It was too early for the staff to have arrived, so I used my own key to get into the club and disarmed security while Celia headed up to the manager's office. When I got in there, she was walking around the room with a puzzled look on her face.
"There used to be a bookcase in here. I stuck it in with all the other books." She looked at me quizzically. "This is all different since I was last here."
"It was fully remodeled when Alayna was on maternity leave." The same time the letters started arriving...
Another piece of the picture was attempting to come into focus. "You left the journal for Alayna to find, but how did you expect her to know that it was me and you it was talking about? All the references to me just say him." Celia had thought it best to disguise our identities that way, not use any personal references to ourselves. Just in case.
"I put a picture of us from the masquerade ball it described inside." She shrugged, as if to say she knew she was guilty, what else could she do now but own up to it?
"Then anyone, really, who had their hands on the journal would have realized who the stories involved." I pulled out my phone and started dialing Gwen's number as I talked. "The person who has Alayna wasn't a victim from our past—he read our past."
Gwen answered, and I nearly tripped over my words in my haste to get them out. "I'm sorry it's early, I have a question that could be important. When you remodeled, where did all the books go that were on the shelves behind the desk?"
She already knew Alayna was still missing, since I'd called her again when I couldn't find her in the event space so she didn’t delay things by asking why I wanted to know.
"Um, the books were, well… Some of them we threw away. Some I think we probably donated." She paused for a minute thinking. "A lot of it was David’s stuff. Alayna had me call him to collect, and he came and picked up the box right before we did the remodel."
My heart started racing. "That's exactly what I needed to know. Thank you."
Before I hung up, she said, "Oh, and I don't know if this is important, but David was at the club yesterday. He came in for the job fair."
I looked at Celia, as if she could hear the whole conversation and was having the same aha moment that I was. "And he was still here when you left?"
"No. He left a couple of hours before I did. He stopped and said hi. Alayna invited him up to the office, and we all talked for a while, old-times chat and all that."
"Did you actually see him leave?" I asked her.
I knew her answer before she gave it, and when she did, I thanked her again and hung up. Immediately, I called Jordan. "It's David Lindt.”
Jordan called his team in to the security offices, located in the basement of the Pierce Industries building. I told him I’d meet him there, promising not to get into any accidents on the way.
I didn’t agree not to speed.
Knowing I was antsy to get to my destination, Celia offered to take a cab to her hotel. We parted on the sidewalk outside The Sky Launch, my mind so preoccupied, I didn’t even say goodbye.
“Good luck,” she called after me, when I was already halfway to where I’d parked my car.
I started to wave in acknowledgment, then realized I couldn’t leave on that note. I jogged back to her so that I wasn’t shouting, so that she’d know I wasn’t just throwing out niceties. “Thank you,” I told her earnestly.
I resisted the urge to qualify my gratitude—she hadn’t been willing to help in the beginning, and it hadn’t been lost on me that Alayna might be safe and in my arms right now if it hadn’t been for Celia and that damn book she’d planted years ago. None of that was productive. And in the end, if we were to play that game, I couldn’t forget that there would never have been a devious and scheming Celia if there hadn’t first been a Hudson.
I’d carefully groomed her to become exactly who she turned out to be.
I’d hatched the dragon egg.
She smiled, a genuine smile, rarely seen on this woman who I’d known so long. “I’m glad I could help,” she said.
I nodded, ready to leave.
But she stopped me, grabbing my hand. “Hudson, I mean that. Whatever else happens, know that I mean that.”
I studied her for a moment, trying to read her motivation. It dawned on me for the first time that I might trigger the same regret and shame in her that she did for me. I was as much a reminder of her past as she was of mine. Perhaps it was becoming as compulsory to her to make amends with her victims—with me—as it had been for me recently.
“All right.” I said in response, and that was all. Because there was nothing else that needed to be said, and I had somewhere else to be.
When I arrived at the security office, I walked into a room full of buzzing activity.
“He gave up his apartment in Atlantic City,” Jordan said, briefing me on the findings so far. “His forwarding address on file there led us to an extended stay here in the city. The front desk said he checked out over the phone last night. He still had items in the room that he asked to be kept and he’d return to pick them up at a later date. No forwarding information. I’ve sent a man to collect those items, and he should be back here shortly.
“Gwen Bruzzo’s account of seeing him at The Sky Launch has been corroborated with the video footage. We were able to spot him arriving at fourteen twenty-seven hours. He can be seen on footage for the next couple hours in the club, but he disappears around seventeen hundred hours after purchasing tequila shots at the bar. He paid cash. This is the same time Alayna left the floor, presumably to look at the space next door. We believe he followed her into the stairwell, unbeknownst to her.
“We’re unable to see that because the camera angled to record that area was taken offline in the previous hour. I believe he must have used the time between leaving the manager’s office and following Alayna upstairs to disable that camera. It’s not an easy task, but considering he’s worked at two Pierce clubs, he would be familiar with the software we use.”
“We should have had a completely new security system put in when he left,” I blared.
