Lizzy tried to listen as Jessica rambled, but her cluttered thoughts made it difficult to concentrate. Two months ago she’d moved in with her boyfriend, FBI agent Jared Shayne. Things were going well between the two of them, but adjusting to her new environment was proving to be exhausting. Every movement she made in her old apartment had been instinctive. She could move around blindly and still know where everything was: scissors, pens and pencils, her gun. Nothing was the same at Jared’s place, and it was getting to her. It was probably time for her to have a talk with her therapist.
“What’s wrong? It’s Hayley, isn’t it?” Jessica asked. “Have you heard from the attorney?”
“Not yet. We should have a release date any day now.” Lizzy shuffled through the papers on her desk, located a manila file, and handed it to Jessica. “I’d like you to get started on the Danielle Cartwright case today.”
Jessica sat on the chair facing Lizzy’s desk and skimmed through the file. “Danielle Cartwright is thirty-nine,” she read aloud. “She’s been married three times and she’s—”
“In a nutshell,” Lizzy cut in, “Danielle tends to fall for men who could easily be categorized as womanizers. It’s left her with a sour taste in her mouth. Her past experiences have made her distrustful, but not enough to stop her from getting engaged to a man named Dominic Povo.”
“She doesn’t trust him?”
“She doesn’t trust anyone. She’s been burned too many times.”
Jessica flipped through the pages. “So she wants us to do a basic search on this Povo guy. Makes sense.”
“I’d like you to do an in-depth background check. The works: any criminal record, driving history, past addresses, credit reports, any and all phone numbers. His name, birth date, and Social Security number—it’s all in there.”
“OK,” Jessica said. “Does Danielle know she’ll be working with me?”
Lizzy nodded as she grabbed another file from the stack on her desk and handed it to Jessica. There was a list paper-clipped to the front.
Jessica mumbled under her breath as she looked over the list. “Five of these are workers’ compensation cases. Looks like I’ll be sitting in the car every day.”
Lizzy nodded again.
“And the last name on the list is Adele Hampton,” Jessica said. “Another adoption case—a mother is looking for Adele, the daughter she was forced to give up eighteen years ago.”
“Do you think you can handle it all?”
Jessica stood. “I guess I better get started.”
“That would be great.” Lizzy read another e-mail, but her heart wasn’t in it. She scratched her forehead, grabbed a rubber band from her top drawer, which she used to pull back her dirty-blonde hair, and then shoved the pencil back in her mouth.
It was no use.
Until she had a sit-down with Jared and told him she was thinking about moving back to her apartment, she wasn’t going to get a whole hell of a lot of work done.
I’m a sick person. I know that. How could a normal guy do what I did? It was like another guy was inside me.
—Albert DeSalvo
Maureen and Charles Baker
Placer County
August 2011
Maureen brushed her fingers over the leather seats. She’d never been in a limousine before, and she’d always wanted to take a ride in one. She looked longingly at her husband, Charles. It wasn’t often in their fifty years of marriage that they were able to dress up and go to dinner, but tonight was special. A friend and bridge club member had written up a short article about their big anniversary. A man had called Maureen at home, telling her that an anonymous donor had read about their love story in the local paper. The mystery man wanted to treat Maureen and Charles to a night out on the town. An anniversary extravaganza, he had explained to her over the phone.
Although Charles didn’t like the idea of allowing a stranger to pay for their dinner, he would never deny her an opportunity of
a lifetime. You had to be somebody to get reservations at La Vue, a famous restaurant in the area. Maureen had been talking about going to La Vue since they first met. But they didn’t have much money now that Charles was retired, and they couldn’t afford such extravagance. She planned to order the bacon-wrapped king salmon and hoped to talk Charles into ordering the medium-rare Angus New York strip with a balsamic reduction sauce served on chard. Her stomach rumbled and her mouth watered at the thought.
