Whoever he was, he sounded unstable. Jittery. As if he was overly excited, maybe desperate.
“Take it easy,” Trey said. “We’ve got work to do.”
“I need a hit.”
“Then get it.”
Trey didn’t bother to conceal the disgust in his voice. He paused long enough to flip a switch at the top of the steps. A weak bulb in an overhead fixture came on. It cast a dim, shadowy light around the basement.
He closed the door. Jocelyn heard the muffled sound of a key in the lock.
She tried to breathe through the panic. She needed to think. To plan.
Her head ached from the blows. She forced herself to ignore the pain. She staggered to her feet and took a closer look at her surroundings.
Like most basements, the one in which she was trapped had clearly served as a storage room for years. She walked slowly around the shadowy space, taking inventory. There was an ancient fold-up camp cot in one corner and a chair with a broken leg. A rolled-up sleeping bag that smelled of must and mold occupied another corner. One large box was filled with yellowed newspapers.
She knew she probably wouldn’t find anything she could use as a serious weapon against Trey, who was armed with a gun. But she made herself go through the process of searching because it distracted her from the horror of knowing that there was now nothing she could do to protect Charlotte.
CHAPTER 55
Charlotte’s phone pinged, startling her. She grabbed the device and looked at the screen.
“It’s a text from Madison Benson,” she said. “You were right. She’s certainly paying attention to her messages.”
“What does it say?” Max asked.
Charlotte read the text aloud. “‘Urgent that I meet with you and Cutler.’”
Max folded his hands on the desk. “Ask her where and when.”
Charlotte entered the message and hit send.
The response came back almost immediately. Charlotte read it silently and then looked up.
“She wants to meet us after dark at her home.”
Max considered that for a moment. “She feels safe there because of her security system.”
“And her gun,” Charlotte reminded him.
“And her gun,” he agreed.
“Jocelyn had both of those things and she still chose to run,” Charlotte said.
“Yes, she did,” Max said. “It’s interesting that Madison doesn’t feel the need to hide.”
“I think it would be very hard to scare Madison Benson,” Charlotte said. “You’ve met her. She’s tough.”
Anson spoke up. “And judging by what you told me, she wants to keep her finger on the pulse of that buyout deal.”
“Yes,” Max agreed. “And there’s one other thing we know about Madison Benson—she wants us to think that Jocelyn might be trying to kill off the members of the investment club.”
Charlotte went very still. “Yes, she does.”
Max took his holstered gun out of the desk drawer. “Maybe she’s got a reason to be pointing us in that direction.”
Charlotte eyed the gun. “Where are you going?”
“To talk to Madison Benson.”
“But she set the meeting time for tonight.”
Anson looked amused. “You never let the subject dictate the time and place of the meeting—not if you can help it.”
“Right.” Charlotte jumped to her feet. “I’m coming with you.”
CHAPTER 56
Charlotte and Max Cutler were convinced that Trey was the man who had murdered Louise.
It was a breathtaking turn of events.
Madison paced the floor of her vast living room while she tried to decide what to do with the information. They had no doubt sent the same warning to Emily, but that wouldn’t be a problem. Emily was a nervous little rabbit of a woman. The news that someone really was hunting them would put her into a state of abject fear. She would stay hunkered down. There would be time to deal with her later.
The real question was whether or not Cutler had gone to the cops with his theory. It seemed highly unlikely. He’d want proof or at least something more than mere suspicion.
She needed more information, too. That was why she had set up the meeting with Charlotte and Cutler.
She stopped at the wall of windows and looked out across Elliott Bay. She was on fire with excitement. Adrenaline flooded her veins. A woman could get addicted to this kind of rush, she thought. There was nothing else like it.
Unfortunately she had nearly three hours to kill before Charlotte and Cutler arrived. Time seemed to stretch out to infinity. She reminded herself that she had preparations to make. Victoria and Jocelyn had never hesitated when it came to drinking the coffee. Charlotte and Max Cutler would drink it, too.
The problem, of course, was what to do with the bodies. But she had that handled.
The knock on the back door sent a shock through her, rattling her nerves. She hurried down the hall, her pulse spiking again.
Until she had met Trey she had gotten her thrills from scoring in the financial world. She’d always had a talent for manipulating others. There was a huge rush in knowing that you were the smartest person in the room.
But now she was playing with fire and she did not want to stop.
When she reached the back door, she peered through the peephole. A whisper of alarm crackled through her when she saw who was on the doorstep.
She deactivated the alarm system and opened the door.
“What are you doing here?” she said. “It’s too early. We’re going to do this after dark. We can’t risk someone seeing you take the bodies away.”
She didn’t see the gun until it was too late.
The killer fired twice, but the second shot was unnecessary.
Madison’s last conscious thought was that she wasn’t the smartest one in the room after all.
