He gave her a hard stare.
Silence hung in the air between them.
“I know you must have a lot of questions for me,” she said.
“I do.”
“Now that you are here, why don’t you ask them?”
“Why the charade with the sunglasses and walking stick? You are not blind.”
“No, I am not.” She sighed. “I’m sorry for the way I used you, but I had no choice.”
“We all have a choice.”
She paused. “Yes, we do, but I didn’t.”
He waited for her to explain.
“You’re right when you said I came to Milton not to search for my sister but for Bruno Rocco.” Her voice turned hard. “Rocco killed my sister and all he got was twelve years, of which he only served six before he was a free man. He cut a deal with the government so that he would get leniency. But what about us? What about the family that had lost a sister and a daughter? My father died a broken man. After Katie’s death, he was never the same. He had always believed the system protected the weak and provided justice to all. Those who were guilty were given a punishment that fit their crimes. But that’s not what happened with Katie. She had a full life ahead of her. The six years Rocco got would never be enough to compensate for that loss. The system is corrupt and controlled by those in power. The FBI wanted a big catch, and Paolo Beniti was the biggest in New Jersey. A lot of people at the FBI received awards and promotions, including Special Agent Ed Schaefer.”
She paused to control her emotions. “I had met Schaefer a couple of times. On each occasion, I grilled him as to why the government would go so easy on a convicted killer. People had been given far longer sentences for selling pot, and this was premeditated murder. Rocco had gone to the restaurant with the intention of shooting and killing another person. My sister had gone to the restaurant to earn money to pay for her tuition. She was going to college, and she planned to get into medical school one day.”
Elle paused and looked away. The memory of her sister was too strong.
Callaway did not push her. He knew she would tell him when she was ready.
She gritted her teeth. “I could not allow Rocco to roam free when my sister was robbed of her life. I had to find him and make him pay for what he did to her… for what he did to us. I spent every waking hour obsessing about him. I searched for any information on him. It was difficult. The FBI and the U.S. Marshals are extra protective of individuals placed in the Witness Protection Program. I knew Rocco had been given a new ID, but I did not know what it was. I changed my appearance and began making moves on a young FBI agent. He was straight out of Quantico, so he was eager to prove himself. I got intimately involved with him. I’m not ashamed to say I used him. But he gave me valuable information on Rocco. I did not know the ID Rocco was living under, but I was able to find out he was living in Milton.” She took a breath and continued. “This led to some challenges. I knew if I came to Milton asking direct questions about Rocco, it would catch the attention of the people protecting him. It would also spook Rocco. He could go deeper into hiding, and I might never get this close to him again. People knew the real Katherine Woodward had a sister and that she was not blind. Elle Pearson became the ideal alter ego to accomplish this task.”
“Then how does Linda Eustace play in all of this?” Callaway asked.
ONE HUNDRED-SEVEN
“I first needed a reason for my arrival in Milton,” Elle said. “While I was researching a cover story, I found out a woman by the name of Linda Eustace had been reported missing only three months before.”
“Linda’s best friend, Jennifer Paulsingh, had filed the report with the police,” Callaway said.
“Yes. It’s not that difficult to get information from a missing persons report. It tells you quite a bit about the person. The moment I had a name, I was able to construct my story.”
Callaway put his hand up to stop her. “I still don’t understand why you chose to be blind.”
“There were two reasons for that: One, I had to create a persona that would allow me to get close to Rocco without arousing a lot of suspicions.”
“And the second reason?”
She lowered her head. “That was for you. I knew you would not ask too many questions if you knew I had a handicap.”
Callaway looked away. He was seething. She was right, he thought. I didn’t question her even when my senses told me something was not right, and only because I thought she was blind.
“Again, I am sorry for the way I used you.”
“As sorry as you were when you used the young FBI agent to find Rocco?” he shot back.
She opened her mouth but shut it. She smiled. “My relationship with him was intimate, so I guess we used each other. But you only cared about finding my sister.”
“That’s what I was hired to do.”
“Yes, but the five thousand dollars was not nearly enough for the amount of work you did. You would have kept going even when the money ran out. Your strong sense of justice is what made me choose you in the first place. I wasn’t lying to you when I said I had heard about the Paul Gardener case.”
“It seems like a lot of people have.” He paused and then said, “I checked with Mayview PD, and you had never filed a missing persons report for a Katie Pearson.”
She nodded. “The one I gave you when we first met was false. You wouldn’t believe what you can do with a little knowledge of graphic design.”
“Is that what you do? I mean as a profession?”
“I have a degree in art and philosophy. Not very helpful if you want a high-paying job. But I counsel families who were hit with violence, in how to get through their loss.”
Callaway gave her a hard look. “And do you advise them to put on a disguise and get revenge on those who hurt them?”
