Cold Death

by Mary Stone

  “Most people are idiots.”

  Jillian ignored Katarina’s less-than-helpful contribution. “After her society debut, Morrigan started to gradually disappear from the public eye. Rumors were everywhere, speculating that a problem had come up with the adoption or that she’d been sent to a residential program for eating disorders, or drug addiction, or any number of mental illnesses. But locals whispered that her disappearance at fifteen was related to something else altogether.”

  Ellie’s pulse kicked up. “They think she was pregnant?”

  She hazarded a glance at Katarina to gauge her reaction, but the other woman’s expression was inscrutable.

  Jillian nodded. “Yup. When fifteen-year-olds from wealthy families disappear for nine months, it tends to set tongues wagging.” Her smile faded. “Except, she wasn’t pregnant anymore when the newspaper delivery boy stumbled upon her body. She was dead, though. Stabbed so many times that whoever documented the crime scene used the word ‘overkill’ to describe what they found.”

  The gears in Ellie’s head started spinning faster. “They never found who did it?”

  “Nope. No one was ever even arrested, much less convicted. The police were stumped for suspects.”

  Ellie chewed on her cheek. A brutal crime scene. Stumped for suspects. Potential ties to Kingsley. This was all adding up in a horrible way. “So, Morrigan Rhett could have been Letitia and Kingsley’s daughter.”

  Katarina smacked the arm of the chair. “Or she could have been the daughter of about five million other people. This is so stupid. How is speculating on them helping to find my daughter? I doubt this Morrigan person was related to Kingsley, anyway.”

  Jillian studied a paper and shook her head. “I don’t know. I think it’s a real possibility. The timing of the adoption is perfect, plus, the nature of the murder later?”

  “I’m with Jillian. This feels right.”

  Katarina scowled at Ellie. “Is that what the Charleston PD is teaching their officers these days?”

  Ellie rubbed her temples. “Look, I know this probably sucks for you, but try to remember that we’re not doing this for funsies, and we’re not doing this to try to upset you more than you already are. We’re discussing theories that might be useful in finding your daughter.”

  Katarina’s eyes flashed, but she snapped her mouth shut.

  Good. Ellie turned back to Jillian. “So, if Morrigan was pregnant and then murdered, what happened to her baby?”

  In unison, Ellie and Jillian’s heads swiveled to Katarina. Her nostrils flared, and angry red splotches climbed up her neck. She sprang up from the chair, shaking her head. “No. No way. I told you before, this is all bullshit. Christ.”

  She turned her back and began pacing up and down the length of Ellie’s living room, hugging her arms around her waist and muttering under her breath.

  Ellie locked eyes with Jillian again, the two of them coming to a nonverbal agreement. They’d give Katarina a little time to come to terms with the notion that the reason Kingsley had kidnapped Bethany wasn’t simply to seek revenge on Katarina but because he was Bethany’s flesh and blood.

  Bethany’s great-grandfather.

  Which made Katarina his granddaughter.

  Ellie’s phone rang while Katarina was still wearing a path in her carpet. When she glanced at the screen and saw her dad’s number, her gaze flew to the clock. It was after four. Crap, crap, crap, she’d completely spaced on that one o’clock lunch with her mom earlier. Her dad was probably calling to tell her to quit acting like such a terrible daughter and ditching her mom all the time, only in much nicer words.

  “Hi, Dad, I already know what you’re going to say, and I’m so sor—”

  “Is your mother there with you?” Her dad’s voice was clipped and anxious.

  Ellie sat up straight, her nerves firing off in rapid succession. “No, I haven’t seen her all day.”

  A strangled noise reached her ear, and Ellie’s hands turned to ice. Her dad was a rock, so if he was acting scared, something was really wrong. “What is it? What’s happened?”

  “Your mother went out for a meeting this morning, and I haven’t seen or heard from her since.”