CHAPTER 57
Charlotte, struggling to suppress a wave of dizziness, looked down at the body on the floor. Madison Benson lay in a pool of blood that was already starting to dry. She looked somehow smaller in death.
“He got to her,” Charlotte whispered. “Trey Greenslade found her and murdered Madison.”
Max crouched beside the body. “Call nine-one-one.”
He got to his feet and went swiftly down the hall.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“I want to take a quick look around before the cops get here.”
He disappeared into the big house. Charlotte turned away from the sight of the body and fumbled with her phone. The emergency operator answered on the first ring. Charlotte made her report.
“Yes, I’ll stay on the line,” she said.
A short time later she heard sirens in the distance. Max didn’t reappear until the first responders were pulling into the long driveway. She started to ask him if he had found anything, but she closed her mouth again when she realized the emergency operator was listening.
“The police are here,” she said into the phone. “I’m going to hang up now.”
She ended the connection before the operator could argue. She looked at Max.
“Well?” she said.
“No signs of a computer or her phone. But here’s the real news—Anson just texted me. He says Greenslade has an ironclad alibi. He’s been in Loring all afternoon taking meetings. He’s still there, according to his administrative assistant.”
“That can’t be. We were so sure.”
“We’ll tell the cops the truth—that I’m looking into the death of Louise Flint. Madison Benson texted us to say she had information for us, but when we arrived, she was dead.”
“What do we do now?”
“We go old-school again. We follow the money.”
CHAPTER 58
“They really think M
adison was the victim of a home invasion robbery?” Charlotte collapsed on the sofa and contemplated the abstract print on the saffron gold wall of her apartment. “We tell them the whole story and they go with that dumbass theory?”
“As a rule, cops like the simplest answers best because they are usually the right answers,” Max said. “There’s been a rash of robberies lately in which the robber uses a repairman’s uniform. He knocks on the back door of the house.”
Charlotte sighed. “The homeowner opens the door because most people intuitively trust a guy who’s wearing a legitimate-looking uniform.”
“Right. None of the other victims were murdered, but the cops said they were afraid that it was just a matter of time before the robber escalated. The bottom line is we can’t prove otherwise. Benson’s neighbors were gone for the day. No one saw anything suspicious. No one heard the shots. No one saw anyone running away from the house. The house has decent security. But here’s the interesting thing—Benson’s computer and phone were missing.”
“Greenslade got to her,” Charlotte said. “It’s the only explanation.”
“I told you, he was at the headquarters of Loring-Greenslade at the time of the murder.”
“Then what in the world is going on here? Why hasn’t Jocelyn or Emily Kelly checked in? And why did Madison Benson set up that meeting with us?”
Max stopped his pacing.
“We’ve been focusing on the men on that list that we found in Jocelyn’s safe-deposit box,” he said. “Anson’s right: the more you know about the victim, the more you know about the killer. We need to take a closer look at Madison Benson.”
“How?”
“In my experience administrative assistants usually know more about their bosses’ private lives than the bosses’ spouses and lovers do.”
CHAPTER 59
“Look, I’m still in shock, okay?” Drew Irby ran his well-groomed fingers through his highlighted hair. “My boss has been murdered and I’m out of a job. I should be working on my résumé, not talking to you two.”
The three of them were sitting in a coffee shop a block from the tower where Madison Benson’s office was located. Charlotte had ordered a decaf latte. The last thing her nerves needed was a heavy dose of caffeine. She was certain that time was running out for Jocelyn.
She had slept very little during the night, but she was sure that Max had gotten even less sleep. Each time she’d surfaced from a restless anxiety dream she had found herself alone in the bed. He had spent much of the night in front of his laptop, trying to find as much information as possible about Madison Benson’s financial affairs.
But his reaction to the stress of the situation was much different from hers. He was energized and focused. He was not exactly enjoying himself, she decided—not in the usual sense of the word—but he was definitely exhilarated by the hunt. This was what he was born to do, she thought; what he needed to do.
It had been his idea to corner Madison’s administrative assistant first thing that morning. They had been waiting for him in the lobby of the office tower when he had arrived to clean out his desk. Irby had been wary at first, but when Max had removed a few bills from his wallet, Drew had agreed to talk to them over coffee.
“Take it easy,” Max said. “We just want to ask you a few questions about Madison Benson.”
Charlotte tried to come up with a reassuring smile. “It’s very important, Drew. My stepsister has gone missing and I think Madison might have had some information. She sent a text shortly before she was killed saying she wanted to talk to Max and me. But by the time we got there, she was dead.”
Drew frowned. “Are you saying there’s a connection? I heard that it looked like Ms. Benson was the victim of a home invasion robbery.”
