“All right, Daniel. And—I am just so sorry.”
“Thanks. So am I.”
Charlotte ended the connection. She turned slowly and walked back to stand directly in front of Max. She held out the phone. He took it and dropped it into the pocket of his jacket.
“Satisfied?” he asked.
“I agree with Daniel. I can’t believe that Louise was on drugs and she certainly was not working as a prostitute. That’s just not possible.”
“How can you be so sure about the drugs or the prostitution?”
She moved one hand in an impatient, dismissing gesture. “I don’t know how to prove it to you. But I’m quite sure my sister, Jocelyn, would have known if Louise was using or if she had become a call girl. Jocelyn would have been deeply concerned. She would have taken some sort of action.”
“Probably not much she could have done about either the drugs or the prostitution.”
“You don’t know Jocelyn. She’s a very determined person.”
“I’ll take your word for it for now.”
“Gosh, thanks.”
Max did not acknowledge the sarcasm. “According to my client, Louise wasn’t having any money problems.”
“No. Jocelyn would have stepped in to help her if that had been the case.”
Max gave her a speculative look. “This seems to be all about Jocelyn’s relationship with Louise. But you’re the one who is here, not your stepsister.”
“Jocelyn is on a monthlong retreat at a convent on a Caribbean island. She left her phone and computer behind. I have no way to reach her to give her the news.”
“She didn’t take any tech with her?”
Charlotte shook her head. “They call it a tech-free retreat for a reason.”
“Interesting.”
That simple comment stopped her cold.
“Why?” she asked.
“Louise’s phone and laptop have gone missing. Both apparently disappeared the night she died.”
“Stolen?”
“That’s the prevailing theory,” Max said.
Understanding dawned. “They were taken by the person who killed her?”
“Like I said, it’s the prevailing theory.”
“Whose prevailing theory?”
“My client’s.”
“What does that have to do with my sister’s retreat?”
“I have no idea,” Max said. “But here’s what I’ve got so far: one woman dead—her tech stolen and ten grand missing—and the woman who may have been her best friend has gone off the grid.”
Charlotte tightened her grip on the strap of her bag. “There is no connection. There can’t be a connection.”
“Then we’re stuck with an amazing coincidence.”
Charlotte stared at him, unable to think of a reasonable argument to counter his statement.
“What about the ten grand?” she finally asked.
“Louise Flint took it out of her account in cash on the morning of her death.”
“Cash? Ten thousand dollars in cash?”
“You can see why I’ve got a few questions,” Max said. “Why don’t we take a look at that file you mentioned to my client?”
She thought about that for approximately three seconds and then decided there was no other obvious course of action except to hand him the keys and walk away from the problem. But she could not do that because Max Cutler was hinting that the problem might involve Jocelyn, who was not there to defend herself.
“All right,” she said finally. “But keep in mind that in her note, Louise made it clear that she wanted Jocelyn to take charge of that file.”
“Sure,” Max said. “But your stepsister isn’t here to do that, is she?”
She angled her chin. “That leaves me.”
“You might want to see what’s in that file before you stake your claim.”
He had a point, she thought.
“Crap.” She took the packet of keys out of her purse. “Let’s go.”
“Where are we going?”
“Louise’s storage locker. I assume you know where it is?”
“Yes,” Max said. “I know where it is. In fact, I was getting ready to take a look at it when you called.”
CHAPTER 7
“Looks like whoever searched her condo also came down here to the locker,” Max said. “He didn’t take time to relock the padlock.”
He opened the wooden door and did a quick inventory. The small space was filled with the kind of stuff that always seemed to end up in storage lockers. There was an outdoor table and a couple of folding chairs that had probably graced the small condo deck during the summer. One large cardboard box had been ripped open, revealing an assortment of holiday decorations. A bicycle hung on the wall. There was a neatly rolled-up sleeping bag, a tent, a camp stove and some ski gear.
There was also an assortment of suitcases.
“There’s no way to tell if he found what he was looking for, is there?” Charlotte asked.
The quiet sadness in her voice made Max take a closer look at her. He hoped she wasn’t going to cry. He was not good with crying women.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yes.” She took a tissue out of the pocket of her jacket and dabbed at her eyes. “Well, as okay as I can be under the circumstances. The thing is, Louise was Jocelyn’s best friend. It’s just so depressing to think that she won’t be around to use the things she stored here. Jocelyn is going to be devastated when she finds out what happened.”
Damn. She was crying. He decided the best thing to do was to pretend he hadn’t noticed.
“Your sister and Flint were that close?” he asked.
Charlotte sniffed a little, but when she spoke her voice was steadier.
“Yes,” she said.
She had herself back under control, he thought. He breathed a small sigh of relief.
“Looks like he opened the cardboard boxes and probably the suitcases, too,” he said. “But I don’t think he found what he was looking for.”
