Cut & Run

by Traci Hohenstein

  “Sorry,” Rachel said sincerely. It had to be a double whammy for Matt. To find out his wife was cheating on him and then lose her along with his kids. Rachel cleared her throat. “I had an interesting phone call yesterday. Do you know Alanna Brennan?”

  “We went to school together. She’s friends with my wife.”

  “I ran into her yesterday. She was with Melinda at the voodoo shop that Erin frequented. Alanna told me about your previous relationship with Melinda.”

  Matt looked around the café, his eyes resting on the glass deli case, which was filled with French pastry treats. “Melinda and I dated in high school. It’s no secret.”

  Rachel felt the need to apologize. “Sorry to be prying into your personal life, but the more I know about your family and work history, the better chance we have of finding your kids.”

  “I get that. I just don’t see what Melinda and I dating in high school has to do with finding my kids. That was almost twenty years ago. She married my brother and they’re happy,” Matt said. “I guess.”

  “Were you and your wife happy?” Rachel asked.

  Matt stood up, his chair scraping the wood floor. “Well, I thought we were. I mean, we had our ups and downs like any other marriage, but I would’ve never thought she’d cheat on me.”

  “Are you planning on calling Gavin Beckwith?”

  “I think the situation warrants a personal visit.”

  CHAPTER 35

  Rachel went back to her hotel room, where Red and Stacy were waiting for her. She gave them the rundown of her conversation with Matt and told them that he had confirmed Gavin as the man he saw with Erin at Flora.

  “Good,” said Red. “Now that we have a positive ID on Gavin, I can proceed with a full background check on him as well. When he gets back from his business trip, I’ll pay him a visit. His wife expects him back in a couple of days.”

  “Well, that’s settled. You work on Beckwith, and Stacy and I’ll spend a little more time looking into Melinda’s past. Did you hear anything on that background search we started on her?”

  “Not yet,” said Red, walking to the door.

  “I’ll kick it off by combing through the yearbook Alanna left for me at the front desk,” said Rachel.

  “I gotta make some phone calls. Let me know if y’all find anything interesting.” Red left the room.

  Stacy climbed onto the bed next to Rachel, and they opened the Sacred Heart Academy’s navy-and-silver yearbook. The first half of the book was filled with pages for clubs, sports, the band, and the usual popularity photos. They spotted Melinda in a lot of those pages. However, Erin stole the spotlight in the Most Beautiful and Best All-Around categories in the popular pages. Melinda garnered the Best Dressed honor.

  “Ouch. I bet Melinda would’ve liked to have won ‘Most Beautiful.’” Rachel flipped through more of the pages. “If this is what Erin looked like their senior year, I’d like to see what she looked like when she was a sophomore or junior.”

  “Do high schools still have this junk? I can’t believe people would condone such superficial behavior. ‘Most Beautiful’ and ‘Prettiest Smile’? Really?”

  “What did you get in high school? Most Likely to Spill a Secret?” Rachel chuckled.

  Stacy grabbed a pillow and hit Rachel with it. “I was a geek in high school. Always had my head buried in a book or working the school newspaper. Hair in pigtails, braces, and skinny as a twig.”

  “I find that hard to believe.” Rachel looked at her friend. She was still on the small side, but her body was toned and athletic. She also had a vibrant personality, and Rachel had noticed the way men sneaked glances at her when Stacy walked into the room.

  “I came out of my shell in college.” Stacy flipped through the pages and stopped. She stared at a picture of a young man and pointed to him. “Adam Donnelly. Did Alanna mention a younger brother when you talked to her?”

  Rachel leaned over and studied the page. The heading was “Sophomores,” and the page was full of class pictures. Adam looked very similar to Melinda. He had shaggy blond hair, the same heart-shaped face as Melinda, blue eyes, and full pouty lips. His eyes didn’t quite meet the camera lens, looking slightly off to the left instead. “I believe she did. I can call her and confirm. She seemed more than willing to give me information last time.”

  Stacy waited while Rachel tried Alanna on her cell phone.

