by Lisa Jackson
“Working,” Elizabeth called back.
“Not every minute. Let’s go to the gym.”
“Can Chloe come over?” Lissa yelled.
“Not tonight,” Elizabeth told her.
“We’ll talk,” Vivian said, and drove out of the lot, her blond poof of hair visible through the back window.
Chloe was standing on one foot and then the other, the only child left in the room. She ran to Elizabeth and hugged her tightly.
“Sorry,” Elizabeth said to the teacher as she gathered up Chloe’s things. “Traffic was a nightmare.”
“It’s getting awful, isn’t it?”
“Yessiree.”
Chloe held Elizabeth’s hand as they walked out, something she rarely did.
“You okay?” Elizabeth asked.
“Yeah . . .”
She slid Chloe a look and a cold feeling stole over her as she recalled Ravinia’s words from the morning.
Have you felt anything at all? Like maybe there’s just something in the wrong frequency?
“Chloe, have you been getting mental messages from someone? More than what you’ve told me?”
“What are mental messages?” Chloe was walking toward their car, but looked back at Elizabeth.
“Like in your head. You said the man loves me, but you can’t see him.”
She nodded soberly.
“Does he say other things?”
“He says lots of things. He’s kinda mad now.” And with that she ran for the car.
“Chloe!” Elizabeth hurried after her. “That’s the wrong car!” she called as she realized her daughter had run to another vehicle that looked a lot like hers, only it was two spots away, closer to the exits and faced out.
Chloe had her hand on the door handle. “What?” “That’s not our car,” Elizabeth said, pointing to her own Ford Escape.
At that moment, a woman slid around the side of the vehicle in question and moved toward Chloe.
Elizabeth looked at her blankly, then at the vehicle, a dark Ford Escape, and then to the gun in her hand that was leveled at Chloe’s temple. “Nadia?”
“This is odd,” Rex admitted to Ravinia. He’d spent most of the day tracking down Elizabeth’s friends, the women from the circle she called the Moms Group and their husbands, though one of the women wasn’t a mother. He’d also contacted the Sisterhood group who were singularly unhelpful.
He thought back to the conversations.
Because Elizabeth didn’t want her friends to know she’d hired a private detective he told them he was with the police. He just asked them general questions, letting them think he was checking up on Elizabeth’s story.
Jade Rivers told him flatly that she had nothing to say and neither did her husband, Byron. Looking at the list Elizabeth had supplied with all their names, their husband’s names, and their places of work, Rex called Byron at work, but he wasn’t much more forthcoming than his wife.
Deirdre Czursky admitted that Elizabeth and her husband were having problems, but she staunchly insisted that the police were pretty much all pigs and that she knew he was just trying to railroad her. She told him he should call up her husband Les. “In fact, I’ll give you the number right now!”
When Rex put through the call, Les greeted him coldly, having been warned by his wife. He, too, told Rex he was barking up the wrong tree.
Tara Hofstetter said she was going to call Elizabeth up immediately after she got off the phone and tell her that the police were asking about her. And then she’d added, “She saved that family, you know. All of them. They would be dead if it wasn’t for her, so you just leave her the hell alone!” Her husband Dave was actually taking a workday at home and said that Elizabeth should be considered a savior, and it was just like the police, and in the larger sense, the government, to get everything back-ass-ward.
Rex couldn’t get hold of Vivian Eachus. Her husband, Bill, asked more questions than he answered but sung Elizabeth’s praises as well.
“What’s odd?” Ravinia asked, interrupting Rex’s thoughts.
“Nadia Vandell hasn’t answered her cell phone all day, so I finally decided to call her husband, Karl. He’s an investment banker, and though Elizabeth didn’t have a number for him, she knew where he worked. I just called his office, hoping he hadn’t gone home yet.”
“He wasn’t there?”
“He wasn’t there, but his boss still was. Looks like Karl hasn’t been there for six weeks. His wife called his boss and said he’d up and left her and that she hasn’t seen him since.”
Ravinia stared at him hard. She was so still for so long that Rex’s brows lifted.
“You okay?” he asked as he picked up his own cell and hit speed dial to Elizabeth.