“How can you tell?”
“Just something about the recklessness of the search process,” he said.
He had never been able to explain how he worked. He looked for indications in patterns, and something about the hasty manner in which this person had gone through the locker hinted at rage and frustration.
He pulled out the suitcases and paused to examine the surroundings. The storage lockers occupied an entire floor of the building. They were arranged in such a manner that they effectively created row upon row of narrow floor-to-ceiling canyons with a lot of dead ends. At the moment he and Charlotte were the only people in the vicinity, but that situation was subject to change. A resident or some other individual could walk in at any time.
He told himself that he wanted to avoid unnecessary explanations to strangers, but that wasn’t the whole truth. The reality was that he was deeply uncomfortable in confined spaces—especially spaces with limited exits. He could feel the old memories—and the old nightmares—stirring.
He needed to concentrate on the job at hand. He could not do that properly as long as some part of him was waiting for the monster to jump out from one of the storage locker doors.
He examined each of the suitcases in turn. All but one were empty. The small carry-on, however, contained a road map and three legal-sized envelopes.
“No drugs and no cash,” he said. “But there are a few items inside.” He closed the bag and picked it up. “We’ll take a closer look upstairs in her condo.”
For a beat or two he thought Charlotte was going to question the decision. She looked at him, her lips partly open, eyes widening. He knew she was intensely curious about the contents of the suitcase. But whatever she saw in his expression must have convinced her that there was no point arguing about such a small
thing.
“Okay,” she said.
She wasn’t asking any questions, he thought. That was a good thing.
He let her lead the way back through the maze of lockers. She opened the door of the storage room. He followed her into the elevator and pressed the button for the tenth floor.
Neither of them spoke during the short ride, but he was very aware of her presence. She stood, tense and silent, and watched the floor numbers go past as though they conveyed a secret code. He wondered if she had any idea of what was inside the suitcase. All he could be sure of was that she was worried about what they might find. That was interesting.
No, he decided, Charlotte was interesting.
For a few seconds he tried to convince himself that his curiosity about her was of a professional nature. After all, he was investigating a possible murder and Charlotte was one of the first people to show up at the scene.
In his previous career he’d learned that there was some truth to the old saying that killers often revisited the scene of the crime. Sometimes they came back to savor their own handiwork. Sometimes they returned because they wanted to be sure they hadn’t left any loose ends. And sometimes they were compelled to return because they were driven by an obsession too powerful to resist.
So, yes, he had professional reasons to be very curious about Charlotte Sawyer.
But he knew deep down that the curiosity was not just professional—it was personal.
Acknowledging that fact gave him a serious jolt. He tightened his grip on the handle of the carry-on.
He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting earlier when he had taken the elevator down to meet her in the lobby. He always tried to keep an open mind at the start of a case because he had long since learned that first impressions were critical. He did not want to risk getting them wrong due to preconceptions.
But when the elevator doors opened, the only thing that had been shatteringly clear was that Charlotte Sawyer didn’t fit any of the usual categories.
It was going to be hard to pin a label on her.
She wasn’t the flashy, flirty, perky type. She wasn’t the sultry type. She wasn’t the cool, aloof, sophisticated type. She wasn’t glamorous or bold or shy or nervous.
She had made no attempt to charm him. She hadn’t tried to manipulate him, either, but he was pretty sure she would go toe-to-toe with anyone if she thought the battle was worth fighting.
And if she smiled at you, it would be a real smile, he thought. If her hazel green eyes warmed with humor or passion or any other emotion, that emotion would be the real deal.
She had unfastened the front of her anorak, revealing a dark green pullover and black trousers. The curves of the body beneath the clothes were not showy; rather, they appeared sleek and firm and feminine.
He could not point to any one feature that stood out, with the exception of her clear, watchful green eyes. But the various parts of her came together in a compelling way.
He followed her out of the elevator and walked beside her down the hall to Louise’s suite. When he opened the door and stood back to allow her to enter first, she automatically started forward and then halted abruptly on the threshold. He thought he heard her catch her breath and he immediately understood.
“It’s always like this when you know what happened in a room,” he said quietly.
She glanced at him. “It’s . . . weird.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you ever get used to the feeling?”
“I never have.”
“Do you do this a lot?”
“Not anymore. I used to be a profiler, but now that I’m on my own, most of my work is corporate. Background checks. Insurance fraud. That kind of thing. That means I don’t usually have to walk into places like this.”
She nodded, took a breath and walked into the room with a firm, determined stride. He followed her and closed the door very gently.
It dawned on him that they’d just had a meaningful conversation without either of them needing to clarify the topic. They had both understood each other. He wasn’t accustomed to conversations like that. He wasn’t sure what to make of it.
He set the small suitcase on the rug, crouched beside it and opened it.