“And again when any manager leaves the club?” Jordan asked pointedly. “Not realistic and not something you need to get hung up on now. Concentrate on the task at hand, not the past. We can Monday morning quarterback later on.”
It wasn’t every day I let my staff talk to me like that.
But this wasn’t every day.
“Though he wasn’t seen again inside the club,” Jordan went on, “there is footage of his car driving past the club a little before eighteen hundred hours.”
He led me to a computer screen where an image was pulled up of David behind the wheel of a car. The camera also caught a woman in the passenger seat, reclined so her face wasn’t clear, but I knew it was Alayna. I’d recognize her anywhere.
“She looks...unconscious,” I said, my heart racing at the sight of my wife. I was simultaneously relieved to see her, to know we were on the right track, and devastated to realize we could be too late. But if he’d been stalking her, surely he wouldn’t have… gone too far.
“He’s likely drugged her,” Jordan said, confirming my thought process. “The testing we did on those shot glasses have traces of Rohypnol in one of them.”
A fucking date rape drug. That meant she couldn’t even fight. Alive, but at his mercy.
Jordan quickly moved on, not allowing me to dwell on the worst possibilities, but I silently vowed to murder that bastard Lindt when I had my hands on him. And I would have my hands on him.
“I have a friend at the FBI,” Jordan said, and I could tell he was wrapping up his briefing. “I’ve called and asked him to put an APB out on Lindt. My friend’s giving us five hours before he adds the case into the system as a courtesy.”
He hadn’t asked if I wanted him to use his contact, but I didn’t reprimand him. It was time. Jordan had made the right move. That was why he worked for me—because I knew I could trust him to keep his head about him when I couldn’t.
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“What about credit cards? Are you tracing those?” I asked, wishing I could be helpful.
“I have something on that right now,” a woman on the team called out, flagging us over to her nearby computer terminal. “I’ve hacked into Lindt’s bank account and found an unusual transaction within the last month. Here, an amount of forty-eight thousand dollars was transferred out of his savings account.”
“Where the hell did Lindt get forty-eight thousand dollars?” I asked.
“That part’s easy, he rarely spends money on non-essentials. My bank statements are filled with charges to different retailers, but his are nearly all simple bills,” the woman answered. “The interesting thing isn’t that he had the money, it’s that it’s all of a sudden leaving his account in a lump sum.”
“Any idea where the money was transferred to?” Jordan asked.
“It looks like it was deposited directly into another account. Right here,” she said, pointing to the line on the screen.
“I’ll go over to interview her personally,” Jordan said. “This transaction may give us a lead on where to look next.”
“I’ll go with you,” I said as I stared at the familiar name in front of me, hardly believing the coincidence. “I’m going to want to hear from her own mouth how Judith Cleary is involved in all of this.”
We arrived at Judith Cleary's apartment building at exactly seven forty-seven AM. My body was flooded with so much adrenaline, it hardly registered that I hadn’t slept in twenty-four hours. Jordan distracted the doorman, while I slipped quietly by and took the elevator up to her unit. I pounded on the door relentlessly until she opened up.
"Hudson Pierce. I expected to see you at some point, but I must admit I didn't think it was going to be on my doorstep. If you'd like to discuss your daughter’s entrance to my school, you can make an appointment through the office. Though admissions have been finalized for next school year, so—"
I cut her off, unsure why I’d let her go on so long. "I'm not here about Mina. I don't care about your little school." As if it were her school alone, and she weren’t just a board member. "I'm here to discuss something far more urgent." I nodded at her door. “Well?”
She tapped her foot smugly while she considered, and it took everything I had in me not to push her against the wall and demand answers.
Finally, after what felt like forever, she stepped aside and allowed me into her apartment. "Very well. Because I'm dying to know what's so urgent that you would need to speak to me face to face. At my home. But make it quick—I have to be at a showing in an hour and it’s across town."
Oh yes, I'd forgotten she was a real estate agent. The classic rich housewive’s occupation. I pulled a copy of the bank records that Jordan had given me out of my pocket and showed them to her.
"I need to know about this transaction from a David Lindt in the amount of forty-eight thousand dollars that ended up in your account. Can you tell me why that transaction was made? What he was paying you for?"
"Oh, that's your angle. You're trying to find something to blackmail me on, bribe me?" She rocked back on the heel of one of her shoes. "Well, I can assure you that entire transaction was above board. Trying to use that information to get your daughter into the New Park School is not going to—"
"I told you, I am not interested in your fucking school." I lost my patience. "As soon as I learned you had anything to do with that foundation, I wanted to run a thousand miles away. I'm not putting my child into a place run by a board of bitches who use their elected positions to settle petty grievances. Now tell me why the fuck you accepted the payment from David Lindt!"
She stood up straighter, held her chin up high. "How dare you speak to me in that way!" she exclaimed haughtily. "You can leave now, Mr. Pierce. This conversation is concluded."
"I am not leaving until—"
"I will call security!" She already had her hand on the phone next to the door, and I didn't doubt that she would follow through.
