Footsteps behind her. Gabe, still holding Blinker.
“I told him, El, who you sometimes were,” he said. “Nora Quinn.”
“You told—when?” She’d asked Monteiro to check Gabe out, and Monteiro had confirmed Gabe was a good guy. Maybe that’s when they’d talked about her. She wondered what else they’d discussed.
“He’d already figured that out, though,” Gabe went on. “He’s a cop, Ellie. Plus, even though your Nora look is convincing, it’s hard to fool someone who’s seen both her and Ellie. As you always say.”
“No big deal.” Monteiro leaned against the kitchen counter. “I’m all about undercover. I get it. You just undercovered yourself into a corner, and I let you stay there. Question is—was Lacey Vanderwald targeting you as investigative reporter Ellie Berensen, the pit bull who was trying to ruin her family’s company? Or as the duplicitous insider Nora Quinn? Or for some other reason?”
“Like I told her,” Gabe said to Monteiro. Blinker twisted out of his arms, scampered away. “What happens to one of them happens to the other.”
“Yeah, well. Maryland cops think Lacey Vanderwald killed her own husband, so neither of you is safe. That’s why we need to find her.”
Ellie studied the pale blue and white swirls on her kitchen tabletop, like waves, she thought, and traced them with a finger, wondering about the world and how she got to be where she was, and why people did what they did. She remembered the pictures she’d seen of Trevor Vanderwald’s memorial service, the image of that one oversize photo of the lost young heir to fortune and family, his golden sunlit face looking ahead into a life full of promise, and a future that ceased to exist. Ellie’s imagination conjured impenetrable waters and bone-numbing cold, and a mind’s frantic searching, grasping hope, and then some final understanding of ultimate and unrelenting darkness. Were his final seconds a surprise? A terror? A relief? She felt a hand on her shoulder, Gabe’s, and she turned to him, tears in her eyes.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I’ll stay with you. Here, or at my place or wherever. If you think that’s safe, Lieutenant.”
“I’ll assign a trooper if you like, Ellie.” Monteiro’s face had softened.
Ellie felt as if she herself were drowning, drowning in dread and worry and uncertainty. But there was more to find out. And fear would only drag her down.
“Lieutenant?” Ellie began. “You never said why you—I mean, the Maryland police—decided she was a suspect in Trevor Vanderwald’s murder. You started to say they’d pulled the paperwork for the formal declaration.”
Monteiro nodded, checked the screen of his cell phone. “The reason. Well.” He sighed, as if gathering his thoughts. “Trevor Vanderwald wasn’t the only person on his sailboat that day. There was a sister.”
CHAPTER 61
ELLIE
“So strange to see you as Nora again, and in that getup.” Gabe extended his hand to help her out of the back seat of the cab. A pair of massive spotlights crisscrossed in front of the New Science Auditorium, a broad red carpet spread across the sidewalk and up the steps to the front door of the white-columned building. A soft snow, glittering through the lights and sprinkling on the fur-coated and coiffed attendees, brought umbrella-carrying aides scurrying to usher the arrivals inside. “But you look incredible, if I may be so bold.”
“Ellie had nothing to wear to the Vanderwald gala,” she said. “Luckily Nora had her black velvet. And an appropriate evening bag.”
She tucked her arm through the crook of Gabe’s elbow as they headed for whatever would unfold tonight. He’d bought a tux for the wedding of a college pal a few years ago, he’d explained, but then decided not to go. His pricey ticket for tonight came courtesy of the law firm working the Pharminex investigation, Gabe had told her. Billable expenses, he’d said.
Especially after the files Monteiro had shown them yesterday.
The lieutenant had leaned against the counter in Ellie’s kitchen, then tapped on his cell. Once, twice, then again. “On the sailboat with him,” Monteiro had continued. “His sister.”
Ellie had pivoted her chair to face him. “What about the sister?”
Gabe stood behind her. Blinker padded to the kitchen entrance, tail in the air, then hopped onto Ellie’s lap.
Monteiro cleared his throat. “I’m not supposed to show you this,” he said. “And you need to promise me this will not go any farther than this room.”
“Sure,” Gabe said.
