I snap the phone closed with a theatrical flourish. Franklin will be fuming, but not for long. And maybe this will get us out of here.
“Well, those idiots,” I say, tsk-tsking. “You know how it is, right? Bigwigs sent us on a wild-goose chase. Bozos can’t even keep their facts straight. Got the town wrong. Middle of the night, can you believe it? They’re not the ones out here freezing, right?”
The officers are nodding at me through the open widow, making empathetic noises. “Scorn for the boss,” a universal emotion, crosses all sectors of employment.
“With ya on that one, Charlie,” Harker says. My new best friend.
“The suits strike again, huh?” Solano snaps off his flashlight and we’re in semi-darkness again. Thank goodness.
“No story here,” I say to J.T. with an exaggerated sigh. “We’ve been ordered to head back to the barn.”
He nods. “Bummer.”
Solano and Harker touch the brims of their hats. “Have
a good one,” Harker says. “We’ll inform the neighbors you’re clear. See you on TV.”
“We’ve gotta go. Turn on the heat,” I say. Our cop buddies have pulled away, actually waving in newfound solidarity. J.T. and I are regrouping. We need to move fast. I turn the key in the ignition and hope the engine noise doesn’t freak out the neighbors again.
J.T.’s hoisted the camera back onto his lap. I’ve got my coat back on. Outside, the door to the garage is still closed. The lights are still off. I look at the clock on the dashboard. Quarter till two. I really-really-really want to get video of No-Hat driving back on the Turnpike and returning the car to the hotel. That would be the real clincher of the story, proving the car was driven into the garage with an air bag and driven out without one. Chain of evidence. On the other hand, if we miss that, it’ll still be recorded on the hidden cams. If they worked.
Should we wait here? Or try to catch up with them on the highway? If we leave right now, and the traffic is light and no state troopers nail me for speeding, there’s a chance we could manage it. And arrive at the hotel the same time they do.
“The Explorer’s got to be gone. Doesn’t it?” I shift into Drive but don’t pull out onto Rantoul Avenue. “They’re going to assume Franklin will want the car back by closing. No-Hat’s gotta know that.”
“Who?” J.T. says. He looks at me, confused, as he clicks the heat to high.
“The driver. The valet. He wasn’t wearing a hat. You know.” I wave him off. “Anyway, the question is, is the Explorer still here? Is it in the garage, and they’re waiting for the cops to leave? Or what if there’s a back door? And they’ve already gone?”
“Your call. I’m set to roll if we need it.” J.T. shrugs and adjusts something on the camera.
Stay? Or go? There’s no way to know the answer to this.
“They’ve seen us, our car at least, and they know the cops came. I bet they wouldn’t risk moving the car in front of them.” My fingers are drumming on the steering wheel, but I’m staring at the still-closed garage door. At least I’m beginning to feel my toes again.
We’re staying.
“I bet they’re still here. They wouldn’t connect this car with what they’re doing in the garage.” I shift back into park. “They have no idea we followed them. Probably. And they pushed the timing with Michael Borum’s car, remember? They know people aren’t suspicious if the car is a little late.”
“Valets always take a long time returning your car,” J.T. says. “I guess now we know why.”
“Exactly. So it takes, what, fifteen minutes to get from here to the hotel?”
“With you or me driving?” J.T. says. He’s staring at the garage door, too.
And it begins to open.
“T
he old camera-in-the-ceiling-light trick,” J.T. says. “Works every time.”
“I’m in love with it,” I say, pointing. “Look at that.”
“Slam dunk,” Franklin says.
The three of us are crowded around the minuscule screen of our portable monitor, watching the video from the hidden cameras J.T. wired into the Explorer. At some point, ENG Joe and ENG Joanna will transfer them to normal-size cassettes so we can look at them on our regular playback machine. But we can’t wait for that. We’re exhausted and I’m starving, but we can’t resist success. We need to see each one of the tapes now, even on this frustratingly tiny viewer. We’re addicted to the moving images on the glowing screen. So far, our surveillance worked. Every tape. Every time. Every shot.
Lots of little pictures. One big story.