  After a short polite conversation with Alanna, Rachel hung up.

  “Well?” Stacy asked. “The suspense is killing me.”

  “Adam Donnelly is in fact Melinda’s younger brother. And…he has an extensive criminal history,” Rachel answered. “We just might be on to something here.”

  CHAPTER 36

  Matt woke up drenched in sweat, with his heart banging like a jackhammer. A glance at the clock on his bedside revealed that it was almost one a.m. He reached for a bottle of water that sat next to the clock, twisting it open and taking a long sip. A framed photo of Erin sat on the other side of the clock. It was Matt’s favorite picture of her and was taken at their beach house in Florida. The photo brought back memories of the dream he’d just had. A dream so vivid, so real in his mind. He leaned his head back onto the pillow and took deep breaths. The images from the dream kept flashing through his mind.

  Erin and the kids were on a boat in a swamp. It was dark and I was trying to find them. I could hear them crying out for help, but I couldn’t see them. Then the clouds parted and moonlight spread over the water, illuminating the small boat carrying my family. I took off my shoes and yelled to them. “Hold on! I’m coming!” The ground was mucky and made it hard for me to walk. The more steps I took, the more the mud gripped my feet. When I finally made it to the water’s edge, I heard my family’s screams. I stopped and looked around the inky dark water. A pair of yellow eyes stared back at me, then another pair and another. I realized the boat carrying Erin and the kids was surrounded by alligators. My daughter, Mary Kate, panicked and stood up in the middle of the small boat. “Nooo!” I yelled. “Stay down! Stay down!” Mary Kate lost her balance, and the boat flipped into the alligator-infested swamp. I stood on the bank, helplessly watching my family splash around, trying to make it to shore. Their horrendous screams filled my ears.

  Matt took another sip of water before pounding his fist on his forehead as if that might pulverize the images and make them go away. He went downstairs and grabbed a six-pack of beer from the refrigerator. Walking outside onto the back patio, he sat down, popped the top on a bottle, and drank the pale ale in two long pulls.

  “Screw it,” Matt said to himself. He drank the next bottle as fast as the first. As he cast his gaze over the pool, another forgotten memory popped into his head. The neurologist had told him it might happen this way. One or two small memories giving way to another and then another until eventually he had regained all of them. He knit his brow, concentrating on recovering the details of the memory—it was of a Wednesday dinner when Chris and Melinda had been over, a dinner not long after the fateful day when he’d spotted Erin kissing another man.

  It hadn’t just been Chris and Melinda over for that Wednesday dinner. Alanna Brennan and her two boys were over as well. When I had gone to the garage to switch out the propane tanks for the grill, I’d heard female voices. I’d realized suddenly that Erin, Melinda, and Alanna were in the upstairs apartment checking out Erin’s latest painting. From where I was standing in the garage, a vent led directly to the floor above, and I could hear their conversation clearly. Normally, I wouldn’t eavesdrop, but something in my wife’s tone made me stop what I was doing and listen.

  “Ran into him at the coffee shop by his gallery. I finally gave in and had lunch with him.”

  “Really? I thought you didn’t want to work with anyone,” Alanna said.

  “Well, at first I didn’t, but you know Gavin. He’s very, um…persistent,” Erin said.

  “Very persistent and very cute,” Alanna said and then laughed. “Although his wife
is a bit of a bitch.”

  “I didn’t meet his wife.” Erin paused for a minute. “She was out of town when I toured the gallery. Gavin and I usually meet at the coffee shop. You know the one where I have a couple of paintings on display?”

  “Flora?” Alanna asked.

  “Yep. That’s the one. Anyway, Gavin liked what he saw and asked if I had any other works in progress,” Erin said.

  “And?” Melinda prompted.

  “And I brought him back here to my studio and showed him these two pieces,” Erin said. “He said he wanted me to do a gallery showing.”

  I had felt my stomach clench. This was the first I’d heard of Erin bringing another man to the house to view her work. I thought of the guy I’d seen kissing Erin at Flora. This must be the same guy. I still couldn’t bring myself to ask Erin about it. Part of me didn’t want to admit my marriage was failing and that Erin maybe had fallen out of love with me.