I took a deep breath and let the oxygen clear my head. I knew how to handle a woman like Judith Cleary. The old Hudson knew exactly what to do, how to manipulate her, what tactics to use. She’d immediately assumed I was trying to blackmail her, which meant there was something that she could be blackmailed about. I could discover it. Could play that card once I knew what it was, and with Jordan’s team on the case, I imagined it could happen before security made it up to her floor.
I knew how to do that, and I'd promised myself that I could be that old Hudson again if I needed to be. To protect my family.
But I’d done that already, set fresh plans in motion to discover who was behind this, and Alayna was still gone.
I could practically hear her voice in the back of my head telling me it wasn't the direction she would choose for me. She would rather I be honest and transparent whenever possible. She would prefer I put scheming aside, leave it for a last resort. She would prefer I become vulnerable, as hard as that might be.
"I apologize," I said, forcing the words passed my lips. "I spoke rudely and inappropriately. I'm desperate, you see. My wife is missing."
Judith's hand fell from the phone and she moved it to her chest as she gasped. "Oh my God, Hudson, I am so sorry. But I don't understand what this has to do with me."
"We believe she's been taken by David Lindt. He’s a former employee who has been infatuated with her in the past. He was the last one to see her, but now we can’t find him."
I took a step toward her and hung my head immediately. "You have to know that you are the last person that I would ask a favor of. But right now this transaction from his account to yours is the only lead we have."
"I see. In that case, and I'm still not sure why you're here instead of a police officer, but okay. She’s a very rude woman herself, but her blood’s not going to be on my hands."
This is where I hated the vulnerable, honest approach—because transparency made it apparent how terrible other people were. But I refrained from saying anything.
"David Lindt came to me as a client. He was looking for a real estate purchase, something out of town. He was under the delusion that he could afford something much grander. Of course I couldn't find anything in his price range, but I felt sorry for him and I ended up selling him a piece of land that I've been holding on to for a while. There's nothing much on it, silly little hunting cabin up in the woods."
She considered for a moment. "He kept talking about how he wanted to make it special for his wife who was coming home soon… Are you sure he is the man you're looking for? He was quite sincere about the two of them having a quiet place to really focus on each other."
It felt like my chest was collapsing inward, each breath was difficult, sharp with icy pain. "David Lindt has never been married," I said gruffly. "I believe the woman he was preparing the cabin for was Alayna."
Judith’s expression turned to one of shock. "Let me write down the address for you, I’ll not be having a poor Yelp review for abetting a criminal," she said, as she left the room and returned a minute later with an address written legibly on stationary.
Just as I was thinking I'd been wrong about the woman, that she really wasn't as much of a bitch as I thought, she pulled the paper toward her chest and said, "Now, I do expect a good word at the country club for this."
Then she handed me the paper.
Her mistake was giving it to me before I'd agreed.
As soon as the thing was safely in my hands, I tucked it into my suit jacket and gave her my honest response. Alayna would appreciate that, too, I was certain. "Like fucking hell, Judith. You were a nasty piece of work when you kicked Mirabelle out of the girls club all those years ago, and it’s clear you’re still a conniving, selfish, mean girl. While I don't care who is a member of the club you’re still so keen to be part of, my mother cares deeply. She's a member there herself, as you might have known had you not been so hasty to punish my sister, and there is no room for two narcissistic witches of that caliber in one
place. Thank you for the information. Have a nice day."
I left before she could call security, which she was no doubt doing, and called Jordan from the elevator, even though I would see him as soon as I arrived in the lobby. "I got the location. I know where he's taken her. We're going to need the helicopter fueled."
"I’ll get on it. Mind telling me where we’re going?"
"Lake Placid."
It was a ninety minute flight to Lake Placid, but it felt like ninety years. The address, it turned out, wasn’t in the village, but in the woods of the Adirondack Mountains nearby.
Of course. The quiet place he’d asked for.
We filled all eight seats of the helicopter with the pilot, Jordan, myself, and five men from the security team.
On the ride up, Jordan assigned me tasks to keep me busy and feeling useful. I knew what he was doing, and I was grateful.
First, he had me locate a field where we could land the copter. The nearest spot was seven miles from the log cabin, so the next assignment was arranging for a van to be delivered from Lake Placid to the field to meet us. When that was done, Jordan had me find a hospital in Manhattan that would allow us to arrive by helicopter.
“I’m not assuming that she will be injured or harmed,” he said, in an attempt to reassure me. “But since she’s been drugged, you’re going to want to have her checked out anyway. It’s good to be prepared.”
Finally, after everything else had been completed, he said, “Now call your house. Check on your kids. Talk to Mina. Alayna will want to know how they’re doing. And I think it would do you some good to hear your child’s voice.”
He was right. Listening to Mina’s sweet, floating voice brought a begrudging smile to my face. It was impossible to resist being lit up by her sunshine. She might have been a product of both of us, but she was her mother’s daughter in all the best ways.
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