“Ouch,” she said, but then smiled. “No I don’t, but by speaking to them, I realized the pain never goes away. It festers until it becomes all-consuming. If Rocco was still in prison, I would have never taken any actions. But knowing that he was walking the streets, living his life without a care for the pain he had caused my family, ate away at me to the point I had no choice but to do something about it.”
Callaway then said, “And that’s why it was not Cosimo Castigiano who killed Rocco, it was actually you.”
ONE HUNDRED-EIGHT
“Yes, I killed him, and you know what?” she said boldly. “Seeing the look in his eyes when I told him who I was and why I was there was worth all the trouble in the world.”
Her tone carried the same conviction he had heard before. Joely was right when she had said Elle may have looked weak, but there was a quiet intensity to her.
Callaway said, “There are still some things I don’t understand. And I’m curious to find out the answers.”
“You already know what I did, so you can ask me whatever you want.”
“When we went to the house where Katie was supposed to have lived, how did you know the basement apartment had yellow wallpaper?”
“When I was constructing my story, I searched online and found properties that were available for rent. I went—not disguised as Elle—but as me, and I got a tour of the basement apartment. I knew people would deny knowing Katie Pearson—after all, she was not real, so I had to make sure the details were accurate so that you could believe she existed.”
“And what about the people at the fast food restaurant? You knew quite a bit about them.”
“I became friends with one of the employees via a social networking site. You wouldn’t believe how much people gripe about their work, co-workers, and their bosses. I was able to dig out information on almost everyone at the restaurant. When they failed to remember a Katie Pearson, I was able to use the information to prove I wasn’t lying.”
He pondered her answer. “Okay, but what about the apartment you were living at? Whose is it?”
“The apartment belongs to a professional. He travels most of the year, so he rents it out
on a bed-and-breakfast site. The unit came with all the furnishings, so I didn’t have to do much to set it up except move the television and some personal items into the storage locker. A blind person has no use for a television, you know.” She lowered her voice. “At the apartment, when you had tea with me, you told me a lot about yourself and your family. I can say that was one of the times I wanted to tell you the truth. Here you were so forthcoming about your life, and I was deceptively feeding you half-truths.”
“Half-truths?” he asked.
“Not everything I told you was a lie. The story of my sister getting lost in the woods when we were young was not made up. And I do have a cousin who went blind at the age of fourteen from chicken pox. I used things from my life to create a character that was believable.”
Callaway paused and then said, “I still don’t understand how Linda Eustace played into all of this.”
“I knew a woman had gone missing, and because of her profession as an escort, the police were not making an effort to find her. I even went to the Milton PD and inquired about her case, and the response I got was, ‘She’s an adult and she can choose to go wherever she wants.’ I figured, in the course of getting close to Rocco, I might be able to help find out what happened to her.”
“Is that why you kept leading me to Rocco in our search for Linda? You were hoping I would start looking for him as a suspect in her disappearance?”
“Yes. When we were going through the box with Linda’s personal items, I snuck Rocco’s photo in there to make it look like I had found it.”
“And did you know the box belonged to Linda when we went to her landlord’s house?” Callaway asked.
She shook her head. “I had no idea Linda was a diving champion in high school. It caught me by surprise when you mentioned it. I just needed the opportunity to introduce Rocco in her story, so I took it. Unfortunately, each time I mentioned Rocco as a person of interest, you pushed him aside.”
“I could not find a link between someone with mob connections in New Jersey to the disappearance of an escort in Milton.”
They were silent again. There were a lot of facts for Callaway to digest, but there was still more he needed to know.
“What about the anxiety attacks you claimed you were suffering from? What purpose did they serve?” he asked.
“When I saw the video of the Isaiah Whitcomb shooting on the news, I knew my time was running out. Whitcomb was related to one of the detectives, which meant the police were not going to stop looking for Rocco. I feared they were going to find him before I did. I needed an excuse to get away from you and expedite my search…”
“…Because I wasn’t really looking for him.”
She nodded. “I had no idea Rocco had committed the additional murders. Had I known, I would not have involved you. I would have tailed the detectives instead.”
“But you did, and we found the person who killed Linda.”
She smiled. “I guess some good came out of me hiring you.”
He gave her no reply.
She said, “When that woman’s body was found in the lake…”
“Cassandra Stevens?”
She nodded. “When we went to the morgue to identify her, I had to shut my eyes after seeing what Rocco had done to her face. I almost threw up in my mouth, but I knew if I did, my mask would have come off. But some good did come from our visit there. When Detective Fisher showed you the photo on her cell phone from the hardware store, I knew I was close. I made some excuse to you, and I began trailing Detective Holt. To my surprise, at the Milton PD, I saw Detective Holt speaking to Agent Schaefer. If Schaefer was there, then Rocco was close by. I began following Schaefer instead, and he led me straight to him. It was at a falafel shop. I wore a burqa…”
“I saw it in the apartment.”
“No one pays attention to women in burqas. They are invisible to the general public,” she said. “I was able to get a table next to them. I overheard their entire conversation. When I was leaving, I saw a man who looked familiar.”