Ellie had taken a beat to agree, apprehensive of what was to come, and suspicious of the drama and secrecy. But she needed to know. “Sure,” she said.
Monteiro raised his phone. “Remember I told you about the formal declaration of death,” he said. “The paperwork.”
Ellie nodded.
“The sister—Brooke Vanderwald—was on that boat. The Caduceus, it was called. The boat sank, was never salvaged. They only found a spinnaker pole and a life jacket. Trevor Vanderwald’s body was never recovered. A terrible accident, the public was told. Vanderwald had apparently slipped trying to set up the spinnaker—from all accounts a risky move under the best of circumstances, and especially so because he’d been drinking. He went overboard. That was it.”
Ellie narrowed her eyes, thinking. “How’d they know that? About the spinnaker?”
“The sister,” Monteiro said. “Brooke. She was in bad shape. That was pretty much all she could remember, Maryland police told me. The spinnaker, and lunch, and beer. Is there a beer called Natty Boh?”
“Yeah,” Gabe said.
“So—the paperwork, you were saying.”
Monteiro handed Ellie his cell phone. “This is the tox screen for Brooke Vanderwald. Standard procedure, part of Maryland Medical Center’s customary blood tests done after an accident. Look at line … think it’s number eight.”
She used her thumb and forefinger to make the picture bigger. “‘Zolpidem tartrate,’” Ellie read out loud from what appeared to be a black-and-white photo of a medical report. She looked at Monteiro, then at Gabe, then at the phone screen again. “Ambien. Ambien? In Brooke?”
“Yeah. Guess you learned Ambien’s chemical name at your undercover job.” Monteiro reached out, took his phone. “But back then, Brooke’s mother apparently went nuts over this result. Maryland police told me she kept saying her daughter never took drugs. Of any kind, not even over the counter. The mother was…” He shook his head. “Upset. It wasn’t clear, Maryland says. But according to her mother, this Brooke had something against medicine. Never took anything, her mother insisted. Made a big deal about it. Funny, since she’d be an heir to the Pharminex fortune, but whatever. The fact that she had this in her system was—”
“Suspicious,” Gabe said.
“Suspicious. And Brooke managed to tell Maryland—the investigators at the time—that they’d both had tuna sandwiches. Sandwiches Lacey Vanderwald had made. Lacey insisted she hadn’t. Problem was, apparently Brooke was in and out of lucidity. The next day, she couldn’t remember anything about it. Head injuries, the doctors said. Lack of oxygen. Unpredictable. Lucky she lived, apparently.”
“They think Lacey Vanderwald tried to drug her husband? And Brooke? Kill them? Both?” Ellie tried to picture this, how that would work. And why.
“They do. And the mother, Brinn, was all about arresting Lacey right then, charging her with murder. But—”
“How would they prove it?” Gabe interrupted. “There was no evidence. No evidence of anything. Except Ambien in Brooke’s blood, which could have come from anywhere. Plus…”
Ellie turned to him, watched him think. Blinker jumped to the floor.
“Plus,” Gabe said again, “Trevor wasn’t dead. He wasn’t dead. He was only missing. So, technically, there was no murder.”
Monteiro nodded. “Exactly. Tough case, when there’s no body. Lacey Vanderwald—the grieving widow—would probably walk.”
“And the family would be humiliated,” Ellie said. “Scandal and drugs and murder.”
>
“So they let it go,” Monteiro said. “They had to. And they let Lacey fade from their lives. But now, seven years later—”
“Oh.” Ellie felt her eyes widen. “He’ll be officially dead.”
“And there’s no statute of limitations on murder,” Gabe said.
“Does she know?” Ellie asked. “Does Lacey know she’s wanted?”
“Good question,” Monteiro had replied. “But whatever it takes—the family is demanding justice.”
Justice, Ellie thought now, as she and Gabe passed through the stand of spindly metal detectors outside the ballroom. A white banner, edged in orange, fluttered from the ceiling, proclaiming THE TREVOR VANDERWALD MEMORIAL FUND. Through three sets of open double doors, Ellie saw a vast room sparkling with strands of pin-dot white lights, festooned like loops of glistening pearls across the ceiling.
