoulders. It was a quick, deliberate, intensely intimate kiss. It was, she mused, the kind of kiss that a man gave a woman when he considered himself to be in a close relationship with that woman.

Or maybe she was reading far too much into a kiss.

He released his grip on the doorjambs and stepped back.

“Charlotte—” he said.

He stopped and just looked at her. She thought she saw a question in his eyes. Probably just a trick of the dawn light, she decided.

“We’d better get started on that road trip to the coast,” he said. “I think we really need to talk to Victoria Mathis as soon as possible.”

Charlotte raised her brows. “Something wrong?”

“Just got a feeling. It happens like that sometimes in a case.”

Charlotte did not ask any more questions.

“Thank goodness, Victoria is here,” Charlotte said. She hadn’t realized just how tense she had been during the long drive from Seattle until now. “There’s a car parked in the driveway in front of the trailer. It must be hers. You were right, Max. This is where she came to hide out.”

“It seemed reasonable,” Max said. “When people get scared, they often retreat to familiar territory, someplace where they feel safe.”

“I don’t mind telling you I was getting a little nervous about what we would find when we got here,” Charlotte said.

She had steeled herself against the possibility that they would not find Victoria at the end of the journey. Now, at least, they might get a few more answers.

Max stopped the car halfway up the drive and hit the horn a couple of times.

Charlotte glanced at him.

“What?” she asked.

“You said she had a gun and she knew how to use it. If she’s running scared, the last thing we want to do is take her by surprise. She won’t recognize this car.”

They had made the trip in his gray sedan.

“Good point,” she said.

He leaned on the horn a couple more times: quick, nonthreatening blasts designed to announce their arrival in a friendly manner.

Charlotte watched closely, but as far as she could tell there was no movement inside the trailer. No one peeked out from behind the curtains. The door did not open.

She unbuckled her seat belt and opened the door. “I’ll get out and let her see me. She doesn’t know you, but she has no reason to be afraid of me.”

“Unless she thinks you’re conspiring with Jocelyn to steal her share of the profits from the Keyworth buyout,” Max said.

“Crap. I can’t believe she would think that Jocelyn would want to kill her. I can’t believe any of them would believe it. I’ll try to talk to her—let her know that we think Louise’s death may be linked to something in the past.”

“All right, but keep the door between you and the trailer. Tell her who I am and why I’m here.”

Charlotte climbed out. The sharp winds of the storm moving in off the ocean lashed at her hair and sliced through her jacket.

“Victoria, it’s me, Charlotte Sawyer,” she called. “I know you’re scared, but I’m scared, too. I can’t find Jocelyn. I’ve got a private investigator with me. Max Cutler. He’s trying to help. Please talk to us.”

There was no reaction from the trailer. Charlotte held her whipping hair out of her eyes and leaned down to look at Max.

“I’m going to go knock on her door,” she said. “She won’t shoot me in cold blood.”

Max did not take his eyes off the trailer.

“Get in the car.”

It was an order.

“We can’t leave,” she said. “Not after having come all this way.”

“We’re not leaving. Get in.”

Something about the grim set of his jaw told her that there was no point in arguing. She slipped back into the passenger seat and closed the door.

“You think something’s wrong, don’t you?” she asked.

“If she’s in there and if she’s okay, she should have at least looked out the window to see who was coming up the drive.”

Charlotte did not respond. A bone-deep dread settled on her.
Please,
she thought,
not another one gone. Not like Louise. Not dead.

Max drove the rest of the way up the drive and stopped in front of the trailer.

“I’ll take a look,” he said.

He got out of the car and glanced back briefly when Charlotte opened her own door and started forward to join him. She knew he wanted to order her to get back into the vehicle. She just shook her head. He didn’t like it, but he didn’t fight it.

He went up the three old metal steps and rapped sharply on the door. There was no answer. He tried the handle.

“It’s locked,” he said. He paused, his attention focused on the aluminum panel beside the door. “Shit.” His voice was very soft, very cold.

He vaulted down from the top step and pried open the panel. Charlotte caught a glimpse of mechanical apparatus, but before she could ask any questions Max was issuing orders again.

“Get back,” he said.

Bewildered, she retreated a few steps. Max picked up a fist-sized rock and smashed it against the nearest window. Glass shattered.

Charlotte could have sworn that she heard the trailer take a deep, gasping breath. Max smashed another window and then he kicked the door again and again. There was a loud crack as the old lock snapped.

“Stay out here,” Max ordered. “Call nine-one-one.”

He took a deep breath and rushed inside the trailer. He reappeared seconds later with Victoria draped over his shoulder. He hauled her down the steps and put her on the ground.

Charlotte examined her quickly while she waited for the emergency operator to respond. There was no sign of injury. Victoria was alive, but she was deeply asleep. Unnaturally asleep.

Charlotte looked up, horrified. “Another overdose?”

“No,” Max said. “Tell the operator we’ve got a woman unconscious from carbon monoxide poisoning. And tell her to send the cops as well as the medics. This was attempted murder.”