When she didn’t answer, he returned Ravinia’s stare as he counted the rings for Elizabeth, staying on until the call went to voice mail.
“It’s him,” Ravinia said.
“Karl Vandell?” Rex’s pulse leaped and he was on his feet. “How do you know?”
“I can hear him. No . . . I can hear Chloe. . . .”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Rex rasped.
“He’s got Chloe and Elizabeth in the car!” Ravinia held her hands over her eyes and then suddenly yanked them away, her sea-green eyes distended wide with shock. “It’s not him. It’s her. Nadia Vandell!”
Chapter 34
In the backseat, Chloe had gone silent and Elizabeth tried to see her in the rearview mirror.
“Keep your eyes on the road,” Nadia demanded, the barrel of the gun pressed tightly into the side of Elizabeth’s rib cage.
“Chloe, you okay?” Elizabeth asked.
They’d been driving for about five minutes, heading west. Nadia seemed to have a destination in mind, but she wasn’t sharing it with Elizabeth. She just wanted her to drive.
Chloe’s eyes met hers and she shook her head slowly. “Where are we going?” she asked in a small voice.
Nadia glanced back for a brief instant. “Oh, it’s somewhere your mom knows, back when our souls were still joined.”
Elizabeth said carefully, “I don’t remember it.”
“That’s because you broke everything,” Nadia suddenly hissed at her, her face contorted. “Why did you do that? Why?”
Elizabeth stayed quiet, hoping Nadia wouldn’t scare Chloe any worse than she already had, and it was no good trying to reason with her. She was past reasoning. When her cell phone had rung, Nadia had snatched it out of Elizabeth’s purse, read the name, and shrieked in fury before tossing it out the window.
Elizabeth answered her in a voice infused with fear. “I shouldn’t have broken it.” She hoped she sounded regretful.
“You got that right, bitch.” Nadia glowered, unappeased. “Your friends the Sorensons? You showed them all kinds of houses, but there was only one on the ocean with a spectacular view.”
Staffordshire. “The house in Corona del Mar.”
“Still for sale. Your friends couldn’t afford it, but it’s the best of what you showed them. The best. You remember the best, Elizabeth?” Nadia twisted the barrel into Elizabeth’s side.
“I can’t drive straight when you do that,” Elizabeth said, and it was true.
“Well, fucking figure it out!” Nadia yelled.
They drove in silence for a while, then she said, “You don’t remember me.”
Is this a trick? “Um . . . no . . .”
“Good old Van Buren High. I was in the class below you.”
Elizabeth couldn’t think, didn’t know how to answer her. A line of sweat was running down her back.
“I could feel you even then. I thought you felt me, too.”
Elizabeth had no good answer to that. No, she hadn’t felt Nadia, nor did she remember her as a school classmate, but she sensed if she admitted as much that it wouldn’t go over too well.
“You think this is all coincidence? That I happened to join the Sisterhood, happened to become part of your Moms Group
even though I don’t have a child? I’ve followed you, Elizabeth. With my heart and soul. We’re the same, you and I. We have abilities. You’re amazing.” There was awe in her voice. “But I had to find a reason to get close to you. Vivian’s such a sap. She wanted to help me get over my miscarriages and begged me to join the Moms group.”
Elizabeth shot another glance back to Chloe, who’d closed her eyes and appeared to be in a trance.
“Don’t look at her,” Nadia snapped, and Elizabeth focused her eyes on the road ahead of her. They’d reached the street that led to the Staffords’ house . . . the Staffords couldn’t help her as they were still outside the United States.
“I’ve loved you a long time, but you don’t love me.” Nadia said it almost conversationally, as if she were really just rolling that idea around. “I wanted us to go to Mexico together. I like it there, particularly Rosarito Beach.”
Elizabeth swallowed. “You were at the Tres Brisas Hotel.”
“I saw Court with Whitney Bellhard. He was such a bastard to you. Why did you marry him?”
I thought I loved him. “I don’t know,” Elizabeth murmured.
They pulled into the drive and around the semicircle that led up to the house. Elizabeth tried to park under the portico, but Nadia said, “Drive onto the yard, toward the beach.”