“There’s the air bag,” I say. “See? They’ve popped it right out. We got this exact moment on our camera, too. And I bet they’re taking all the air bags, not just the ones in the front. That’s why they have to go to the garage.”
“Good thing I didn’t get into an accident driving home,” Franklin says. He steps back from the screen. “Oh. Charlotte. I almost forgot. Remind me to tell you about
Drive Time.
”
“Check it out,” J.T. says. “They’re stuffing—newspa
pers? Into the space in the dashboard where the air bag came from.”
Franklin turns back to the screen. “Newspapers?”
“So the dashboard won’t sound hollow if you tap on it. I’ve read about that,” I say.
“This should be on the network,” J.T. says. “Let’s look at a different tape. Check another angle on the air-bag shot. And let’s see if we got them writing down the VIN.”
No one else is here to share our triumph. The bleach-and-lemony disinfectant smell means the cleaning people have come and gone. At three forty-five in the morning, the Special Projects office is deserted, littered desks empty, lights off.
“I wonder how long they’ve been doing this,” I say. While J.T. selects the next tape, I push a stack of notebooks out of the way and perch on the edge of my desk, imagining hundreds and hundreds of cars left in valet parking by trusting drivers.
“You go in, you hand over your keys, you have a nice dinner. You’re thinking how convenient the whole valet system is. No parking hassles. And little do you know.”
J.T. flips open the lid of a clear plastic cassette box and dumps the tape into his hand. “Yeah. Your car is going for a ride. Without you.”
“Hand me that box. It needs a label,” Franklin says. He’s busily pressing narrow stick-on strips to each tape and cassette box. From my vantage point across the room, I can see they’re somehow numbered and color coded. Only Franklin understands how. “Wish we could record audio.”
“You know state law,” I say. “No can do with a hidden camera. Doesn’t matter though. A picture is worth—”
“Yup, usually,” J.T. says. He pushes Play, then points to the little screen. “But look at this picture. This one’s worth a million words. That’s the VIN number, see? And
there’s a guy’s hand, writing it down on a piece of paper. Man. That close-up lens above the dashboard rocks.”
The piece of paper and the man’s hand leave the frame. And then we see nothing but the dashboard and a snippet of windshield. Doesn’t matter. We got the money shot.
Suddenly the screen gets darker and darker. We see shadows moving, nothing we can recognize. The screen finally goes dead black.
“The garage door,” I say. “This is when they closed it. This is when the cops arrived. There’s not enough light for the camera now.”
“It’s rolling, though,” J.T. says. “The counter’s moving, so it’s not broken or out of tape. But we won’t be able to see any more till the lights come on again. So let’s look at a cassette from my camera, okay? Check what we got from inside our car.”
J.T. pops a tape into the player. He pushes Rewind. And when the tape clicks to a stop, he pushes Play. The tape whirs to a start. The video is grainy from the darkness. But perfect. This cassette, which Franklin has already labeled DT5, includes the trip back to the Longmore. We’d followed No-Hat and the Explorer out the garage door and down the highway, chronicling the entire return trip. Far as we can tell, he never had a clue.
“Check and mate,” J.T. says. “The car’s back at the hotel. Like nothing ever happened. And we got the whole thing on camera.”
“And there’s you, Franko,” I say. “Coming to get the car. Who’s that with you? Must be waiting for his car, too. Bet he was annoyed. Still, you both look very hip for two in the morning.”
“Two-twenty in the morning,” he corrects me, holding up his watch and pointing to it. “I had to pretend I was angry that they took so long to return the car. The guy you’ve so cleverly named No-Hat told me they were
‘busy’ and that I should have asked for the car sooner. Like it was my fault.” He’s now lining up the cassettes in a corrugated-cardboard box which, in blocky and symmetrical black Magic Marker letters, he’s labeled “Drive Time.”
He holds it up. “See? All our tapes. Organized and ready to log. We can come in early tomorrow and do it, okay?”
“Drive Time?”