“Cosimo Castigiano?”
“Yes. His name had come up in my research. He worked for the Beniti Family. I knew he had come to kill Rocco like I had. I could not let that happen. At the falafel shop, he followed Rocco to his van before I cut him off in an alley. I allowed Rocco to walk away unscathed. But I knew I did not have much time. I made an anonymous call to the Milton PD. I told them Cosimo was in the city and that he was looking for Rocco. I knew where Rocco was meeting Schaefer. And when I caught up with him, I put a bullet between his eyes.”
Callaway almost shivered at how coldly she recounted the deed. She was a murderer, but he understood why she had done it. Rocco had brutally killed two innocent people in Milton. He had also killed two people in New Jersey, one of them being Elle’s sister. Elle would now spend the rest of her life as an only child to her mother. Her father had never gotten to see justice done for his youngest daughter.
Elle said, “You now know the whole truth, Lee. So where do we go from here?”
He stared at her for a long time.
He leaned closer to her and said, “Detective Holt believes Bruno Rocco killed Isaiah Whitcomb and Cassandra Stevens. He also believes Cosimo Castigiano killed Bruno Rocco. Carl Goodwin was charged with murdering Linda Eustace. I think justice has been served.”
Callaway stood up.
“Goodbye, Elle,” he said. “I hope now you can finally move on with your life.”
Elle stared at him. Her eyes moistened. She then choked up and mouthed, “Thank you.”
He walked out of the room, leaving Elle alone in the solarium.
He knew he would never see her again. He also knew her secret would go with him all the way to his grave.
THE FALLING GIRL
ONE
One year ago
Gail Roberts was frowning as she got out of the taxi.
Gail was short, stocky, and she had shoulder-length auburn hair. She had graduated with a degree in creative writing. She dreamed of being a novelist, but after a couple of years spent toiling away on an unfinished manuscript, she decided to give screenwriting a try.
With two finished screenplays to her name, she took a job as an assistant in a movie production company. She figured it would give her access to agents, producers, and studio heads. Maybe an A-list actor would fall in love with one of her scripts and want to star in the film.
The assistant job was supposed to have been a stepping stone to bigger and better things. It was anything but that, proving to be a thankless job with long hours and no benefits.
She thought about quitting, but she gave herself another year until she could save enough money. She would then sit down and plan what she would do next with her life.
Her parents were always supportive of her decisions, but even her father had reservations when she had told him she wanted a career in writing. “Do something practical,” he had warned her. “Do something that will give you a stable income.”
She held out hope that someone might stumble upon her scripts and offer to buy them. Maybe someone would even hire her to write a script for them. There were a lot of maybes, and they were what held her in her current position.
Her plans changed when she came upon something that shook her to the core. It went against everything she believed in. It was vile, depraved, and criminal. She knew she could not stay silent. Her parents had raised her to speak out for the weak and helpless.
She had stormed into the offices of those responsible and told them what she was going to do. They did not take kindly to her decision. They threatened her with lawsuits. She had signed non-disclosure agreements. She didn’t care. She was willing to face prison in order to do the right thing.
When they saw her resolve, they offered her money. But she refused. She was not going to change her mind.
She was scheduled to speak to a reporter the next day. The reporter did not know her name nor the details of what she was about to disclose, but her revelati
ons would be explosive.
Gail hoped her whistleblowing would start a dialogue and that others like her would come forward. She would be the face of this new movement. Even if she was not, it didn’t matter. She was not the victim. Others were. It was their voices she wanted heard.
Earlier in the day, she had gone out with her friends to ease her anxiety about what she was going to do. She had debated giving them a heads up, but she never saw the right opportunity. Her work required her to travel often, so she hardly saw her friends. The moment they were together, she was swept up in the excitement of spending time with them. They laughed. They drank. They told stories of their youth. One of her married friends even broke the news that she was pregnant. Her announcement brought joy to an already boisterous gathering.
Then Gail received the call. She hesitated answering, but she did. The caller pleaded to see her. All he wanted was for her to hear him out.
She finally agreed. What she was about to do the next day was going to be devastating to the parties involved. She had to give them a chance to explain themselves. She doubted very much that their words would change her mind, but what was one more meeting?
Her friends were not happy she was leaving the party early, but she assured them she would fill them in on the details the next time they met up. She knew full well it would be sooner than that. The moment the news broke, her phone would be ringing off the hook. In fact, her friends would be banging on her door to get all the juicy gossip.
After paying the taxi driver, she walked up to the front lobby of her apartment building. Her place was located in a rough and dangerous neighborhood. It was not uncommon to see gang-related shootings, people selling drugs around the corner, or the police raiding the building.
She could not wait to move out, but the rent was cheap, so she was staying put. It might not be for long, though. She might have to take refuge in her parents’ house from all the attention she was about to put on herself. Luckily, her parents lived outside the city.
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