“I see you found everything,” she said, glancing around the dated decor of the kitchen, feeling a twinge of shame, then anger that she cared what this man thought of her or her family home. Then she gave a dry laugh. “But I forget that you saw everything when you searched our house during Wesley’s arrest, didn’t you?”
He handed her a mug of coffee and skimmed her, head to grass-stained toes, with his dark gaze. “Well, I didn’t see everything.”
Her skin hummed with awareness, but Carlotta blamed it on the dwindling buzz. She averted her eyes and took a seat at the table stacked with mail and other clutter where a notebook, pen, and police radio lay. “Will this take long?” she murmured, then took a sip of the surprisingly good coffee.
“I hope not,” he said. “I was really hoping to get some sleep tonight.”
“Me, too.”
“Then let’s get to it.” Jack picked up the pen and took a deep drink. “Now then…tell me about this business with your cell phone.”
She relayed the details, excluding the part about why she had dropped her cell phone in the first place.
“I’ll need your account number,” he said.
She balked, wondering how closely he might examine her phone records. “I…don’t have it handy.”
“That’s all right. I have your cell number so I’ll go from there. When did you first notice unusual activity on your bill?”
“Uh, I didn’t.” Carlotta glanced at the pile of mail and her cheeks warmed. “I’m a little behind on my payments.”
A corner of his mouth twitched, as if to say he wasn’t surprised. “Tell me about the incident at the body shop.”
She told him the name and address of the place and what the man had said to her, and described again the evidence that someone else had picked up her car.
“And he thought it was you?”
“Yes, he seemed certain that I had been in the shop earlier.”
“So maybe this woman looked like you.”
“Or maybe she was wearing a disguise. Wigs are easy to come by, you know.”
“Oh? Are you speaking from experience?”
Her cheeks warmed. “Just general knowledge.” She took a quick drink from her mug to divert attention from the subject—no use divulging her own party-crashing techniques. That was all in her past anyway. Although her wigs and a few getups were still in the garage, in the trunk of the white Miata that had simply died on her, which had led to test-driving and getting stuck with the Monte Carlo.
“You should contact all three credit bureaus tomorrow,” he said. “Get a current credit report to see if any other suspicious activity shows up.”
“Okay.” Although she’d promised herself that she would get her finances in order, at the moment, it seemed like a daunting task.
“Can you think of anything else unusual that’s happened lately?”
Carlotta angled her head at Jack. “You mean other than being implicated in Angela Ashford’s death, being stalked by a murderer and the little shootout in the mall parking deck?”
“Yeah. Other than all that.”
She stopped as the thought of her father calling came back to her with ringing clarity. Could the two incidents possibly be connected?
“What?” Jack asked tersely. “You’re hiding something from me, I can tell.”
Her mind raced for a plausible lie, then seized upon something perfectly legitimate and pointed to the vase of fading roses sitting on the breakfast bar. “Actually, I was thinking about the flowers I received yesterday.”
“From Peter?” he asked dryly.
“They weren’t from Peter. The card was signed ‘Thanks for a great time, Mason,’ but I don’t know anyone by that name.”
“Did you call the florist?”
“Yeah. I tried to tell them the delivery must have been a mistake, but I didn’t get very far.”
Jack nodded. “So maybe our ID thief had a date as you, and the guy sent you roses meant for her.”
“Maybe.” She frowned. “I haven’t had a date as me in ages…how could someone posing as me have a date?”
“Maybe you shouldn’t be so prickly.”
“Excuse me?”
“Sorry—didn’t mean to say that out loud.” He coughed lightly. “Do you still have the card that came with the flowers?”
Carlotta nodded and parted the roses to retrieve the card. “I don’t see it. I had it in the break room at work, but I must have dropped it on the way home. Ow!” She grimaced at the drop of blood on her finger.
Jack reached for her hand and removed a handkerchief from his pocket to wrap around her finger.