  28

  The security command center housed inside a small room at the Gibbes Museum was as streamlined and clean as the rest of the building, but the lack of colorful art gave the room a sterile vibe. That was fine with Ellie because sterile meant fewer distractions. Katarina tagging along with her was almost more distraction than she could handle already. Especially considering the fried state of Ellie’s nerves.

  Ellie had already called the restaurant where she was supposed to have met her mother, but she hadn’t arrived for the reservation, either. Helen’s car was still parked in the museum’s lot and her phone had been powered off. With little else to go on, reviewing video might give her their only clue.

  A long desk held three monitors, arranged in a slight curve. Behind the desk was a wall of even more monitors, all displaying video feeds from various sections of the museum.

  A soft-spoken security guard with a thin white scar that slashed through his left eyebrow and a timid smile hovered near the desk as he explained the setup. “We upgraded our security around three years ago by implementing a custom integration to work with the existing Bosch system. We’re digital and wireless now and have multiple cameras in every gallery, plus additional cameras near admissions, the gift shop, and along the building outside.”

  Ellie held up a hand. She didn’t care about the history of the museum’s security systems, only the information relevant to her search. She motioned to the video files on the closest monitor. “So, I just click on the correct date and search through the files until I find something?”

  “Pretty much. The files are arranged by date and individual camera. I pulled up this morning’s footage for you already, so you should be good to go. You can scroll through and double check every bit of footage we recorded.”

  “Great, thanks.” Ellie dropped into the open chair behind the monitor, clicked on the first file, and began scrolling through the feed, searching for a glimpse of peach. Bless her dad’s heart for paying attention to what her mother wore. Not all men would have noticed, and that small detail made the difference between Ellie having to slo-mo her way through every second of the feed until she recognized Helen Kline or being able to search at a quicker speed.

  Even with that advantage, the process was painfully slow. Every minute that passed ratcheted up Ellie’s anxiety to the next level, because every minute she wasted here was another minute her mom was missing.

  Countless people streamed across the monitor. Men, women, an entire class of elementary-aged children in bright orange shirts. She hit stop when peach caught her eye and slowed the speed, but it was only an elderly woman in a peach sweater.

  Another few minutes elapsed before she paused the recording again. Her heart lurched. There she was, near the visitor’s desk. Looking chic and elegant in her favorite peach blazer and a pair of slim gray slacks. “Got her entering the museum.”

  In the chair next to her, Katarina grunted a nonverbal reply.

  Ellie’s nostrils flared, but she channeled her annoyance into the search. The next glimpse of Helen Kline came ten minutes later when she approached a modern painting comprised of bold slashes of color in one of the third-floor galleries. So brief that Ellie could have blinked and missed her entirely.

  She dug her fingers into the wooden desk to help temper her rising frustration. “Most of these cameras are pointed at the cashiers or the art pieces on display instead of the patrons.”

  The guard slanted a glance at her monitor before clearing his throat. “Right, um…well, the security is here to protect the museum’s assets, not really the patrons. I’m sorry about that.”

  Ellie’s blood heated. “Are you saying that my mother’s countless contributions to this place are irrelevant? That all of the time and effort she’s donated to fundraising don’t
qualify her in your eyes as an asset?”

  The security guard cast a bewildered glance at Katarina, who ignored him and picked at her thumbnail. Her apathy toward this entire endeavor wasn’t doing much to improve Ellie’s mood, either.

  The man tugged at the collar of his starched uniform. “I, uh, that’s not what I meant. I’m sure the museum values the work your mother does for them.” He checked over his shoulder, but there was no one else in the room to run interference for him.

  Logically, Ellie realized that none of this situation was his fault and that she should let him off the hook. But at this precise moment, logic was taking a back seat to stress. Fine, so maybe she wasn’t handling this well, but who could blame her? Her mother was missing, and she didn’t have the time or inclination to mince words.

  She settled back to work, checking the time stamp she’d jotted down from the first clip of her mom by the entrance and rewinding the parking lot footage to ten minutes before that. Two minutes in, she spotted Helen Kline’s Mercedes pulling into a parking space.

