When All The Girls Have Gone (30 page)

They bought four coffees and four hamburgers with fries at the drive-through window of a fast-food restaurant near the campus. They needed the basic food groups, Max thought—caffeine, carbs and protein. They had to fortify themselves before they gave their statements to Detective Walsh.

He drove to the nearest city park. It was late afternoon and too chilly to use one of the picnic tables, so they settled for eating the meal in the car. Charlotte was in the passenger seat. Jocelyn and Anson were in the backseat. Max was behind the wheel.

“Let me guess,” Charlotte said. “We’re here to get our stories straight before we give our statements to the police, right?”

Max had been about to take a bite of his hamburger. He paused to look at her, everything inside him tightening at the realization that he had almost lost her. For a second or two he could not speak, let alone eat.

Then she smiled at him and he was able to breathe again.

“You don’t have to make it sound like we’re a bunch of coconspirators,” he said.

“Why not?” Jocelyn said. “That’s pretty much what we are.”

“Yeah, that does describe our situation,” Anson agreed.

“Yes, I know,” Max said. “But when Charlotte says stuff like that, somehow it sounds so much worse than it actually is.”

“That’s Charlotte,” Jocelyn said. “Why do you think I never told her about the investment club?”

Charlotte turned in her seat. “If you had, I would have advised you not to get involved with people like Madison Benson and her little band of online vigilantes.”

“Okay, I think that’s enough squabbling, ladies,” Max said. “We don’t have a lot of time. Just so you know, the number one rule in situations like this is—”

“There are rules about giving statements?” Charlotte asked, frowning.

“The rule,” he repeated patiently, “is that you don’t lie but you don’t volunteer any more information than absolutely necessary. Right, Anson?”

“Right,” Anson said around a mouthful of hamburger.

“Good rule,” Jocelyn said. She eyed Max. “How did you figure out that Trey Greenslade was holding us at the old hunting cabin?”

“Greenslade had a pattern,” Max said. “He was into planning and he was obsessed with having a thorough knowledge of his territory. Also, he needed to feel that he was in control. In the course of researching him I’d checked his tax records. He inherited some property in the town of Loring and he has an apartment in Seattle. But of all the places he controlled, his father’s old hunting cabin in the mountains seemed like the only one that could be used to hold a couple of captives. No nosy neighbors to ask questions.”

Charlotte nodded and munched a French fry. “You’re good. Really, really good.”

“Yep,” Anson said. “He is good.”

Max looked at Jocelyn. “Do you know what happened to the contents of that old evidence box?”

“No,” Jocelyn said. “And I don’t know why Louise made that trip here to Loring the day she died, if that’s what you’re going to ask next.”

“Trey Greenslade must have had some reason to think that she got the evidence box in the course of that trip,” Charlotte said. “He killed her hours later that same day.”

“But she died of a drug overdose,” Anson pointed out. “How did he get close enough to her to drug her?”

“Probably the same way he got close enough to me to drug me,” Jocelyn said. “He used Madison Benson.”

“Who helped him because she saw a golden opportunity to increase her share of the profits from the Keyworth deal,” Max said. “Maybe she had even higher aspirations. Maybe she thought she could somehow get a slice of Loring-Greenslade.”

“Why did Greenslade cut her out of the herd?” Anson asked.

“Once he discovered that I was closing in on him, he realized he had a problem,” Jocelyn said. “At that point he couldn’t know how much the other members of the investment club knew about my investigation. He realized that Madison Benson was the one in charge of the club, so he went after her first.”

“Probably recognized another sociopath,” Charlotte said. “Takes one to know one.”

“Exactly,” Max said. “Figured he could do business with her.”

“He seduced her,” Jocelyn said. “But knowing Madison, she probably thought she was in control.”

Anson shook his head. “Two sick sociopaths, each trying to manipulate the other.”

“Getting back to the contents of the evidence box,” Jocelyn said, “Trey Greenslade thinks that Briggs scammed him. He thinks Briggs sold the evidence to Louise and then tried to sell the empty box to him.”

“If that’s true—and there is some logic to it,” Max said, “we have to figure out where Louise hid the contents of the box.”

“Here’s what’s bothering me,” Jocelyn said. “If Briggs did decide to sell the box, why did he call Louise? I’m the one who would have paid whatever he asked for that damn box.”

Charlotte looked at her. “Maybe he couldn’t get hold of you because you were out of town and off the grid.”

“Oh, shit,” Jocelyn said. She looked stricken. “You’re right. If he called my office, Louise would have taken the call. She would have recognized the Briggs name. She would have understood that if he was desperate to get in touch with me, it was about something very important—something related to the past.”

“She must have told him that she knew about your past,” Charlotte
said. “When he told her what he had to sell, she agreed to the deal. She took ten grand out of her own bank account and went to Loring to collect the box.”

Jocelyn’s eyes were haunted. “Louise died because of me.”

“No,” Charlotte said quickly.

“Yes,” Jocelyn said evenly. “It’s my fault Louise is dead.”