  “What kind of cut does Gavin get for any pieces that sell?” Melinda asked.

  “Ten percent of gross sales. He said I’d need to have at least fifteen pieces done to make it worth his time,” Erin answered.

  “What does Matt say about all this?” Melinda asked.

  I stood very still at the mention of my name. I waited patiently for her answer, straining to hear.

  “Matt doesn’t know yet,” Erin said.

  “Isn’t that something you should discuss with him? I mean, he is your husband,” Melinda said, stressing the word “your.”

  “I don’t see where any of this is your business, Melinda,” Erin said brusquely, then changed the subject. “I’m going to take this downstairs to show the boys. It’s a new piece I’ve been working on to display at Antoine’s.”

  I could hear Erin walking downstairs. I was starting to leave the garage when I heard Melinda speak.

  “What a bitch.”

  “What are you talking about?” Alanna asked, clearly surprised at the exchange between Melinda and Erin.

  “Gavin Beckwith. She’s sleeping with him. It’s very obvious. Why she would want to risk throwing all this away is beyond me. Matt deserves so much better.”

  “Like you?” Alanna asked.

  I had heard enough. I quietly left the garage and spent the rest of the evening in a foul mood. Now I was certain that Gavin was the guy I’d seen at the coffee shop earlier in the week. It was time to take action, no matter what the consequences. I needed to decide whether or not to confront Gavin or my wife first.

  Matt opened a third beer and continued staring at the pool, its lights flickering under the water and giving off an eerie glow. Now, with all the pieces of his memory coming back together, he was starting to form a good idea of who could be behind all of this. He drank the rest of the beer while formulating a plan. The tricky part was how to do this without alerting Krapek or Jones that he was regaining his memory. Matt thought it was better for everyone to think he still couldn’t remember what had happened to him. He could clearly see that it could make him look like a suspect in his wife’s death and kids’ disappearance if they knew what he remembered. And having his family and friends thinking his memory was still iffy gave him a huge advantage in tackling what he was about to do. He finished off his beer and stumbled back upstairs to bed. But before sleep overcame him, he set an early alarm. He had plans for the next day. Big plans.

  CHAPTER 37

  It was nine in the morning by the time Matt parked the truck at the curb three houses down from his destination. He had borrowed his neighbor’s Chevy Silverado pickup, as he’d done before when he needed to haul some garden supplies from the local nursery. The neighbor was out of town and had given Matt a spare key to the vehicle. Matt chose the nondescript truck because he knew that Melinda would never recognize it. And, luckily, her car was still in the driveway. Matt knew his brother Chris would be tied up all day in a court deposition. That meant Melinda would be free to roam—and Matt would be there to follow her.

  In the wee hours of the morning as he’d sat by the pool drinking beer, Matt had come to the conclusion that Melinda was up to no good. She knew that Erin was having an affair with the art dealer. What other secrets was she hiding? Matt was going to find out if it took him the rest of the day, the week, or the rest of his life.

  At nine thirty, Melinda didn’t disappoint. She walked out the front door, climbed in her white Mercedes sedan, and pulled out of the drive. The Mercedes had been a gift from Chris for Melinda’s birthday last year. Well, actually, it was a gift she gave herself. She’d bought it with Chris’s money without asking, and shit had hit the fan when he’d found out. He was always complaining that Melinda was spending money faster than he could make it. Matt knew that recently Chris had found that Melinda had been hiding credit card bills and that they were in debt for around $120,000. Clothing, spa trips with her girlfriends, expensive lunches and dinners, designer clothing, purses and shoes. Not to mention all the new home furnishings and decor she had just bought for their condo in Florida. Matt, who felt guilty for having made a few million dollars on his stock and real estate investments, had offered to pay off their debt, but Chris had refused. His brother was stubborn and wanted to do things his own way. Matt wasn’t sure if Chris had actually found a way to settle his wife’s debt or not. As his brother’s business partner, he knew what kind of salary Chris brought home, and it wasn’t enough to keep up with Melinda’s lavish lifestyle.