Elizabeth’s pulse was pounding hard as she did as she was told. The house was one of the many she’d shown to Marg and Buddy, the only one directly above the ocean. Not much of a beach was below; rocks, dirt, and scraggly tree roots jutted from the cliff’s edge. A low, wrought-iron fence ran along the perimeter about ten feet from the cliff face, more for looks than safety. Directly in front of her was the Hobbit and Tolkien creature–filled crèche and she swerved to avoid it.
“Stop here,” Nadia ordered, then jumped out of the car and yanked open the back door, grabbing Chloe’s arm and barely waiting for the little girl to unbuckle herself before dragging her onto the lawn, the gun trained at her head.
Sick with fear, Elizabeth climbed out of the driver’s seat and held up her hands. “Please take the gun away from her. Put it on me,” she said, her mouth dry. “Please.”
“Please, please, please. Is that what you say to Rex?” Nadia snarled.
She knew about Rex? Of course, she knew about Rex. She knew everything.
Keep her talking, Elizabeth. Give yourself some time. Plan an escape.
“Rex Kingston was hired by my cousin to find me,” she said.
“I know.”
“I only met him a couple days ago. I barely know him.”
“But you love him, don’t you? You. Love. Him. Don’t lie. You think I can’t feel it?” Nadia dragged Chloe by one arm past the Hobbits, toward the backyard.
“Wait! Wait!” Elizabeth cried, her hands outstretched as they neared the barrier fence, which had Mondo grass growing on either side. Beyond was the ocean, a long, long way down.
So help her God, she would grab Chloe and save her daughter if it was the last thing she ever did.
Nadia stopped at the fence, breathing hard, as if she’d just run a marathon. Her icy blue eyes were wild, her blond hair tossed by the wind. “And what about Gil? On purpose, I spread the rumor that his wife killed herself, and you still didn’t care! I tried to overlook it, but you kept on seeing him. You’re too good to whore yourself out for money.”
“I barely know Gil! I never wanted his money.”
“I had to do something, but I got a bad angle on his car, and it smashed up Karl’s.” Her face grew brick red with anger at the memory. “So, I had to go back to mine.”
“You sideswiped Gil . . .” Elizabeth realized the black Escape was Karl’s car. Nadia’s SUV was a dark blue Acura.
“All the things I’ve done for you, the sacrifices I’ve made, just so that you would have a perfect life, to ease the way into our melded future.”
“What do you mean?” Elizabeth asked, though she already knew where this was going. Keep her talking!
Nadia moved the barrel from Chloe’s temple and aimed it at Elizabeth’s heart. “Mazie Ferguson. You wanted her dead, so you could have her job.”
“No.” Elizabeth shook her head.
“It was easy to convince her that I had money to buy whatever fucking mansion I wanted. Karl had enough money at first, before the stock market took it. Investment banker, my ass. He was too weak, and I couldn’t afford to have him around anymore. But Mazie . . . she liked her wine as much as you do. I had to put a little something extra in her drink before I sent her on her way, but it worked. Kind of a shame she didn’t take out another driver with her when she flew off the freeway. You know, California could really stand to lose a few motorists.”
Sweating bullets in the cool air, Elizabeth’s gaze shifted back to Chloe whose stillness was alarming.
“And then that police officer you told us all about?” Nadia went on. “The one that gave you the ticket? Officer Unfriendly? What a self-righteous prick. I took Karl’s handgun, put stolen plates on my car, and sped by his police car on the freeway. Had to do it twice before the lazy ass finally decided to chase me. I drew him onto side streets to a place with big hedges that I’d planned out earlier, but it took awhile to get him there and he was really pissed when I finally stopped. Started screaming at me before he even got a foot out of his car. He charged up to my window and I just shot him. Two times.”
Chloe finally opened her eyes and looked up at Nadia who had her left arm locked around the little girl’s neck. Chloe gazed at her in shock and dawning comprehension. “You sent the messages. It was you. I thought it was a man.”
“Yeah? You’re not too smart, are ya?”
“Leave Chloe alone,” Elizabeth ground out, her temper rising.