Charlotte looked at Max. He could feel her willing him to assure Jocelyn that she was not responsible for her friend’s death. This was going to be the hard part about his new line of work, he thought. Finding the right words at the end of the case was not his strong suit.

“Louise took a risk,” he said.

“But she couldn’t have known how big a risk,” Jocelyn said.

“Maybe not,” Max said. “But her motives might not have been entirely altruistic.”

“What are you talking about?” Jocelyn demanded.

“She was the one member of the club who knew that you weren’t on that Caribbean island,” Max said. “She knew that you had gone off the grid because you were afraid someone had hacked your tech. But she had to know that you would be watching your e-mail.”

Charlotte looked at him. “The same way that you assumed Jocelyn was watching.”

“Louise and I established a code,” Jocelyn said. “She was supposed to use it if there was some sort of emergency. But she never sent it. Maybe she didn’t think she had time. Maybe Briggs told her that she had to bring the money immediately.”

“Or maybe she had her own plans for that evidence,” Max said.

Jocelyn looked stunned. “What?”

“She had to know that it was worth a fortune to your rapist,” Max said. “She knew that he would have paid a lot more than ten grand for it.”

“No,” Jocelyn said. “No, she was my friend.”

“Hold on,” Anson said. “If Briggs was looking to score big-time, why didn’t he contact Trey Greenslade first? Greenslade was in a position to pay a lot more money for the evidence.”

“That,” Max said slowly, “is a very good question. Briggs most likely would have tried to do the deal with Greenslade first, not Jocelyn. That leaves us with only one other individual who would have had access to the box and a reason to sell it. If I’m right, Trey Greenslade would have been the last person she would have contacted.”

Charlotte’s eyes narrowed in faint surprise.

“Roxanne Briggs?” she said.

“I can’t prove it, but I think so, yes,” Max said. He thought about it. “It feels right.”

“But why?” Jocelyn asked.

“Because Gordon Greenslade was killed in an alleged hunting accident a few months ago,” he said. “And Trey Greenslade inherited everything. Roxanne’s junkie son—Gordon’s
other
son—got nothing.”

Jocelyn raised her brows. “Are we going to tell the Loring police your brilliant theory?”

“No,” Max said. “We are not.”

Anson peeled the lid off his coffee cup. “Remember rule number one—stick to the truth, but don’t volunteer anything.”

Charlotte looked at him. “What’s rule number two?”

“See rule number one,” Anson said.

“I was right,” Daniel Flint said. “Louise was murdered. I knew it. So it was that bastard, Trey Greenslade, who killed her?”

Daniel was grim and somber and he looked a lot older than he had at the start of the case. But Daniel also appeared satisfied in a bone-deep sort of way. Sometimes a man needed answers, Max thought. He knew the feeling.

The four of them were gathered in Max’s office. He was sitting behind his desk. Daniel was in one of the two client chairs. Jocelyn had taken the other chair. Charlotte was watering the half-dead plant in the corner. Anson lounged against the wall, his arms folded.

At Daniel’s comment, Charlotte straightened, watering can in hand, and looked at him.

“Yes,” she said. “Greenslade murdered her with Madison Benson’s assistance.”

“Greenslade’s still in the hospital in Loring,” Max said. “But he started talking this morning, according to Walsh. Trying to cut a deal. So is Nolan Briggs. And it gets better—Madison Benson is talking, too.”

They all looked at him.

“How?” Charlotte demanded.

“Got a call from the homicide detective in charge of the case here in Seattle. The cops found Benson’s computer and phone at the cabin. The
forensics people got into both today. Turns out she was keeping digital audio recordings of her conversations with Greenslade. There is more than enough material to make sure he goes away for a very long time.”

Daniel frowned. “So Madison Benson was his accomplice right from the start?”

“Yes,” Max said. “Somehow they found out that Louise had picked up the evidence box in Loring. They assumed it was still in her possession when she returned to Seattle. Madison went to see her and slipped the drug into her drink. Madison took Louise’s keys and gave them to Greenslade, who went into the condo, gave Louise a lethal dose of another drug and then searched for the evidence box.”

“Imagine his surprise when he couldn’t find it,” Charlotte said. “And his panic. He actually broke into the carry-on Louise had used to store her copy of the file on him, but he obviously didn’t bother to take a closer look.”

“He was fixated on locating the contents of the evidence box,” Max said. “He wasn’t interested in a road map. He never even bothered to open the envelopes. He knew that as long as that old evidence box was out there, somewhere, it was a threat to him. He needed Madison’s help to locate it.”

“He assumed that I was the one person who might know what Louise had done with the box, but I had dropped off the grid,” Jocelyn said. “They didn’t know where I was. And then, before he could figure out his next move, I sent the code word that caused Victoria and Emily to go into hiding.”

“That must have made Madison really nervous,” Charlotte said. “She wanted both of them dead because she wanted their shares of the Keyworth buyout. But she had to know that if they all died in suspicious accidents the police would start investigating, so she tried to make it appear that you and Emily were the ones with motive.”

“How did she get to Victoria so quickly?” Jocelyn asked.