“I need you to write down the name of the florist.”
“If I can remember it.” Then she remembered the postcard from her parents that he’d confiscated from her days earlier. “I don’t guess anything came of the last piece of correspondence you took from me?”
He frowned. “One case at a time, okay? Although with you, I’m starting to lose track.”
She crossed her arms, all too aware of her over-bandaged finger. “Are we finished here?”
“I guess so—for now.”
“Where’s my car?”
“Impound lot. And now that we have a different crime on our hands, it’ll probably be a while before you get it back.”
“Oh, that’s perfect.”
“Can’t be helped, but I’ll keep you posted.”
Carlotta bit into her lip. “You can reach me here. I, uh, decided to take a few days off from Neiman’s.”
Jack seemed preoccupied with putting away his pen, then he gave her a sympathetic look. “It’s okay, Carlotta. I contacted your boss after the accident, hoping that you were still at work. I know that you’re on suspension.”
“Oh.” Her cheeks flamed with embarrassment. “Does Lindy think I’m dead, too?”
“I didn’t tell her why I was calling.”
“So you thought that being suspended had driven me to suicide?”
He looked uncomfortable. “Well, there were other things. Wesley said you’d been in a funk the past couple of days. And you have been through a lot.”
“Since you put it that way, I guess I do have every reason to throw myself off a bridge.”
He reached forward and cupped her chin, running his thumb along her jawbone. “Don’t even joke about something like that.”
His intensity and tenderness surprised her. Carlotta blinked as the moment went from teasing to passionate. Her lips parted and she was struck with the feeling that Jack Terry could be her strongest ally. Or her most dangerous adversary.
He wet his lips.
She wet hers.
Then he dropped his hand and stood up. “Get some rest, okay? Not everyone gets a second chance at living.”
She followed him through the living room to the door and stood there as he backed out of the driveway, the headlights of his car sweeping over her. Suddenly the incongruity of what had transpired began to sink in, along with the scene she had confronted when she arrived. All of them—Wesley, Jack, Cooper and Peter—had thought she was dead. Her words to June that no one would miss her came back to her. The men in her life had appeared to be affected by her alleged suicide.
And, Carlotta realized when she saw her hand shaking on the door handle, so had she. The tremor encompassed her arm, then her shoulders, then her entire body. She’d been plagued by the feeling that her life wasn’t entirely hers. And she’d been right. Someone had taken her identity, then taken their own life.
Resolve swelled in her chest. She had to find out who the desperate woman was—and prove to herself that the two of them had absolutely nothing in common.
14
Carlotta roused slowly from the thick haze of sleep to the insistent ringing of the telephone. She pulled the covers over her head, hoping Wesley would get it. When the noise persisted, she dragged herself out of bed and searched for the extension buried under a pile of clothes on her dresser. Her head pounded from l
ast night’s excursion to the cigar bar. She might have narrowly escaped death, but right now she felt somewhat less than alive.
Pushing the hair out of her eyes, she yanked up the receiver and croaked, “Hello.”
The silence of an open line sounded in her ear.
“Hello,” she repeated.
A click sounded, disconnecting the call. With a frown, Carlotta glanced at the caller ID to see that it had been made from a one-call Internet dialing service, like those used by political campaigns around election days. She groaned and returned the receiver to the clothes’ pile, only to hear the doorbell ring three times in succession.
“The one morning I could sleep in because I don’t have a job,” she mumbled, “and people won’t leave me the hell alone.”
“Wesley!” She opened her bedroom door and yelled again. “Wesley, are you here?”
From behind his door sounded the drone of a fan which he sometimes used to soundproof his room. He didn’t answer and the chiming continued.
Carlotta sighed and walked to the front window, guessing the time to be about six o’clock. She shoved aside the curtain to see Jack Terry’s sedan sitting in the driveway and him standing on the stoop in the semi-darkness, his finger on her bell.
How fitting.
