by M. D. Archer
Things were going to be different now.
23
Sophie looked as if she hadn’t slept. She bit her thumb, picked at her sleeve, and jiggled her foot. When she picked up her coffee, her hand trembled as she brought it to her mouth.
“Are you sure you should be here, Soph? I can manage on my own. I mean, it’s always better with you, but—”
“If I’m left alone, I just think about... it.” She shook her head. “Let’s solve this case.”
This morning, after Sophie had insisted that she was coming to work, Paige had picked her up from home and brought her into the office. At the end of the day she intended on driving her home and depositing her directly into her bedroom. Sophie had refused Paige’s offer to stay with her and Tim—the familiarity and security of her bedroom was the only thing giving her comfort right now. Paige had only agreed because both Myra and the normally self-involved Victoria had promised to make sure they’d call both Paige and Roman at the first sign of anything strange. Josh was in jail but the situation with Hannah was not clear. Had she been involved or not? And even if she wasn’t, there was obviously some malicious intent. Roman had no idea where Hannah was now. It was entirely possible she’d left Auckland before the drama with Josh even began, but it was also possible she was still here, hiding out.
“Okay, so, to recap. Cecilia was right about the manuscript being stolen on December 10th.” Paige rolled her eyes. “Which means that it’s almost definitely one of the people we’ve already identified. But that doesn’t help much because seven people were at her house that day, including Martin.”
“And we still haven’t figured out how they did it.”
Paige nodded and tapped the HOW on the whiteboard. “I think that’s the only way we’re going to crack it. We need to ask her again whether she can recall not having the key for a period of time. Or anything funny happening with the key. Or whether it was possible the lock was picked.”
“She’s here,” Sophie said. “I saw her walk past just before.”
“Come on, then.”
They crossed the landing to Cecilia’s office. The door was closed but there was a light on inside. Sophie knocked. “Hello?” she said. “Cecilia? Is now a good time?” she added.
They waited but there was no reply.
“Cecilia?” Paige said, a little louder. Still, nothing. Paige tried the handle. “I think we should go in,” she said. “What if something’s wrong?”
Sophie nodded. Cautiously, they opened the door. Inside, they found Cecilia ensconced in the armchair in the corner, sucking on a pen as she read intently, her brow furrowed.
“Cecilia?” Sophie said. Still, her head stayed down.
Paige clapped her hands. “CECILIA,” she roared.
Cecilia jerked upright. “Goodness. You gave me a fright. Was that really necessary?”
“Yes, it was,” Paige said. “We said your name about ten times.”
“Hardly.”
“Cecilia,” Sophie said. “You set up this office so it’s like your one at home, because you have a process, right?”
“Yes. I write at my desk, but I like to sit in a comfortable chair such as this one to edit hard copies of my drafts.”
Paige and Sophie exchanged glances.
“What? Is that why you interrupted me? To ask me that?”
“No. We were going to ask whether you were completely sure you hadn’t ever misplaced your key for long enough for someone to copy it.”
“Of course not.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.” Cecilia lifted an indignant chin.
“And is it possible the lock on the door was picked?”
Cecilia looked uncertain. “How would I know that?”
Paige flicked her eyes to Sophie who lifted her shoulders just a little. “We may need to bring a locksmith around to your house to do, ah, an analysis.”
“If you must.” Cecilia shook her head. “By the way, Sally called,” she said. “Apparently Annie ambushed her and Peyton at his house the other day. She wanted representation for a special project.”
“Really,” Paige said. “What’s the project?”
“She wouldn’t tell them, she insisted they sign non-disclosure agreements first.” Cecilia rolled her eyes. “There’s no way Sally is doing that. It’s all completely ridiculous but it could be something.”
“We’ll look into it,” Paige said, moving to leave.
“Clock’s ticking,” Cecilia called out.
Sophie tried to turn back but Paige gently propelled her out into the hall.
“What clock?” Sophie said.
“Er... there’s something I need to tell you,” Paige said with a grimace.
LEO APPROACHED JANE’S motel room with a lot less enthusiasm than previous visits. When he reached her room, he raised his hand to knock, but before he could, the door opened.
“Leo,” her eyes were bright and full of tears. “We figured it out.”
He nodded. “Yeah, Zelda told me.”
She held out her hand. “Hi. My name is Emily.”
With a small smile, he took it. “Hey, Emily. Nice to meet you. I’m Leo.”
Suddenly she lurched forward and wrapped her arms around Leo’s neck. “Thank you so much. I couldn’t have done this without you.” She pulled back and opened the door wider. “Come in and I’ll tell you what I remembered.”
“Your memory is completely back?”
“It’s a bit hazy around the accident, but I remember most of it.”
They started to move farther inside the room, but Leo abruptly pulled back. Suddenly, he couldn’t be in that small, confined space with her, the woman he’d come to know as Jane, but now realised didn’t know at all.
“Can we go... outside? Sit by the pool, or walk somewhere?”
“Of course.”
They strolled around the perimeter of the pool, doing pointless laps as Emily explained what had happened.
“My mother, Helen, had always been cagey about my past. We didn’t look alike, and Mum’s explanation had always been that I took after my father.”