  After watching her elegant mother exit the lot and finding nothing amiss, Ellie switched to the footage from the front entrance. Her mom climbed the museum’s steps one minute and forty-three seconds after the parking lot footage ended. Nothing unusual jumped out at Ellie. No strange men lurking around, and definitely no Kingsley.

  From there, she skipped ahead again, to the time when her mom first appeared in the upstairs gallery. Combing through the images was tedious work and strained Ellie’s eyes. Forty-five minutes in, her temples started to ache. She rubbed the spot with her hands and continued to watch.

  So far, she’d caught glimpses of Helen Kline in both third-floor galleries and again on the second floor, peering at a nineteenth-century portrait. After that, she’d shown up multiple times on the camera situated near the atrium. Three times in twenty minutes, which led Ellie to conclude that she was waiting for someone to meet her there.

  As she continued hunting through the feed, Ellie’s hurried conversation with her mom that day in the parking garage before she’d found Fortis sifted through her mind. There’d been a lunch date that she’d agreed to and missed. Apart from jokingly asking Jillian to cancel for her, Ellie had been so wrapped up in the investigation that the meet-up had completely escaped her mind. Until now.

  Her stomach knotted. If only she’d remembered that stupid lunch earlier, they’d have noticed her mom’s disappearance much sooner. Possibly even recovered her by now because Helen Kline’s perfect Southern manners meant never no-showing for a meeting or engagement. Ellie racked her brain, trying to recall what her mom had said about why she’d needed to schedule for a late lunch. Had she mentioned the museum or a meeting? Ellie hadn’t paid enough attention to remember, a fact that she could smack herself for now.

  She never gave her mom enough credit for all her accomplishments. Not that a mom should need to achieve a bunch of stuff in order to gain her daughter’s attention. The truth was, though, that Helen Kline gave endlessly to both their family and community. Only Ellie had been such a crappy daughter lately that her mom’s achievements barely registered.

  Not until after she disappeared.

  Ellie’s heart was a giant boulder in her chest, crushing her ribs with the expanding weight. What if she’d squandered her chance to tell her mom how proud she was of her? Helen Kline was a force of nature. Ellie bet there were queens who hadn’t ruled their kingdoms nearly as well. Her mom had always run the family like a well-oiled machine, somehow managing to keep track of the house, appointments, school, family obligations, and charity work without ever appearing flustered or breaking into a sweat.

  Ellie pressed her fingers to her throbbing temples in hopes the pressure would stop the tornado from tearing through her head.

  Now her mom was missing, along with Bethany. Almost certainly snatched by Kingsley, yet they were no closer to sniffing out his hidey-hole than before.

  Ellie dropped her hands and glared at Katarina, who idly swiveled back and forth with her eyes closed. As if the situation weren’t bad enough, she had a known criminal tagging along on the job. Who knew what the other woman was planning? Ellie certainly had no clue.

  Katarina was as slippery as a wet seal, and Ellie trusted her about as much as she would one of the animals with a net full of fresh fish. “You said you wanted to help, but every time I look at you, you’re not even pretending to check the video feed. I realize you probably don’t give a damn about my mom, but I at least expected you to try, for Bethany’s sake.”

  The chair abruptly stopped spinning when the soles of Katarina’s combat boots smacked the floor. “First, fuck off. Second, fuck off again. Third, Kingsley is too smart to be caught on camera, and on the minuscule chance he was, no one would recognize him. Fourth…”

  She arched her brows at Ellie, who rolled her eyes. “Let me guess…fuck off?”

  The corner of Katarina’s lips nearly reached her ears. “There, see? You really are smarter than you look.”

  Ellie stifled an irritated sigh and snuck a peek at the security guard to gauge his reaction to their extremely unprofessional exchange. His eyes were trained on the monitors like his life depended on it, though his body language spoke wonders. Poor guy had scrunched himself into the half of the chair farthest away from them as if trying to avoid their negative vibes.