I say. I don’t even try to stifle my yawn. It’s pushing four o’clock. The need for sleep is slowly and surely suffusing all my brain cells. And tomorrow is going to be an extremely gratifying day. Our story is a go. Kevin will be thrilled. Next step, we have to track down out who’s running the scam. “T and T may not appreciate you ripping off their—”
“Charlotte. I told you to remind me,” Franklin interrupts. “And I was using that as a working title. It’s supposed to be funny. Irony, you know? What I wanted to tell you, the replay of tonight’s
Drive Time
was on the radio when I was driving back here.”
I blink at him, then again, my weary brain trying to battle its way toward understanding.
“So?” Is the best I can do. Then the fog clears. “Oh. Is it the blue Mustang? Or are they already selling the clone of our Explorer?”
“Good call,” Franklin says. “And we’ll have to listen for the Explorer if we’re right about this. But no, it was the Mustang.”
“And?” J.T. says.
“And?” I say. I grab my coat and muffler from the rack. I’ve got to go home—to Josh, who’s safely in bed and not in custody for murder—and get some sleep. Was that just this morning? No wonder I’m bleary. “Did you get the right number?”
“Well, apparently you remembered it correctly,” Franklin replies. He pulls a scrap of paper from his jacket pocket and holds it up. “See? Isn’t this it?”
“Five-five-five,” I begin to sing. “Zero-one—”
Franklin holds up a hand, wincing. “Yes. But please don’t sing. It’s late.”
“But that’s…” I pause, trying to fathom exactly what it is. “That’s ridiculous. Whoever’s trying to sell a car isn’t going to be terribly successful if there’s no way for a potential buyer to reach them.”
“Like I said, it’s not a phone number.” Franklin shrugs.
“Sure it’s a phone number.” J.T. waves him off. He zips up his jacket and pats the pockets for his gloves. “It’s just the wrong phone number. A typo or something.”
“Idiots,” I say. My brain is about to give out. And I don’t want to fall asleep on the drive home. “So much for that lead.”
“Mmmff?”
“Fine, sweets,” I whisper, translating. Hanging my terry robe over the closet door, I slide carefully between the striped yellow sheets, trying not to disturb a sleeping Josh. He has school tomorrow.
His eyes flicker, a valiant attempt to wake up and welcome me home, and he turns over, draping one bare arm around me, pulling me close. His body is sleep-warm, and melts, spooning, fitting comfortably into mine. “Missed you,” he murmurs into my ear. “How did it…?”
His voice, drowsy and pillow muffled, trails off into silence.
“Tell you in the morning,” I say. “Go back to sleep, honey.”
He already has. But I can’t. Botox pads onto my stomach, then turns around twice, swiping her tail across my face each time. She finally nestles into place, purring.
“Comfy?” I whisper to her. I’m not. Everyone’s asleep. But me.
I have crossed the line into exhaustion insomnia. My
brain will not turn off. I squint at the glowing green numbers on the nightstand clock. Doomed.
In two hours, Penny will start her second day of school. I smile, a little sleep-deprivation humor. She has no idea of the panic and chaos her father and soon-to-be-stepmother endured on her first day. Penny had lunch with pals, didn’t even notice her dad wasn’t there. Annie had brought her home, Josh had made their dinner—or, purchased it, if the flat white boxes on the kitchen table are any indication—and all is now well at 6 Bexter Academy Drive.
But tomorrow, Penny has to go back to Bexter. Josh, too. Will the cops still be there? Why? What do they know? Who else will be brought in for questioning? Have there been any more phone calls?
The damn phone calls.
Dorothy got one. She’s dead. And Alethia. And now she’s dead. Randall Kindell got one. And Wen and Fiona Dulles.
I close my eyes, trying to think.
Kindell and Dulles. I picture all of the names circled on the donations list in Dorothy’s pamphlet. Why did she circle them? Did she know them? She certainly knew their kids.
I rearrange my pillow, trying not to disturb Josh or the deadweight of calico cat on my chest. Maybe someone else circled them? Maybe Harrison Ebling because they were prime candidates to give even more money to Bexter? He and the bursar were certainly on the money hunt at the Head’s party. I struggle to keep my eyes closed, hoping I can trick my mind into agreeing I need to get some sleep.