“She opened the door to her killer,” Max said. “But that’s all we can be sure of at the moment. Given the fact that two members of the investment club are now dead, one is in intensive care and two are missing, we think the home invasion story is wrong. We think this may have something to do with the investment club. We want to ask you a few questions about it.”
Drew grimaced. “I don’t see how I can help you. The thing is, Ms. Benson never talked much about the club. Once in a while she mentioned that she was going to have drinks with the other members, but that was about it.”
Charlotte leaned forward. “Madison founded the club. She handpicked the other members from among the women who took an interest in the shelter she helped support. Do you know how she went about choosing certain members?”
Drew shrugged. “I heard her say that each member of the club brought a specific skill set to the table. That’s all I can tell you.”
“Yet in spite of those skill sets, the club doesn’t seem to have been highly profitable,” Max said. “Everyone made a little money from time to time, but there were no major hits—not until the Keyworth buyout popped up.”
Drew put his latte down with both hands and fixed Max with a grim expression. “I’m not so sure about that.”
“About the buyout?” Max asked.
“No, about there being no other profitable investments.”
Charlotte took a quick breath. “What do you mean?”
Drew hesitated and then exhaled a long, deep sigh. “I guess I don’t owe the boss any more confidentiality. Look, I don’t know a lot about the investment club, but I can tell you that Ms. Benson always insisted on handling the club’s spreadsheets personally. A couple of times I offered to help with the updating and she always refused. She said she liked to keep the club’s records completely separate from those of her regular clients.”
“So?” Max prompted.
Drew’s jaw firmed. “She was sort of secretive about the investment club records, so I admit I got a little curious. You work with someone long enough, you get to know their ways. Sometimes when she was out of the office I took a closer look at her files. I can tell you that she often transferred some significant sums of money out of the club’s brokerage account into a numbered account. At first I assumed that she was moving the club’s profits offshore to avoid taxes. She wouldn’t be the first investor to help her clients shield money in an offshore account. But sometimes I wondered . . .”
“Wondered what?” Charlotte asked.
Drew looked at her. “Sometimes I wondered if the other club members knew about that numbered account. I can tell you that there is a lot of money sitting in it.”
Charlotte looked at Max. She shook her head.
“Before you ask,” she said, “I’m quite sure Jocelyn didn’t know anything about excess club profits being funneled into an offshore account.”
“Sounds like Madison Benson was routinely skimming off profits from the investment club,” Max said.
Drew cleared his throat. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think those were the only profits she was transferring offshore. Lately I’ve begun to wonder if she was scamming her regular clients, as well. In fact, I was getting so nervous I was thinking about handing in my resignation even though it was the best-paying job I’d ever had.”
“Now that I know where to look, it shouldn’t be hard for the police to figure out if she was scamming her accounts,” Max said. “But that’s not important to me, not yet, at any rate. What I really want to know is, was Benson seeing anyone?”
Drew looked surprised. Then he shrugged. “Yes. But she was keeping it off the radar. I figured the guy was probably married.”
“Was it serious?” Max asked.
Drew snorted softly. “I’ll say. She went to Maui for a few days about six weeks ago.”
“With the man she was seeing?” Charlotte asked.
“She traveled alone,” Drew said. “But I’m pretty sure he was there at the same time.”
“What makes you so certain?” Max asked.
“You had to know Ms. Benson. She almost never took
time off. She was a confirmed workaholic. She loved her business. Occasionally she did spa weekends, but while I was with her she went to Hawaii only that one time. She wasn’t even there a full week.”
“The trip surprised you?” Max said.
“Are you kidding? She took off for the islands just as the Keyworth deal started to come together. I couldn’t believe it. The situation was very delicate. A couple of her biggest clients had some serious issues at the time, too. It wasn’t like Ms. Benson to leave town when she had fires to put out. All I can say is that she must have really had a thing for the guy.”
CHAPTER 60
“Ethel, I realize you want to go for a more dramatic effect with your memoir,” Charlotte said.
“It’s what they call high-concept,” Ethel explained.
“I understand,” Charlotte continued. “But as we discussed last time, you are writing your personal history—not fiction. Your children and your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren will want to know that they are reading the truth about their ancestors.”
It was late morning. Ethel Deeping had waylaid Charlotte in the hallway to argue her case for the shocking ending to the chapter on her marriage.
“Trust me, my kids will get plenty of truth,” Ethel said.
“Yes, but if they see one very dramatic element in your memoir that they know isn’t true, they’ll be inclined to doubt all of your story—including the really thrilling parts such as your work as a military nurse. You saved lives in war zones. You were a true heroine. You don’t want to give your descendants any reason to doubt those facts, do you?”
“There’s plenty of ways they can verify my military service.”
“Yes, but will they even bother to do that if they doubt some of the other details? I’m afraid that if they read that you killed your husband, they’ll conclude that the entire memoir is fiction.”