  She pressed her palms to her eyes and released a soft moan. She couldn’t blame him. Even she didn’t want to be here. The worst part was that the sick knife twist in her gut told her that Katarina was probably right about Kingsley being too smart to show up in the footage.

  “Tell me about your mother. Is she strong?”

  Katarina’s quiet command triggered another low protest to slip from between Ellie’s lips. Ugh, what fresh hell was this? Was the other woman so bored that she’d decided tormenting Ellie with stupid questions was preferable to scouring the recordings? “Why?”

  “Because with Kingsley, strong women last longer.”

  Shock zinged down Ellie’s spine. Was this some kind of sick game, or was Katarina actually attempting to reassure her? She regarded the woman’s profile with suspicion. “How so?”

  Katarina’s jaw tightened. “Weak women don’t hold his interest for long. He bores easily, and once he’s bored, they’re of no more use to him. It’s different with strong women, though. He appreciates the challenge. Enjoys breaking them first, so they last longer.” She swiveled her head to stare at Ellie, the hard glint in her eyes proving that this was no game. “So, I ask again, is Helen Kline strong?”

  A lump lodged in Ellie’s throat as her mind flashed to the hundreds, maybe thousands of times over the years when she and her mom had butted heads. Nothing made Helen Kline back down from a challenge other than personal choice.

  Was Helen Kline strong? That was like asking if the Charleston summers were hot.

  With difficulty, Ellie swallowed around the lump. “Yeah. She’s one of the strongest women I know.”

  Katarina nodded. “Then focus on that. More than anything else, it will buy us time.”

  Some of the pain behind Ellie’s eyes eased. “Thank you.”

  An unreadable expression flashed across the other woman’s face and vanished again when she smirked. “Don’t bother making me a BFF bracelet yet.”

  “Wasn’t planning on it.”

  “Good.” A brief silence yawned between them. “Do you and your mom get along?”

  The surprise question prompted Ellie to laugh. “Uh, define ‘get along.’”

  “That good, huh?”

  “Pretty much. Don’t get me wrong, my mom is a great person and is a great mom. We’ve just never really agreed on…well, much of anything. Even as a kid, I was different. A tomboy, always dirty and bringing home bugs or frogs. My mom already had two boys and was so excited for a girl. Except I turned out to be wilder and more rebellious than any of the boys in our family, and my very socially correct mother wasn’t quite sure what to do wi
th me.”

  Half of Katarina’s mouth tipped up. “Well, as someone who’s still figuring all this motherhood shit out, I can say with certainty that being a mom isn’t as easy as it looks on TV. And I’ve only been with Bethany for a few months and missed all the difficult baby and toddler stages.”

  The other woman acted like missing those stages was no big deal, but the hands twisting together on the desk told a different story. Ellie studied her former nemesis. “That has to be hard on you, missing all those milestones.”

  Katarina stared at her hands. “Yeah. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t wonder about that, about how things might have been different. But I try not to get too caught up in that line of thinking. Sometimes I even wonder…if maybe it was for the best.”

  Ellie’s heart went out to the woman. “How so?”

  Katarina lifted a shoulder. “I was sixteen when I had her and completely unprepared for all the responsibilities that go along with caring for a kid. From the first day they’re in your care, you are one-hundred-percent responsible for keeping them alive. For meeting their needs, not hurting them, helping them grow into decent humans who have a real shot at a happy, semi-normal life. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll never stop hating him for taking my daughter from me and lying about her being…gone. But at least Bethany ended up in decent homes and wasn’t damaged.”

  To give her privacy, Ellie focused on the monitors while Katarina swiped at her eyes. “I think that’s a pretty impressive realization to have.”

  Katarina waved a hand. “Nah. You know what’s impressive? That your mom managed to raise four kids. Sure, the money helps, but it sounds like all your siblings turned out to be reasonably well-adjusted human beings. Not quite sure what happened to you, but hey, at least you’re not in jail. Yet.”

  Ellie’s laugh was genuine. “Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence.”