She groaned, unlocked the door and swung it open, leaning heavily on the doorknob. “Detective, why didn’t you just spend the night?”
“Maybe some other time,” he said, pushing past her and grabbing her arm. He pulled her out of the doorway, then closed the door.
“Ow! What’s with the manhandling?”
“Sorry,” he said gruffly, then yanked the curtain closed. “We need to talk…again.”
She smothered a yawn. “Can I at least get a robe—and an aspirin?”
He skimmed the bare limbs exposed by her sleep shorts and jersey camisole and the barest hint of teasing humor sparked in his dark eyes. “If you insist.”
She frowned and jerked her thumb toward the kitchen. “You know where the coffeemaker is.” Carlotta retraced her steps to her bedroom. As she tied the belt of her favorite yellow chenille robe around her waist, she caught a glimpse of her bed-head hair and the dark circles under her eyes. Oh, well, when the man showed up unexpectedly at the crack of dawn, what did he expect?
But her nonchalance fought with the rising panic in her chest as she made her way back to the kitchen. Now fully awake, she knew that Jack Terry’s appearance couldn’t be good news. Her one comfort was that Wesley was safe in his room.
She padded into the kitchen and took in the view of Jack standing with his back to her, looking out the window over the sink as the coffeemaker sputtered and sent the aroma of strong coffee floating on the air. He was dressed in slacks, shirt and tie; his hair was still wet from the shower. A shiver of awareness ran over her at the sight of a man in her kitchen at this hour.
She cleared her throat to announce her presence.
Jack pulled the curtain closed and turned to face her, his expression tense. It was some consolation that whatever he was about to tell her, he wasn’t happy about being the messenger.
“Are you going to make me ask?”
He gestured to the table, still strewn with the mugs and paper napkins from last night. “Have a seat.”
“We could take our coffee out on the deck,” she suggested, nodding toward the back door.
“Not a good idea. I came to ask you to lie low for a while.”
She took a seat at the table and pushed her hair over one ear. “What do you mean?”
Jack poured their coffee, then joined her at the table. From his pocket he removed a packet of aspirin and slid them across the table to her. “Kelvin Lucas was my alarm clock this morning. He read the report about the jumper—identified as you—in the newspaper this morning. I told him it was a case of mistaken identity.”
“Bet that ruined his day,” Carlotta said dryly, thinking of how the D.A. had threatened her in the courtroom after Wesley had been released on probation. She tossed back the tablets and chased them with coffee so strong it made her gasp.
“Lucas doesn’t have anything against you. It’s your father he wants.”
“And?”
“And he suggested that instead of correcting the news report, we…let it ride for a few days.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Let it ride? You mean, let people believe that I killed myself?”
He shifted uncomfortably, then gave her a curt nod.
She opened her mouth to ask why, then realization dawned. “He thinks the news will bring my parents out of hiding.”
Jack nodded again.
“And what do you think about the idea?” she asked, feeling sick to her stomach.
He took his time answering. “I can’t say I agree with the methodology, but he’s probably right.”
She swallowed hard. “You think my parents will show up at my funeral?”
He looked up, his eyes suddenly sympathetic. “You don’t?”
The clump of emotion in her chest was expelled in a harsh laugh. “I have no idea.” Then Carlotta chose her words carefully. “What makes you think they would even hear about it?”
He stood to gather the newspaper from the counter. Her suicide had made page two of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The nighttime photo showed her Monte Carlo on the overpass surrounded by emergency vehicles, looking down at another scene of chaos below. The headline read “Buckhead Woman With Troubled Past Takes Own Life.”
Her breath caught at the photo, knowing that pieces of a body lay under the sheets on the street. “Christ, what does a person have to do to make the front page in this city?”
“From the last postcard your parents sent,” Jack said, “they’re aware that you and Wesley still live at this address, so I’m assuming that they’re keeping tabs on you to some degree.” He coughed lightly. “And Lucas said he’d make sure that the story hit the wires today.”
