by Boone, Lisa
She shook her head.
“Unreliable?” he asked looking back up.
“No, not at all. I could count on him for anything.”
“Did he like to drink or gamble?”
“Not that I know of.”
“What about his family?”
“He was alone. Most everyone he loved had died.”
“Would you say he was a sentimental man?”
“Yeah, I guess so,” she said with a chuckle at the rapid-fire series of questions. “He talked about his father a lot.”
“Did he have any recent head injuries that you knew of?”
She laughed. “No.”
“How professional was he?”
“Very.” She laid her hands on his arms. “Look, I trusted Quincy. He was a nice guy. He was always on time. Pleasant. Personable. I never had any trouble with him.”
He paused for a second. “Did he have any enemies?”
Madison threw her hands up. “I have no idea. He never mentioned any but he was a detective and before that a police officer. I’m sure he made several people angry during his career.”
“Did he mention anyone in particular before he disappeared?”
“Disappeared?” She frowned. “He retired. He didn’t disappear.”
Ethan crossed his arms. “After I spoke to you on the phone, I did a little digging on your friend Quincy. It appears he cut ties with everyone he knows on or around August ninth.” He held up a finger. “Not personally. All of it was done by email, but as near as I could tell, he gave all his friends a version of the same story with some slight changes.”
“August ninth?” She bit her lip. “I think that’s when he sent Nicole an email saying he was retiring and moving to Florida.”
His brow furrowed. “And no one seemed to think that was strange? That he just picked up and left without another word?”
“Not really. His wife died a year before and he was still having a hard time adjusting to life without her.”
“Did he ever mention anything to you about winning the lottery?”
She leaned back in surprise. “No, why? Do you think he won some money?”
“I went to Quincy’s last known address and spoke to his landlord. According to him, Quincy sent an email on August ninth telling him that he won two million in a lottery and was moving to Florida. Told the guy that he could sell his stuff or throw it out, but that he didn’t want it, so the landlord chucked all of Quincy’s stuff—at least the items he couldn’t sell into the trash.”
“Why would Quincy be in such a hurry to leave?”
“I don’t know, but just as I was about to leave, I ran into one of Quincy’s neighbors. Nice guy. He said Quincy was a good friend of his so he saved some of Quincy’s things just in case Quincy came back to collect them. He showed me some of the stuff he pulled from the trash. He had Quincy’s baby pictures, Quincy’s wedding album, his parent’s wedding album, stock certificates, medals from his stint in the army, medals from his father’s stint in the army, old family photos dating back to the late eighteen hundreds, love letters from his wife and his desk calendar.”
“Quincy wouldn’t have abandoned those things, especially not the love letters. He adored his wife.”
“Yeah, Sam didn’t think so either, but didn’t know what else to do, so he just boxed it all up and put it away.” He frowned. “I think something may have happened to Quincy.”
Madison felt a lump form in her throat. “Can you find out what he was working on last? Maybe that could explain—”
“I already did. I checked his appointment book and the only thing he had going on that week was an appointment at the Oak Tree Retirement Village on August eighth, but I don’t think it’s connected to his disappearance.”
“Well, wait, what was he doing there?”
“He had a client consultation with a Mrs. Rose Andrews.”
“Have you been able to find out what it was about?”
“Yeah, it’s a dead end though. She told me that she wanted Quincy to find out what happened to Arthur Jackson Sloan.”
“Who’s he?”
“Her father. He died in France about 1917 when Mrs. Andrews was a baby.”
“Making her about…?”
“Ninety-seven years old. She’s partially blind and in a wheelchair, but her mind is still as sharp as a tack. She’s convinced the army shipped her mother the wrong body after the war. She went as far as to have her dad’s body exhumed from the family crypt a few years ago. Got a good enough DNA sample to prove that she had been right all along. The guy in the crypt wasn’t her father. She said that she gave Quincy some jewelry and papers the army had sent to her mother along with the so-called imposter’s body. She was hoping they might lead Quincy to her real father’s grave. Quincy said sure, no problem, and that he’d be in touch. He called her son, set up a meeting for that afternoon, and then promptly disappeared. Neither Rose nor the son ever heard from him again.”
She furrowed her brow as she crossed her arms. “Do you think that someone out there doesn’t want her to find her real dad’s body or something?”
“No,” he said shaking his head, “not at all. I’m almost a hundred percent sure his disappearance has anything to do with Rose or her father.”
“Why not? If he disappeared only a few hours after taking the case, then it seems like there might be a connection.”
“I spoke to two of her sons this morning. They both told me that it was a well-known family secret that their grandmother had found comfort with the family doctor while her husband was overseas. They showed me a picture of the doctor and another one of Rose when she was young. Rose definitely inherited some of the doctor’s features and her oldest son happens to be the spitting image of the good ole doctor. One of the guys said he told Quincy that when he spoke to him on the phone an hour after Quincy met with Mrs. Andrews. Quincy was supposed to go right over to take a look at the picture he had of the doctor, but he said Quincy never showed. There’s really no mystery here. Rose just refuses to believe that the doctor was her real father. She’s convinced the government sent the wrong body home and that the real A. J. Sloan is buried in someone else’s grave.”