She continued to admire the way Charles looked, all dressed up. There was nothing Charles disliked more than putting on his suit and going to a fancy dinner. Her husband had served many years in the Navy. In the late sixties and early seventies, he was part of a Navy SEAL team and was involved in unconventional guerilla-warfare situations. The proud recipient of the Purple Heart, Charles was also the suspicious sort, which is why he had called the restaurant to see if reservations had, in fact, been made in their names. They had.
Charles was her protector, and he made her feel safe.
Maureen was wearing her best dress, the one she had found on sale to wear to her neighbor’s funeral, bless his soul.
The limo wasn’t a stretch, but it was long enough to fit three more couples, Maureen figured. She was so eager she could barely contain her excitement.
Charles, on the other hand, was still apprehensive. He pulled his gaze from the view outside and looked at Maureen. “What is the driver’s name?”
“Andy.”
“Isn’t La Vue located downtown?”
“Yes, but I don’t know the exact address,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “The caller said that it was an anniversary
extravaganza with more than a few surprises planned for us, so stop your worrying.”
Charles sighed. “I’ve gone this route before. Unless he turns off this road soon, there’s nothing but farmland and cows for miles.”
“Oh, come on, Charles. Don’t ruin this. How often do we get out of the house? Just go with it. You called the restaurant yourself.”
Despite his tugging at his tie and staring out the window, she could see that Charles was trying to loosen up. Relaxing just wasn’t in his genes.
A man’s soothing voice came through a speaker at the back of the limo. “Help yourself to the champagne,” he said. “It’s chilled and ready to drink, compliments of La Vue.”
The lights were dimmed, making it difficult for Maureen to see as she looked around until she saw the champagne bottle wrapped in a dark napkin and nestled in ice. Charles reached for the bottle, saw that it was open, and poured Maureen a glass.
Charles knew his wife would argue with him if he didn’t pour himself a glass, too, so he did. “Cheers,” he said, clinking his glass against Maureen’s. “To the best fifty years of my life.”
“I love you, Charles.”
“I love you, too.”
He tilted the glass against his lips, but didn’t drink any since he’d never been fond of champagne. Maureen finished her glass in a few swallows. Although he was enjoying seeing his wife so happy, he couldn’t rid himself of the feeling that something was not right with this picture. He tried to see through the tinted window separating him and his wife from the limo driver, but it was no use. The driver was nothing more than a dark shadow.
“Charles, what do you think Mitch and Carol will say when they find out about all of this?”
He grimaced. “Mitch will be thankful it was me instead of him.”
Maureen laughed. Her laughter usually soothed him, but not tonight. He was definitely on edge. The farther they went, the more uptight he felt.
“If you prefer, Mr. Baker,” the voice said, “there’s some Woodford Reserve whiskey for you.”
He and Maureen didn’t get out much. They didn’t have a lot of friends, but somehow La Vue had known that Woodford Reserve was his favorite whiskey. He turned his gaze away from the dark shadow that was their driver and looked at his wife instead. She finished off her second glass of champagne and then leaned her head back against the headrest and smiled.
“Who paid for our night out?” Charles asked her.
“I asked, but apparently whoever it is wants to remain anonymous.”
“So you never talked to the actual person or people who set this all up?”
She shut her eyes. “Charles, please, we’ve been over this. You called the restaurant yourself. Someone read our story in the local paper. Evidently, the anonymous donors were married straight out of high school, just like us.”
“That still doesn’t explain why they would want to help us celebrate our anniversary.”
“Doing nice things for people must make them feel”—her voice drifted off slightly before she finished her sentence—“better about themselves.”
Charles moved closer to his wife. “How would they know that my favorite whiskey is Woodford Reserve?”
His wife didn’t answer, prompting Charles to put his hand to her shoulder and give her a shake. “Maureen, are you falling asleep?” Maureen had never been one to take naps or doze off,
especially for no good reason. “Maureen,” he said again, surprised by the panic lining his voice. “Wake up.”
Nothing.
He put his ear on her chest and listened. Her heart was beating. She was alive, but something was seriously wrong.
An idea struck him and he looked at the champagne bottle. He lifted it from the ice, took a whiff, and then dabbed a taste on his tongue—definitely a bitter taste.