“Victoria woke up and started talking,” Max said. “Turns out she actually told Madison Benson where she planned to hide—her aunt’s old trailer on the coast. Madison probably intended to let a little more time
elapse before she murdered one of the other club members, but after Charlotte and I talked to her, she realized she had to move fast. She got into her car and drove straight to the coast.”

“Victoria let her in because she thought Benson was a friend who had brought some news,” Charlotte said. “She served coffee. She doesn’t remember anything at all after that. Obviously Benson drugged Victoria’s coffee. Then she sabotaged the heater and left.”

“Madison was raised in a trailer park,” Jocelyn said. “She would have known how to rig the heater.”

“She took a risk,” Anson said. “The sabotaged heater might not have done the job, but she knew that if it worked no one would link her to the murder. She almost got lucky. If Max and Charlotte hadn’t decided to make the drive to the coast early the next morning, Victoria Mathis would have died.”

Daniel looked at Max. “Louise was like a big sister to me. She joined the investment club because she was trying to right some wrongs. I think she went to Loring that day because she wanted to get the evidence box before Roxanne Briggs changed her mind. I’m sure she planned to give it to Ms. Pruett.”

“That’s possible,” Max said.

It was not his job to shred Daniel’s memories of his cousin, he thought.

Jocelyn and Charlotte kept silent.

“Thank you, Mr. Cutler,” Daniel said. He got to his feet. “You got answers for me. That’s all I wanted. I promise you’ll get your money after I sell Louise’s condo. But it might take a while. The real estate agent warned me that a lot of people won’t buy a place if they know someone died in it.”

“I’ve heard that,” Max said. “I can wait for my money.”

“I’d better be on my way.” Daniel glanced at his watch. “I’m due at my job in twenty minutes.”

Max got to his feet, crossed the room and opened the door. He shook Daniel’s hand and then closed the door and turned around to face Charlotte and Jocelyn.

“My client is satisfied,” he said. “But we’ve still got a couple of unanswered questions.”

“Right,” Anson said. “For instance, what the heck did Louise Flint do with the evidence that she bought from Roxanne Briggs?”

“The Loring cops say that Trey Greenslade is going to live,” Jocelyn said. “They assured me that he’ll be going to jail for the murder of Louise Flint as well as other crimes. But I’d really like to get my hands on that old evidence. There must be something in it that proves he’s the one who attacked me or else Briggs would never have been able to blackmail Gordon Greenslade all those years.”

Max walked back across the room to stand behind his desk. He took out the Washington State road map that Louise had marked up and opened it.

“Here’s what we know,” he said. “Daniel Flint is quite certain that Louise Flint had no friends or relatives between Seattle and Loring. We know that between the time she met with Roxanne Briggs in or near Loring and the time she was murdered that night she managed to conceal a package containing what must have been a large quantity of crime scene evidence.”

Charlotte studied the map and shook her head. “Nothing but small towns between Seattle and Loring. And you said that the GPS and odometer readings indicate she didn’t make any big detours.”

“According to the cameras in the condo garage, she did not take anything out of her car when she returned from Loring,” Max said. “The trunk was empty. There was nothing hidden in her storage locker except her copy of the file that she and Jocelyn were building around Trey Greenslade.”

Jocelyn looked up. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that obviously she did stop somewhere between Loring and Seattle. Maybe her intuition was warning her that she was involved in something very dangerous. Maybe she was afraid that Roxanne Briggs would lose her nerve or have regrets and tell someone what she had done.”

“Someone like her husband,” Charlotte suggested.

Max looked at Jocelyn. “Maybe she just wanted to protect the evidence out of an abundance of caution. Whatever the case, she stopped long enough to ditch the package.”

“But where?” Jocelyn demanded.

Max folded the map. “Got the keys to your office at the foundation, Jocelyn?”

“Yes, why?”

“Let’s go take a look.”

*   *   *

A short time later they stood around Jocelyn’s desk and studied the contents of the package that had been waiting for her.

“She didn’t hide the evidence somewhere between Loring and Seattle,” Max said. “She entrusted it to the U.S. Postal Service.”

“‘Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night . . . ,’” Charlotte quoted softly.

Jocelyn looked up, tears in her eyes. “She addressed it to me. Not herself. Me. She wanted to be sure I got it in case something happened to her.”

“By then she knew that the situation was very dangerous,” Charlotte said. “She also knew that I was collecting your mail and that you would not want me to be involved in whatever was going down.”

“She mailed her condo keys to my place before she left town,” Jocelyn said, “because at that point she was concerned but not really scared. She was just taking precautions. But after she picked up the evidence package, she knew it was very hot and that someone might come looking for it. She didn’t trust the security at her building or mine. We’re talking about condo towers, after all. It’s not that hard to get past the door stations. But she knew that the security here at the foundation is very good. She had every reason to believe that evidence would be safe in my office until I returned.”

Charlotte smiled. “You were right. Louise wasn’t going to try to scam you or use the evidence for her own benefit. She was a good friend.”

“Yes, she was,” Jocelyn said. She smiled a watery smile. “But I meant what I said in that damn basement. You are my best friend.”

“No more secrets, friend?” Charlotte said.

“No more secrets.”