Madison stepped back and sat down in the chair next to the couch. She didn’t think Quincy was a thief but she had to ask. “You said that Quincy came into some money before he took off?”
“That’s what he told his landlord in the email he sent him.”
“Was the jewelry Rose gave him expensive?”
The corner of his mouth lifted up in amusement. “That’s what I asked too. Both Mrs. Anderson and her two sons said no. Except for a cheap silver wedding band, most of the jewelry was badly damaged in the war.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I, but from what I’ve learned about Quincy, he doesn’t seem the type to take an old lady’s case and then take off. He also doesn’t seem to be the type to call you up out of the blue two months later and try to scare you.”
“No, but…that was his voice over the phone. I’m almost positive.” She raised her eyebrows. “So, what do we do now?”
“We file a missing person’s report. Get the police to look for him. In the meantime, I’ll go through his old appointments. Perhaps, I’ll uncover something there.”
She looked up. “You might check the news station for any information. They flashed his picture up on the screen the other night.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. By the time the bartender turned up the volume, the news anchor was focused on some old abandoned building on the outskirts of town.”
“Okay, I’ll look into it.”
She closed her eyes and tried to take a calming breath. “Ethan, I’m starting to get scared,” she said, her voice choking up at the end. “I didn’t want to say anything today. I thought it could wait until tomorrow, but I think I may be in trouble. I think someone’s been in my apartment. When I came home last night, I found the window w
ide open. I didn’t open it and neither did Sarah.”
Ethan took her hand in his. “Did you call the police?”
“Yeah, they came out and took a report. You should have seen their faces when I told them that nothing was missing. I felt like a fool.”
“Don’t think that way. Did you tell them about Paul?”
“Yes, but I had no proof it was Paul that had broken in. I couldn’t even prove that someone had broken in. They didn’t even find any damage to the locks.” She stood up and walked toward the fireplace. “Yesterday, someone was following me in the mall.”
His brow furrowed. “What happened?”
“Nothing,” she said with a small laugh. “I accidently knocked into this guy in a Santa suit and he stared at me.” Her laugh grew strained as she ran her hand down her face. “I told that to the police too. They think I’m nuts. All the guy did was stare at me. He didn’t hurt me, but I was convinced he wanted to. He was just acting so strange.”
“Madison, come here,” he said sliding off the arm of the couch and sitting down. He held out his hand, pulling her toward him as she came closer.
“Ethan, I’m jumping at shadows,” she said falling into his embrace. “I can’t seem to shake this feeling that I’m in danger. Little things keep happening. By themselves, they don’t mean anything, but when you add them up…” She leaned back, curling up next to him. “Sometimes at night, I would hear someone moving around in the apartment and the next morning, I would get up and things would be moved. Nothing big. A vase would be missing and I’d find it in the kitchen cabinet. The plant on the windowsill next to the bookshelves would be moved to the other window. Just little things. I just assumed it was Sarah, but when I asked her, she denied it. I didn’t…” She pursed her lips together. “I didn’t believe her.” She made a fist. “But now, these things are happening more and more and now I’m getting weird phone calls from someone I thought was a friend. Between Paul and these creepy calls, I don’t know what to do.”
“When did you first notice something strange happening?”
“I don’t know. Six months ago, I guess. Shortly after Sarah came to live with me. That’s why I thought it was her.” Feeling ashamed at having suspected her own sister, her eyes began to water. “I know Sarah would never do anything intentionally to annoy or bother me,” she said rushing to explain why she suspected her sister. “It’s just that she went through something traumatic when she was living in New York and I thought that perhaps she just wasn’t aware of what she was doing, but now I’m starting to wonder if it was someone else.”
When tears began to roll down her cheeks, he wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close, laying her head on his chest. He ran his hand down her hair, lightly stroking it. “Other than your sister coming to live with you, what else was going on around that time?”
“Nothing really.” She paused as she thought back to the summer. “Someone broke into my home, but it happened a couple of weeks before Sarah moved in.” She laid her hand against his chest and pushed herself up so she could look him in the eye. “In fact, someone broke into Quincy’s place a week later.”
“Did they catch the guy?”
She shook her head before cuddling up against him again.
“Any suspects?”
“No, but Vanessa Harris had just came to see me about divorcing her husband.”
His hand stilled against her hair. “That’s interesting. What connection does Quincy have with Paul?”
She raised her head again. “Eight months ago, Vanessa Harris got the idea that her husband was cheating on her, so she hired Quincy to find out if she was right. He discovered that Paul was sleeping with a nineteen year old college student who babysat their kids once in a while and that jewelry that she thought she had lost—jewelry that she inherited from her mother, mind you—he had given to the nineteen year old. Vanessa tossed him out on his rear and came to see me to begin divorce proceedings.”
“Did you suspect him at the time?”
She shook her head. “No, not at all. I had barely started the divorce proceedings when Vanessa changed her mind and decided to give counseling a try. I didn’t reopen the file until a couple of months ago when Vanessa found Paul in bed with her best friend.”