But if it was someone else’s book, why was it on Dorothy’s desk?
I’m wide-awake. I can’t keep my eyes closed one more second. When I open them, Botox is staring at me.
“Why are the names circled? And who did it, Toxie?” I mouth the words as I stare back at her.
And then I realize. The cat’s not the one I should be asking.
“Have you ever seen this?” I take the fundraising report out of my battered canvas briefcase and hold it up, showing the cover to Fiona Dulles. She’s sitting beside me on a maple-leaf red damask love seat in her Wellesley living room. Two silk plaid throw pillows are tucked behind her, her posture ballerina perfect, her ankles properly crossed. Her charcoal trousers and muted gray cashmere twin-set cost at least twice as much as my own workaday sweater and skirt. And her pearls are real. Fee’s balancing a white ceramic cup of tea on a flowered saucer. The expression on her composed face does not change as I hold up the pamphlet. She does not reach out to examine it.
“Why, no,” Fee says. She takes a careful sip of tea, looking at me from under her lashes as she tilts her cup. A gold disk on her intricately linked charm bracelet clinks against the china. “Is that the new Bexter fundraising report? When you called, Miss McNally, I thought you wanted to talk about Tal and Lexie. I had hoped you might have some news.”
I put the report in my lap, turning to a certain page as I listen to her. It’s true I had been a bit ambiguous when I called Fee this morning, asking to come for a short visit. She’d assumed it was about the threatening phone calls. And it is. In a way.
Apparently, we’re alone in her Currier and Ives white clapboard suburban mini-mansion. No maids. No animals. No kids. I wonder who laid the fire in the flag-stone fireplace. Fee had carried in her tea herself. I brought my own Dunkin’ Donuts coffee, the paper cup out of place in the Dulleses’ formal residence.
I’m running on empty, sleep-wise, but I’m consumed with getting some answers about the Bexter names. And this may be my last chance for a while. Franklin and J.T. are meeting me at the station this afternoon. We’ll have the fun of telling Kevin about last night’s success. Then we have to focus on tracking down the owner of Beacon Valet and getting our story on the air.
I’m spinning a lot of plates. And I’m trying to make sure they don’t all come crashing down. But the phone calls are haunting me.
“Look at this list,” I say, keeping my tone mild and un-threatening. I find the page I’m looking for and fold the report so it’s showing on the front. “See how your name has a circle around it? You were Fiona Rooseveldt, isn’t that right?”
Fee still makes no move to take the book. I shift my weight, inching a bit closer to her on the love seat. She backs up into her pillows ever so slightly, politely but distinctly keeping her distance.
I turn to another page, pretend not to notice.
“Let me show you this,” I say. “On the benefactor page. Here’s your husband’s name. It’s also circled. Randall Kindell, see? There’s a pencil line around his name. And Alice Hogarth. See them? And these others?” I’ve studied the names so many times, I know them by heart.
Leaning forward, I invade her space a millimeter more.
“Do you know why that might be? Do you know these people? Why you might be connected to them?”
Fee moves a gold-embossed coaster into place on the varnished walnut coffee table, then carefully puts her cup and saucer on top of it. She stares at it for a moment. Then, slowly, looks back at me.
I’m still holding up the list. I’m not saying a word. Fee’s deciding what to answer.
I can wait.
The fire crackles, an ember popping against the ornate brass screen.
“I have no idea why the names are circled. I know Wen, of course.” Fee offers a fleeting smile. “But I’m not acquainted with the others.”
She pushes back the cabled sleeve of her sweater, making a show of looking at her thin-strapped watch. Then she reaches one manicured hand toward the cordless phone that’s tucked under an arrangement of shaggy golden mums on a lacquered end table. Is she planning to call for help? Or expecting the phone to ring?
I’m not going to let her stall with any phone tricks. She’s lying. And that changes everything. Now I’m not sure whether to be afraid for her—or afraid of her. Is she in danger? Or dangerous? And I have to handle this carefully. No one knows where I am, I remember.