“Who did she say that was?”
“She alluded to a one-night stand, but never said it outright. I eventually realised that maybe I was better off not knowing.” She made an angry sound.
“And then you found out she wasn’t your mother after your accident at home.”
“She told me everything. She had taken me from the hospital, found the name of a three-year-old who’d...” Emily shook her head, “and got a birth certificate, then a passport. She managed to smuggle me out of New Zealand and move to Australia without any difficulty.” Emily wrapped her arms around herself. “As you can imagine, it was a lot to deal with, and I... I don’t know why, but I had to get away. I got a cheap flight here, booked an Airbnb and everything. I even remember the address—it’s in Mt Albert—but I don’t remember whether I actually stayed there or not. I don’t have a memory of that, so maybe not. Anyway, at some point I took a cab and it was involved in a car accident. So my most recent injuries were from that, the cut and bump on my head. But I think it kind of exacerbated the trauma from the earlier accident and finding out about my past. I think my brain just couldn’t deal so it shut down for a while. I guess the cab driver was worried about insurance or something, so they just took off.”
“Wow.”
“I know.”
“So you haven’t spoken to your mother about your, ah, abduction?”
She shook her head.
“Will you?”
“I think so. I mean, it’s a lot and it’s awful, but I also think what she did came from a good place, you know? She knew both my parents were dead. And she wanted a child so badly. And I’ve had a lovely life, really. She’s been a good mother to me.”
“But will she be arrested for what she did?”
“I have no idea. It was a long time ago. I think I have to figure out how I feel about everything first.”
They fell silent for a moment, continuing their slow walk around of the pool.
“What about that random guy the lady in the organics shop mentioned?”
Emily lifted her shoulders. “I guess he was just some guy. Either worried about me too, or... possibly dodgy.”
“Huh.”
They lapsed into quiet again.
“So all your stuff is sitting in an Airbnb somewhere around here?”
“Hopefully. I’m going to go there next and find out.”
“Do you want me to—”
“Em!” someone called. They both stopped and turned at the sound of the voice.
A guy in his late twenties, with dark hair and glasses, and all up looking a lot like Leo, jogged over, a huge smile on his face. “Oh, thank god, it is you.” He scooped her up in his arms and spun her around. She melted into him, burying her face into his neck.
“Ray, oh Ray... it’s so good to see you.”
Leo, watching the reunion between Emily and her fiancée, took a step backward. As an unpleasant swirl gathered momentum in his stomach, he took another step, then another, until he had completely left the motel; and the little bubble he’d shared with Jane/Katrina/Emily collapsed into nothing.
IN THE S & S INVESTIGATIONS conference room, Paige and Sophie faced each other.
“We only have tonight to figure it out,” Sophie said dejectedly.
“We can do it,” Paige said firmly. “Do you think Annie’s special project is something to do with the stolen manuscript?”
Sophie tilted her head. “It’s possible, we should add it to the board, but what about what just happened?” She gestured in the direction of Cecilia’s office. “Back there, when we first went in, how long it took for us to get her attention,” she said, her eyes searching Paige’s.
“Yeah. I’m obviously used to people not noticing me, but that was nuts.”
“If she gets that focused when she’s editing, then could someone have literally stolen it from under her nose?”
Paige’s eyes went wide. “It might not be a locked room mystery at all.”
“But it would have taken ten minutes to download and delete, Leo said. Is that really plausible?”
“It does seem unlikely. But not impossible.”
Sophie nodded. “And if so, someone could have stolen it before or after the writing group session.”
“Someone like Martin and Gillian, you mean?”
“Maybe.”
“Locked room or not, we only have tonight. I refuse to give Cecilia the satisfaction of firing us.”
Downstairs a door slammed. The now familiar sound of Leo trudging heavily up the steps followed. A moment later he appeared in the doorway.
“I’m here,” Leo said, his expression downcast.
“Good,” Paige said. “We have to figure out what happened to Cecilia’s manuscript. Like, now.”
“Are you okay?” Sophie said, studying Leo’s drawn and miserable face.
“Not really, but I don’t want to talk about it.” Suddenly he looked up, his eyes wide. “Are you okay?”
Sophie shrugged. “Working helps.”
“Okay,” Paige said. “It’s good you’re here, Leo. We need to go deeper on all our suspects, to figure out who did it.” She went over to the whiteboard. “We’ve got seven suspects, as listed here, and as far as we can tell, it could have been any of them. We need more information. Background intel. Can you look them up?”
“Sure.” Leo opened his laptop. “Can we order food?”
“Go nuts. Order a mail order bride if you want,” Paige said.
Leo’s eyes widened. “What?” he said, stricken. “That’s a bit close—”
“Right then,” Paige said brightly. “We have seven suspects,” she repeated. “Here are their names, Leo,” she pointed at the board, “do you need anything else?”
“Don’t think so.”
“I want to go over the Amazon profile,” Sophie said. “Peyton’s reaction to the page has been bugging me.”
“Leo, start your search with Peyton Brosnan. If he’s lying about something that might be a good place to start.”