Charlotte went down on her knees beside the carry-on.
Together they looked at the road map of Washington State and the three envelopes.
“Okay, not quite what I expected,” Charlotte said.
He looked at her. “What were you expecting?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted.
“That’s the best way to go into a situation like this,” he said.
“Is that a profiling thing?”
“It was my profiling thing. Everyone does it differently.”
He removed the map of Washington and unfolded it slowly. “Not a lot of people use paper maps like this these days. They rely on GPS and the online mapping systems.”
“I don’t recall Jocelyn mentioning that Louise was planning a road trip. But, then, there wouldn’t have been any reason to tell me about it.”
He looked at her. “Your stepsister didn’t bring you into her circle of friends?”
“Not really. Her closest friends are the other members of her investment club. She’s introduced me to them and I’ve seen them from time to time, but they are her friends. The truth is, I don’t have a lot in common with them.”
“Huh.” He pondered that briefly. “So you weren’t invited to invest with the group?”
“No.” Charlotte wrinkled her nose. “Jocelyn said I didn’t make enough money to take the risk. She said that her club’s investments were basically a form of gambling. She and the others got together over drinks, did their research and then took flyers on a few stocks and start-ups they thought had the chance to go big.”
“Did any of them go big?”
“Jocelyn said they made a little money on some, but for the most part the profits were offset by losses. However, she did tell me recently that they had high hopes for a local start-up that they invested in a few months ago. She said they think it’s a good buyout candidate.”
He spread the map on the carpet and examined it in more detail. “Five towns have been circled. I don’t see any obvious connection between them. They’re scattered all over the western side of the state.”
“Louise used a yellow felt marker to circle three of them.” Charlotte leaned over the map. “But the other two are marked in red. I wonder if that’s significant.”
He reached into the carry-on and removed one of the envelopes. The initials on the outside were J.K. The flap was sealed. He opened it carefully and removed a couple of sheets of folded paper. Charlotte watched him intently.
“Well?” she prompted.
“First page is a computer printout,” he said. He unfolded it. “It’s a copy of an obituary notice for a woman named Jennifer Kingsley, age twenty-one. Date of death is about three months ago.” He paused and glanced at the map. “According to this, she was living in one of those towns marked in red on the map.”
Charlotte looked at the road map. “Does the notice list cause of death?”
“No. Which often means it was suicide or an overdose or some other cause that the family wanted to keep quiet.”
“What’s on the second sheet of paper?” Charlotte asked.
He unfolded it and studied it. “A note that says the victim worked nights and that the cause of death was a suspected drug overdose. Looks like Louise Flint’s handwriting.”
Charlotte plucked the next envelope out of the suitcase and opened it. There was only one page inside.
“Another obituary notice,” she said. “A woman named Karen Ralston, age twenty. No cause of death listed, but Louise jotted down a note at the bottom of the page. It says, ‘OD’d. Body found in apartment. Neighbors suspect it was suicide.’
”
Max looked at her. “Two women dead, evidently because they overdosed on drugs. The bodies were found in the victims’ homes. Now Louise is dead, apparently by a drug overdose. Body found in her own condo.”
Charlotte looked at him, her eyes shadowed with anxiety. “What in the world is going on here?”
“I have no idea.” He took out the third envelope. It contained several printouts. “These are newspaper clippings and police blotter reports.”
“More mysterious drug overdoses?”
“No. These are reports of assaults. Suspected rapes.” He read through the details, looking for similarities, searching for a pattern. “All of the victims were about the same age as the two dead women. The locations match the three towns on the map that are circled in yellow.”
“Anyone arrested?”
“Not according to these reports. Louise wrote another note: ‘No descriptions of assailants. Drugs involved.’”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“I’ll do some research and see what I can find.”
Charlotte sat back on her heels and looked at the items that had come out of the carry-on. “Louise was involved in something dangerous, wasn’t she?”
“I think so, yes. The only thing that links these five women is drugs.”
Charlotte shook her head. “I was so sure Louise wasn’t involved with drugs. Well, I guess we can be certain of one thing: whatever the intruder was looking for, it wasn’t the map and those obituaries and crime reports. He didn’t even bother to open the envelopes.”
“No.”
“He was after something else, then. Drugs or cash, just like the police said.”
“Probably.”
He looked around the gloom-filled condo suite and then he refolded the map and tossed it into the suitcase. He stuffed the last of the printouts into the third envelope and put it on top of the map.
“I’ve had enough of this place for one day,” he said. He closed the carry-on. “I need some time to process what we found. Have you got your car?”
“No,” she said. “I walked.”
“I’m parked on the street. I’ll take you home.” It struck him that she might not want to be alone with him in a car. But night had fallen. He did not want her walking back through the rainy streets alone. “Unless you’d rather take a cab?”