Nadia inhaled, almost in ecstasy. “That’s it. That’s the passion . . . oh . . .” She squeezed Chloe’s head harder and pointed the gun back at her temple.
“Stop . . . stop! ” Immediately, Elizabeth sought to quell her emotion. No . . . no . . . Keep her talking! “You were on the freeway with Court and Whitney Bellhard.”
“I always knew you didn’t love him. But then he started that affair with that bitch and all of a sudden you did care. You cared a lot. I could feel it. I knew it was time to show you I loved you.”
“And Channing Renfro?”
“GoodGuy.” Nadia snorted in disbelief. “Karl had everything in our basement. If he’d only just let things be, I wouldn’t have had to . . .” She shook her head dolefully. “Everything would have been a lot simpler. But when he found out I loved you, when he saw the first notes . . .” She trailed off. “I used his Escape. Took one of the Molotov cocktails he’d made for me. Karl was really good at that stuff. And the gasoline can with the hose and nozzle. Threw the cocktail at GoodGuy’s convertible, then aimed the nozzle at the bastard and sprayed him down. Such a fireball. I damn near got caught! But I didn’t . . . because it’s all meant to be. All for you, Elizabeth . . . my love. . . .”
“Stay in the car,” Rex told Ravinia and she immediately started to protest. “You’re not coming in with me, you understand?”
A hesitation, then, “Yes.”
He checked his Glock. The safety was still on, and he intended to keep it that way unless he sensed trouble. Holding it down at his side, he moved to the Vandells’ front door. No one answered his knock. He didn’t wait, but walked around to the rear of the house and the back door. It was locked, but three good kicks and the wood splintered.
He didn’t give a damn that he was breaking and entering. If Elizabeth and Chloe were inside . . . held captive . . .
The Vandells’ house smelled of chemicals. Something sharp wafted through the air. He held the Glock in front of him and quickly recognized the smell was coming from an open door that led to a basement. He peered down into the gloom, then flipped on the light switch, waiting to see if something happened. No sound. Moving fast, he stepped lightly down the creaking wooden steps.
The smell of gas
oline was strong. He traced it to a portable can tucked onto a shelf at the end of the room, a hose and nozzle attached. There didn’t appear to be any gas leak or spill as he’d first feared. He saw two cans with wicks, and when he lifted one, it sloshed, heavy with fluid. Molotov cocktails?
Channing Renfro . . . GoodGuy, Elizabeth had called him.
Rex backed away, aware he’d left his own fingerprints on the can. No way to explain the B and E, but too damn bad. All he cared about was finding Elizabeth and Chloe.
“Rex?”
He whipped around, gun in hand, furious to find Ravinia at the top of the basement steps. “God damn it!”
“They’re at the ocean,” she said, talking fast. “Big house with lots of yard. Some kind of puppet scene in the yard. Short black fence and . . . a long way down.”
“What do you mean? Elizabeth and Chloe? How do you know?”
“Do you know a place like that?” she demanded.
“I . . . no . . .” He felt his heart begin a hard, long beat. Ravinia’s fear was infectious. “Puppet scene?” And then he knew which property. He’d seen it during his iPad search of the Ellises. “Corona del Mar,” he said, scrambling through his brain for the address. “Get the iPad. It’s in the car. Find Elizabeth’s listings.”
Ravinia was gone in a heartbeat as he stumbled for the stairs. He didn’t know where she was getting her information and he damn well didn’t care. ESP, alien transmissions, gifts from a divine source . . . she believed. And so he believed.
And he also believed Nadia Vandell was the danger.
He was halfway up the stairs, his gaze through the open stairway steps to the basement below when he saw the low freezer tucked in the corner. He almost left it, though it seemed to loom in front of his face like a beacon. Something about it.
Running on instinct, he jumped back down to the basement floor and in three steps was around the stairs, his hands on the freezer latch. Throwing the lid upward, he gazed down into the interior. A scattered array of Sara Lee pastry boxes, Texas Toast, and frozen steaks filled the space. He shoved them around. And four fingers suddenly jutted up, one with a wedding ring.