Black-jacketed assistants spirited away their winter coats, and as she and Gabe entered the ballroom, they were surrounded by sequins and brocade, by the pop of champagne bottles and the classical undercurrent of Mozart, melodic strings a politely festive soundtrack—to a celebration, but also to a remembrance of a son who had died too soon. Ellie calculated the money in the room. Every guest meant thousands of dollars for the Trevor Vanderwald fund. But how much of that came from the cynical targeting of vulnerable women?
“I hate how much money this is,” Ellie whispered. “Pharminex, foisting their medications on women who will never be happy again, and now … they’re reveling in it. Glorifying it.” She sighed, battling emotional overload.
“It’s to honor their son, though, Ellie,” Gabe reminded her. “This must be difficult for them. D’you think Brooke will be here? That’s what fascinates me, too. Even though she’s not front and center in the family, she apparently loved her brother, and this is all for him.”
“Difficult? For Pharminex?” Ellie frowned. The music changed to Cole Porter, seductive and mellow, and the hum of conversation grew louder. “Reap what you sow. Wait till your lawsuit’s filed. Wait till my story gets on TV. Then these people will understand what ‘difficult’ means. I’m so disappointed it couldn’t air before tonight—but Warren said it wasn’t ready. And I’d rather be ready than wrong. Plus, now they’ll have further to fall.”
A smiling server in a black turtleneck offered champagne flutes, delicate stems balanced on a lace-covered silver platter.
“No, thanks,” Ellie said. Disgusting, she thought. Somewhere in this building, Brinn and Winton Vanderwald were probably holding court. She imagined a private suite where the senior Vanderwalds, stoic but magnanimous, were receiving sympathy and congratulations. For what? Ellie wondered. For having a murdered son and a wayward daughter? She scanned the room again, looking for Lacey, looking for Meg. Would she appear in Meg’s ponytail? Or maybe as the Lacey in the internet photos, elegant and glamorous. Neither would recognize Nora Quinn.
“Duck paté?” A server proffered a glossy black tray. “Ahi tuna?”
Ellie shook her head, her stomach churning, and the server glided back into the crowd.
Across the room, a single microphone on a three-legged metal stand had been placed on the center of a raised stage, ocean-blue velvet curtains hiding the area behind it.
“Look. Over there.” Gabe cocked his head toward the front of the room. “Detta.”
Detta Fiddler, in long-sleeved black and holding a champagne flute, stood among a covey of attendees. Allessandra Lewes, in taupe sequins, hovered by her side. Would Christine O’Shea be here, and Jen Wahl and Gerri Munroe, smiling and congenial? Their lives had changed because of Pharminex. Lydia Frost, their colleague, would never taste champagne again.
But it was Meg who Ellie needed to find. Meg—Lacey—would not recognize her. Meg had never met Nora. Would Meg be here? Maybe to stake her claim on the family? To prove she was part of it?
“If she doesn’t know she’s wanted for murder,” Ellie had told Monteiro yesterday, “she might just show up.”
“We’re relying on that,” Monteiro had replied. “We’ll have people there. They’ll find you, if need be.”
“You see any cops?” Ellie noticed Gabe was now checking the room too. He’d accepted the champagne, but his glass was still full.
“Not that I can—”
With a flourish, the music stopped. The unexpected silence softened the conversation; talk lowered to whispers. Ellie saw Detta Fiddler climb three stairs to the left of the stage and disappear behind the soft folds of the deep blue curtain.
“Let’s get closer.” Ellie took Gabe’s arm and inched them toward the front. “Detta just went backstage. And I saw the curtains move, like more people are back there too. I think it’s about to start. Excuse me.” She drew him around a clump of sleek-coiffed gowned women and uncomfortable-looking men in dinner jackets. A brief squeal of feedback had some of the women clamping their hands over diamond-ornamented ears. “Sorry,” Ellie said, and she kept moving toward the stage. “Coming through.”
They found a spot by the steps. She saw Allessandra Lewes glance her way, but her gaze swept past Ellie—Nora—without acknowledgment. Nora had been invited, of course, so she was not a surprise.