While Leo typed, Sophie sent Paige a surreptitious text message.
What’s wrong with Leo?
Found out the identity of his Jane Doe.
And? Why is that bad?
She lives in Oz and has a fiancée.
Poor Leo.
Paige put down her phone. “While Leo’s getting the dirt on Peyton, let’s figure out who is the next most likely culprit on our list.”
“It’s got to be Martin and Gillian, right? They’re having an affair, Gillian has a grudge against Cecilia, and those two easily had the most opportunity to do it.”
“Agreed.”
“I’ve got something on Peyton,” Leo said suddenly.
“What?” Paige said excitedly.
“First up, he’s got a lot of debt.”
“We know.”
“It hasn’t been cleared recently?” Sophie asked.
“No, it’s still there. He recently made a payment against it, but he’s signed up to one of those loan consolidation companies. It looks as if he’s paying it off in small weekly instalments.”
“So there’s no evidence he’s made a lot of money recently?”
“No, but I can tell you something else. Peyton’s not his real name.”
“Oh, yeah, we knew that too.”
“What’s his real name?” Sophie asked.
“Jason Jackson Rowden.”
Paige uncapped the whiteboard marker and wrote this next to Peyton on the board.
“There’s something in that name. Something familiar?” Sophie squinted at the board, then shrugged. Paige nodded, also staring at the board.
“And he has a record.”
“Like, a police record?” Paige said, eyes wide.
“Yup. And a juvenile one. But that’s sealed.”
“So he’s a criminal.”
“Well, he used to be.”
“When did he change his name?” Sophie asked.
“About thirty years ago.”
“Is that relevant?” she continued. “The date.”
“I can’t tell. Maybe. Should I look into that? See if it’s related to a specific event?”
“Hmm,” Sophie mused. “Jason Jackson,” she said, reading the whiteboard.
“Who names their kid Jason Jackson,” Paige said. “Did they want his nickname to be JJ, or something? That’s so American.”
Sophie and Paige locked eyes. “JJ,” Paige repeated.
“Holy crap. J.J. Wonder. That can’t be a coincidence,” Sophie said.
“It’s not,” Paige said, uncapping the marker again to demonstrate on the whiteboard. “WONDER is an anagram of ROWDEN. J. J. Wonder is Jason Jackson Rowden.”
“Otherwise known as Peyton Brosnan.”
24
Sophie shook her head. “But how did he do it? Of all the people who had access, he had the least. It would have been difficult for him to move around Cecilia’s house without her noticing. If he slipped upstairs to do it during their brief visit to have a glass of bubbly, he would have been gone for ten minutes. I’m sure Cecilia would have noticed that. She focuses a lot of her attention on him when he’s around.”
Paige nodded. “Yeah, true.” She replaced the marker on the board. “And without knowing how, we’ll never get a confession. I think we need to go through the events of December 10th one more time with Cecilia.”
“Maybe we should talk to everyone again.”
“Ooh, yes.” Paige snapped her fingers. “We can do a Poirot reveal.”
“A what?” Leo said.
“We gather everyone in the drawing room—”
“What’s a drawing room?”
“—and we reveal the culprit.”
“But doesn’t Poirot usually know who did it before his reveal?” Sophie said.
“Not always. Sometimes the killer reveals themselves in the moment.
”
“Okay,” Sophie said dubiously. “If you think it’s a good idea.”
“We’re running out of time.”
“Yeah, we are.”
“We’re agreed then. We’ll do it tonight.”
“Will we be able to get everyone together at the last minute? I can’t imagine Cecilia being particularly cooperative. She still thinks its Peyton and after we tell her about the name...”
“We can only try. At the very least we have to talk to Cecilia again about Sunday. And we should do it at her house.”
“What about me?” Leo said. “Can I come?”
“Um, okay.” Paige took in Leo’s still downcast expression. “But the normal rules apply.”
“What rules?”
“No crying in front of the client,” Paige said.
AT SIX O’CLOCK THAT evening, Paige, Sophie and Leo arrived at the home of Cecilia and Martin. As anticipated, Cecilia had not helped them wrangle all seven suspects to attend, but she was able to get some of them there.
Gillian and Martin were already present, huddled in the far corner of the living room, looking uncomfortable. Sally was in the hall, talking on the phone, and Peyton was apparently on his way.
“I can’t believe Peyton is coming,” Sophie whispered as they hovered in the entrance to the living room.
“I know, it’s weird.”
“Is Leo going to come inside?” Sophie said.
Paige shrugged. “If he finishes what he’s doing, yeah, probably.”
Leo had remained in the car to keep working on the suspect list; a last-ditch effort to find evidence.
Cecilia appeared from the kitchen. “Oh, hello.” She looked smug. “The writing group are coming too, after all.”
“They are?” Paige said, surprised.
“Yes. I thought it might be useful to get this all over and done with tonight.”
“Where was this helpful attitude before,” Paige muttered.
“Pardon?”
“Listen, you have to promise not to say anything. I know you’re convinced it was Peyton, but—”
“Even with the J. J. Wonder pseudonym, you think it isn’t?”