Charles slid across the seat, moving closer to the window separating him from the driver, and drummed his knuckles against the glass. “Open this window right now!”
The dark shadow didn’t flinch.
Charles slammed his fist hard against the glass. “Turn this vehicle around and take us home!” For the first time in his life, Charles wished he hadn’t been so stubborn about owning a cell phone. He refused to purchase one of those modern gadgets. In his opinion, consumers were easily misled into wasting too much time on phones and computers.
“Did you know that your wife kept a diary?” the voice asked through the speaker.
“Take us home now,” Charles repeated as he opened every cabinet and compartment, looking for something that might give him a fighting chance if the driver ever decided to stop the limo.
“For fifty years your wife dreamed about one man and one man only. And it wasn’t you.”
“Shut up, you crazy son of a bitch.”
“Harry Thompson. That’s the man she’s been pining over for fifty years, the man she wishes she had married.”
Charles stopped his frantic search and looked through the thick glass at the shadow. “How would you know anything about Harry Thompson?”
“
How
I know isn’t important, but
what
I know about Harry and your wife is something I am sure you would find very interesting.”
“There’s nothing you could say about Harry Thompson that would interest me.” Charles shook his head, wondering why he was even talking to the wacko. “Maureen didn’t want anything to do with that stick-in-the-mud.”
“Then why did she spend six weeks in Italy with him when you were involved in covert operations overseas?”
He refused to let the crazy driver get the best of him. “She went to Italy with her girlfriends,” Charles stated calmly. “I’ve seen pictures. I know what you’re trying to do.”
“What am I trying to do, Charles?”
“You’re just one more crazy who likes to spend his free time putting doubt in people’s heads.”
“And why would I do that?”
“Because putting doubt in people’s minds makes you feel powerful in some way. You have low self-esteem, but you want to feel superior. I hate to break it to you, pal, but you’re nothing more than pond scum.” Charles eyed the champagne bottle and slid across the leather seat until he was closer to the bottle. “What’s the plan?” Charles asked. “You do have a plan, don’t you?”
Before the driver could answer, Charles took hold of the neck of the bottle and slammed it against the glass partition. The bottle broke in half. Champagne sprayed across his face, but the tinted glass didn’t even crack.
“Your wife has been fucking Harry for fifty years,” the voice said.
A kick of adrenaline soared through Charles’s body, making his hands shake. He leaned back on the seat, and with all the
strength he could muster he kicked both feet through the glass, shattering the partition to pieces.
The limo swerved and Charles fell hard to the floor. His wife’s limp body rolled on top of him. Charles wiggled his way out from beneath her. On his knees, he caught a glimpse of the driver’s eyes in the rearview mirror right before Charles shoved a hand through the frame of broken glass and wrapped his fingers around the scrawny man’s neck. He might be in his seventies, he thought, but he was in tip-top shape. Back in the day, he could kill a man with one hand. He’d done it before and he’d do it again.
The driver yanked the wheel hard to the left, sending Charles flying. Charles used his forearms to protect his face from hitting the door. His gaze locked onto the broken champagne bottle, which had become lodged beneath the leather seat. Crawling that way, he grabbed hold of the neck of the bottle once more, came to his knees, shoved his hand through the broken window, and stabbed the jagged edge of glass into the driver’s ear.
The limo swerved across the road, to the left and then to the right, before it careened down an uneven embankment. Charles was violently thrown around, his teeth biting into his tongue as he did his best to protect his wife from injury. At the same instant at which the vehicle made contact with something rigid and inflexible, he felt a jolt as his head made contact with the door. A searing pain jabbed through his skull and all went black.
I thought, “God, what have I done?”…I realized I would be in serious trouble. I thought the best way out of the mess was to make sure she could not tell anybody.
—Peter Sutcliffe
Davis
Monday, April 30, 2012
After a long day at the office, Lizzy returned home, jumped in and out of the shower, combed the tangles out of her hair, and slid on a V-neck T-shirt and a pair of soft gray sweatpants that hung low on her hips.