Ellie stood on her toes, trying to look over the crowd for Meg, but all she saw were the guests closest to her. She took a step up onto the first of the stage stairs to get a better view. And then the second step. The draped white lights were supposed to transform the room into festive elegance, but all they did now was block Ellie’s view.
“What’re you doing up there?” Gabe asked.
“I need to see.” She squinted, shaded her eyes. “I’m looking for Lacey.”
“Right,” Gabe said. “Just hope she’s not looking for you.”
CHAPTER 62
ELLIE
“Go!”
Ellie heard the voice from backstage give the signal, and then felt the rumble of the wooden step beneath her as some mechanism, inch by inch, drew open the heavy blue stage curtains. The pearls of light across the ballroom dimmed, leaving only a soft glow, as if even they were waiting for what was to come. The audience, quieted, had all eyes focused forward, but as the curtains swished into place on either side, like the motion of deep blue waves, center stage remained dark.
Ellie took a deep breath in that moment of hushed silence, wondering what was to come, and how she’d gotten here, dressed to celebrate but with a darkened heart. Somehow this night seemed a grotesque celebration of death—the death of family, and families, and of futures longed for and then destroyed. She thought of her notes about the Pharminex story, about these people and their duplicity, printed out in careful files on her desk. Warren had dubbed them almost ready to reveal but tantalizingly, frustratingly, not solid enough to make public. As a journalist, she had a responsibility. But as a person, as a woman, her heart was breaking. Again.
A change in the energy brought her back to the present. The lights on the stage came up, gradually from darkness to promise to illumination, and as they brightened to full, the string quartet began again. In one note, then two, Ellie recognized “The Sailor’s Hymn”: Eternal Father, strong to save, whose arm doth bind the restless wave … And there on the stage, alone and bathed in a wash of white spotlights, that oversize photo of Trevor Vanderwald, forever young, eyes forever on the water, that Pharminex spinnaker behind him, smiling into the sun-filled future that would never arrive.
Ellie clutched the stair rail. The music, sweet and simple, continued. “Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee, for those in peril on the sea!” Ellie realized she had mouthed the words as the mournful hymn ended.
Footsteps above her. Detta Fiddler swept to the microphone, and the room dimmed again, with a single spotlight giving her a halo. All heads were upturned to watch her, Ellie saw, from Nora’s colleagues in the front row to the august guests who’d paid so much to be included.
“Ladies and gentlemen.” Detta’s familiar voice, tinged with formal solemnity, was the only sound in the silent roo
m. “We are honored you are here on this important and vital occasion. We know you feel the loss of Trevor Vanderwald as much today as we all did seven years ago, but tonight we are here not only to remember and honor him, but to look ahead. And without further ado, I give you…”
Ellie’s heart stopped, and she felt Gabe move closer to her. He put one hand over hers, just a brief touch, and she searched his face in the steely light.
“Brinn and Winton Vanderwald.”
Detta moved out of sight, and the applause from the audience exploded into a jangle of bracelets and murmurs of approval as the couple, hand in hand, arrived at the microphone stand. Winton Vanderwald, sixty-three, Ellie had calculated, proud-shouldered and elegant in black tie and gray temples. And Brinn Vanderwald, hair swept back in a chignon like Ellie’s own and a slash of red lipstick. Demure in a long-sleeved ivory gown, opulent with a single square-cut diamond hanging from a gold chain around her neck.
As the applause quieted, the couple turned toward the portrait of their son. Ellie saw Winton steady his wife with a flat palm against the small of her back, saw Brinn move closer to him. They had been affected by the loss, Ellie had to acknowledge. And if it really had been murder, she wondered, what must they be thinking now? Would they even mention their daughter? She was as missing from their lives as Trevor was, it seemed. And for all they knew, she might be dead too.
Ellie glanced at Gabe, but his eyes were on the stage.
Winton turned back to the microphone, his wife by his side. He shaded his eyes with one hand. “I can’t see you out there.” He leaned forward, scanned the crowd, affable and cordial. “Can we kill that spotlight on us? Or swivel it the other way? Because the spotlight should be on you, on all of you, for what you’ve done, for how much you’ve helped us memorialize”—his voice seemed to catch—“our son, Trevor.”
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