  Since neither Erin nor Matt had any other living family members, they’d named Chris and Melinda their children’s guardians if anything should happen to them and the children were left without parents. Millions of dollars would go into a trust fund for Mary Kate and Patrick, to be overseen by their guardians if, God forbid, anything did happen to Matt or his wife. Was that money enough of a motive for Melinda to want to kill Erin and Matt? He didn’t know if Melinda had the nerve to pull off something like that, but right now it was all Matt had to go on. And tailing Melinda was a good start.

  Matt stayed a few car lengths behind the white Mercedes, following at a distance. When Melinda pulled into a Starbucks drive-through, Matt parked in the grocery store lot next door and waited. He watched her talk on her cell phone while she waited for her order at the window. Two minutes later, the barista handed her a brown bakery bag and a large coffee cup. Melinda didn’t eat carbs, so he knew that whatever was in the bag wasn’t for her. So she must be meeting someone, Matt deduced. He checked his watch, pondering if he should call Rachel and let her know what was going on. Get her take on it. He decided to wait and see where this was going to lead first. After getting her coffee fix, Melinda zoomed back onto the highway and within minutes was heading west on Interstate 10. Matt took a peek at the gas gauge. He had a little less than half a tank. Wherever Melinda was going, he hoped it wasn’t too far.

  CHAPTER 38

  Three hours later, with an almost-empty gas tank, Matt saw a sign flash by that welcomed him to Lake Charles. A minute after that, he followed the Mercedes off the interstate and into the first gas station. While Melinda went inside, Matt took the opportunity to fill up. He left his sunglasses on and grabbed a battered fishing cap from the passenger seat that probably belonged to his neighbor. He pulled it low over his eyes and got out to start the pump. Watching the numbers roll by on the tank, he wondered what Melinda was doing in Lake Charles. She didn’t have any family that lived nearby anymore. When her parents died, she and her younger brother, Adam, went to live with their grandmother in Metairie. Now Melinda’s grandmother lived in an assisted living facility in Chalmette. He didn’t know of any other living relatives or friends that Melinda had in Lake Charles. But then again, he was learning new things about Melinda every minute.

  Keeping one eye on the door and the other on the tank, he managed to fill the tank all the way up. Ten minutes had passed, and Melinda still hadn’t come out. He wondered what the hell she was doing. He craned his neck to see inside the store and caught a glimpse of her holding her phone to her ear.
It was just like her to talk on the phone in a public place and not care who she bothered. Just then, she quickly turned, came outside, and got back in her car. She reversed into the stall next to him to get gas. Taking that as his cue to leave, Matt slowly pulled the truck around to the side of the store, where he could still see the exit out of the gas station.

  Matt turned down the radio and called his brother’s cell phone. It went straight to voice mail.

  “Hey, it’s Matt. Just calling to see how the depo went. Also, I wanted to let you know that I decided to go to Baton Rouge for the night. Going to hang out with a few buddies. Check in with ya later.” He thought better of telling his brother what he was up to. If Melinda turned out to be innocent and Matt had revealed his terrible suspicions to his brother, Chris might not ever forgive him. Best to wait and see how it panned out. Within a couple of minutes, he saw the Mercedes pull out of the gas station parking lot.

  He followed Melinda a couple of miles down the two-lane highway. She pulled off the highway onto a road that had a sign that indicated a dead end. Matt decided to play it safe and keep going and then double back. He went down another mile and then turned around. Making a left onto Terre Belle, the dead-end street where Melinda had turned, he looked for her car. Eventually he found it. There were only four houses on the street. All of them looked like they had been built in the late seventies, and only one looked currently occupied. Her car was parked in the driveway on the right side of the street. She had already gone inside. Matt drove down to the end of the street, which faced a lake. He got out his iPad and visited a website that he used a lot at the office. He plugged in the address of the lake house and waited for the search results. If he knew the owner, maybe he could find out why Melinda was here in Lake Charles, so far from home. Less than thirty seconds later, the information was uploaded onto his screen.