So everyone in the country would think she was dead. “My boss…my friends.” Hannah, God, she couldn’t let Hannah think she was dead.
“We can let your employer in the loop, but the fewer people who know, the better. Wesley and Coop will have to go along too. And Ashford, since he knows. If you agree to this,” he added.
She put a hand to her forehead. “I can’t think right now. What would I have to do?”
“Stay here, away from the windows. Don’t leave the house and don’t answer the door or the phone. We’ll have the house under surveillance and put a tap on the phone.”
“But what about the truth? What about the woman who died?”
“I already talked to Dr. Abrams. He and I will quietly conduct the investigation into her identity.”
Her mind spun with the ramifications—Jack Terry didn’t know it, but her father was keeping tabs on them. And as terrible as it would be to lure her parents out under such a horrible pretense, how much worse would it be if they didn’t bother to show? She wasn’t sure if she could withstand that kind of blow.
Carlotta shook her head. “I can’t do it.”
Jack pressed his lips in a thin line. “Lucas thought you might have reservations, so he told me that he could arrange for Wesley’s five-thousand dollar fine from the arrest to be rescinded and perhaps his probation time reduced.”
“If I agree to this…hoax?”
“Right. And then there’s the reward money.”
Carlotta squinted. “What reward money?”
“Ten years ago the firm that your father worked for put up a one-hundred-thousand dollar reward for information leading to the capture of your father. It’s still in effect.”
She blinked in surprise. “Mashburn and Tully? I had no idea.” Did Peter know?
“Lucas said if this pans out, he’ll arrange for you to have the reward money.”
“For turning in my father?”
Jack put down his cup and reached forward to touch her arm. “I know this is hard for you, but think of it as a way for you and your
brother to…make up for lost time. Wesley could go to college. And you could start over too—do things that you’ve always dreamed of.”
She bit into her lip in confusion. The ramifications were simply too far-reaching for her to comprehend.
“Carlotta, your father will be caught eventually, especially now that Lucas is back on his trail.”
“And you,” she said, pulling her arm away from his touch.
“And me,” he agreed. “Luring your father in like this is the safest way to take him into custody. If we have to hunt him down, someone could get hurt.”
One or both of her parents or even Jack. Her mind raced; there had to be another way. She could tell Jack about her father calling her and Peter and let him follow those leads to Randolph Wren. But if she did it this way, Lucas would fix Wesley’s fine. And the reward money…Wesley could go to Emory with that kind of money…become a scientist…cure something.
To stall for time, she took another drink but the coffee left a metallic taste in her mouth.
Jack’s phone rang. He glanced at the screen. “That’s Lucas. I need your answer.”
“What’s going on?”
Carlotta turned to look at Wesley, who walked into the kitchen, dressed for his job as a body mover.
Her brother with the genius IQ was moving bodies for a living.
“Tell Lucas I’ll do it,” she said to Jack.
Jack stared at her for the space of two heartbeats, then stood and walked to the far end of the kitchen to take the call.
“Lucas?” Wesley asked. “Kelvin Lucas, the asshole D.A.? What’s going on?”
“Sit down and I’ll tell you,” Carlotta said, feeling resolute, but ill. “Don’t interrupt. And—for once—you’re going to do exactly what I say, young man. No arguments.”
15
Wesley stared at Carlotta, unable to believe what she was proposing. Incredulous, he pushed up from the table and snorted with anger. “Pretend you’re dead to draw out Mom and Dad? No way.”
Carlotta sighed. “I know it sounds drastic, but it also makes sense.”
“For the lousy reward money?” he screeched. “We’d be selling out to the cops!” He glared at Detective Terry who was returning his phone to his belt.
“It’s a good deal for you, Wesley,” the man said. “If everything goes as planned, Kelvin Lucas is willing to reduce your probation and your fine.”
Body Movers: 2 Bodies for the Price of 1 Page 9