“So, Paul has a reason to hate you and Quincy.”
“What if he has Quincy hidden away somewhere? What if he’s forcing him make these phone calls? You should hear his voice. It sounds like he’s in pain.”
Ethan looked thoughtful. “Quincy’s been missing for five months now. I can’t believe Paul’s hiding him somewhere for that long of a time. He’s definitely not hiding him in the Waverly Hotel. I know that.”
Madison clenched her fist. “I can’t believe that all this time I’ve been blaming Sarah. I should have known she wasn’t doing any of this. It has to be Paul.” She paled. “He’s been walking in and out of my apartment for months now and I had no idea. I was crazy for suspecting Sarah,” she said laying her head back down. She closed her eyes, willing herself to relax as she listened to his strong heartbeat.
“Why did you suspect your sister?”
“I thought she might have been doing the things subconsciously as a result of post traumatic shock or something.”
“Why? What happened to her?”
“She used to be a ballerina, and one afternoon after practice, someone in a mask attacked her and her friend.”
“What did he do to them?” he asked gently.
“He hit Sarah’s friend, broke her nose and knocked her unconscious. Then he turned on Sarah.” She wiped away another tear. “He took out a knife and slashed her face. Then when she fell down, he took out a metal pipe and he broke her leg in three places. He would’ve done more, but thankfully, a couple of people heard her screams and came running. The creep took off in the opposite direction. They never found him.”
“Will she be able to dance again?”
“Not like before. She suffered extensive damage to her kneecap. She’s had several surgeries to try to fix it but the doctor recommended that she find another profession. Dancing is all that she’s known since she was five years old. She studied dance, lived dance, and breathed dance, and some psychopath in a ski mask took it all from her. She came here to live with me soon after.”
“And that’s about when all the problems started.” After a moment, he said, “What you just described doesn’t really sound like some random mugging. It sounds like she was targeted. Whoever attacked her wanted to hurt her. Wanted to destroy her career.”
Madison made a face. “Who would want to intentionally hurt Sarah? She’s one of the nicest, kindest people I know.”
“Another ballerina? Jealousy, perhaps.”
“Everyone loved her.”
“Has she ever met Paul?”
“No. Never.”
She felt his shoulders lift. “Maybe it was just a coincidence,” he muttered to himself softly.
“Her attack?”
“Yeah, I was just wondering if there was a connection with what happened to her and what’s been happening to you.”
“I don’t see how. She was in New York at the time. She had nothing to do with Paul or Vanessa and she barely knew Quincy.”
“Just a coincidence then.” Ethan lifted his wrist and checked his watch. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “I’m sorry, baby, I’ve got to go soon.”
She sat up with a frown. “Already?”
“I have an appointment in an hour. I don’t want to be late.”
“On Christmas Day?”
“I’m afraid so. You all are heading back to Lexington tonight, aren’t you?” At her nod, he said, “I’d prefer it if we left together.” He nodded to the window. “Just in case whoever was out there decides to come back.”
Madison felt a shiver race down her spine. “That’s a happy thought. Are you sure you can’t come all the way back to Lexington with us? Maybe reschedule your meeting for tomorrow?”
His
expression turned pensive. “Madison, I don’t want to scare you any further than you already are but I don’t think we have much time. Quincy or someone who sounds like him is calling you up and counting down to something. Whatever that something is, it can’t be good. The man left everything behind when he disappeared. I have no idea whether he left of his own free will or someone took him, but I think it’s safe to say something bad is coming and I plan on stopping it from happening.”
A knock sounded against the door. Sarah poked her head in. “Sorry to interrupt. Have you seen Rory?” She bent down as Rory raced toward her. “Did you miss me?” She lowered her voice as she looked from Madison to Ethan and then back to Rory. “They’ve been talking about me, haven’t they? Good thing I have you in here to spy on them.” Scooping Rory into her arms, she stood up and smiled at Ethan. “Don’t believe a word my sister says about me. It’s all lies.” She wagged her finger in front of his face. “I could tell you stories about her. For instance, did you know that she was voted most likely—”
“Hey,” Madison said quickly, “I told him that you were the best dancer I’ve ever seen.”
Sarah’s lips quirked up. “Oh, sure, now you did. What were you saying earlier?”
Chuckling, Madison nudged Ethan with her knee. “A little help here.”
“She was saying all good things about you,” Ethan assured her.
“As she should.” Sarah smiled brightly. “So, Ethan, what’s it like being a private eye? Been in any good car chases today?”
Madison rolled her eyes. “You’ll have to excuse Sarah, she watches a lot of film noir.”
“Yes,” Sarah said, her blue eyes twinkling in merriment, “and I’m sure each one is an accurate reflection of Ethan’s life. So, meet any femme fatales lately?”
“Not today,” he said as his eyes flicked to Madison, “but it’s still early. Perhaps things will liven up when I pick my trench coat and fedora up from the dry cleaners.”
“Well, I certainly hope so.” She turned to Madison. “Grandpa said that it’s getting late and if we wait too long we may get snowed in.”
Their heads automatically turned to the window as the snow gently fell from the sky.