His partner picked up: “What’s going on?” He sounded confused.
“His car is gone,” Ken said. “Were you asleep? Over.”
“No.”
“You’re lying.”
Ken could hear some movement, then a car door opening and shutting. “Fuck me!” Deshawn said. “It’s gone.”
“You better pray he just stepped out for a quickie with his newslady girlfriend,” Ken said. “Haul ass up to the front desk and get a key card for two-twenty-seven. Call me as soon as you get there, and please, please, please, tell me his stuff is still there in the room. Otherwise, Sweaty Betty’s going to bust our balls. Move it! Over!”
He clicked off. Then he grabbed his cell phone and switched off the Tom Hanks movie.
Something on the monitor for the garage caught his eye. Ken watched the grainy video, still playing in reverse. The BMW backed into the TV frame, stopped in front of the doctor’s parking place, then it turned forward into the spot. Nothing happened for a few seconds. Then the driver’s door opened, and a man in a dark hooded sweater climbed out of the car—back first. He seemed to reach inside and pull out a small duffel bag. Shutting the door, he started walking backward toward the edge of the monitor screen.
Ken stopped the video and played it forward. He tried to catch a glimpse of Knoll’s face—just to verify it was him. Maybe someone had stolen the guy’s car.
He slowed down the video and carefully watched it again, but he still couldn’t see the face of the man in the hoodie. From the guy’s build and height, he looked like Knoll. Ken figured they’d have to search for him on the security videos for the other exits and on the elevator to the garage.
Ken heard static on the two-way radio: “Hey, Stoecker, are you there? Over.”
“Yeah, what is it?” he answered.
“I’m in his room. A suitcase and some clothes are here, and the TV’s still on. But I’ve got a feeling he’s packed some of his stuff.”
“What do you mean?” Ken asked. But Deshawn must have still had his thumb on the talk button, because there was no response.
“What’s here isn’t enough to fill this suitcase,” Deshawn continued. “Plus there’s nothing in the bathroom—y’know, toothpaste, toothbrush, shaving shit. I have a feeling he packed another bag and split. Over.”
Ken stared at the slightly blurry, frozen image on the TV monitor: the hooded man with a duffel bag—reaching for the car door.
He took a deep breath. “Okay, you call it in.” He glanced at the date and time at the bottom of the TV monitor. “Suspect, Russell Knoll, last seen in a dark hoodie sweater, left the Silver Cloud Inn, on his own steam, at six thirty-seven p.m. He’s driving a black BMW, license plate . . . whatever the hell his license plate number is. Do you have it written down?”
“I memorized it—K-K-C-four-oh-five. Washington plate.”
“I’m going to keep looking for him on these security videos,” Ken said, feeling sick to his stomach. “You call it in that the suspect’s at large. Over.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Tuesday, July 14—6:40 P.M.
On TV, there was another commercial, this one for an auto insurance company—with some guy in a gorilla suit driving a car.
George returned to his spot on the sofa, and Anna was about to sit down beside him. But then she figured, in a couple of minutes, George’s wife would be on national television, accusing the two of them of God knows what. So Anna sank down in the easy chair instead.
On TV, a few bars of The Sally Justice Show theme played, and Sally returned, once again perched behind her judge’s desk. She had her trademark stern look. “Welcome back!” she said. “If you just joined us, we’re examining the disappearance of bestselling author Courtney Knoll. I just got word during the break that Courtney’s new Defective Squad adventure, Silent Rage, just went into a second printing. Along with her two previous books, The Defective Squad and Blind Fury, it’s now one of the top sellers on Amazon and at Barnes & Noble.”
Eyes on the screen, Anna sipped her wine. She still wondered if it was possible that Courtney had somehow orchestrated this whole thing for the publicity—and to stick it to Russ and her. But it was hard to hold on to that hypothesis now that the police had the carry-on filled with bloodstained towels, Courtney’s purse, and her phone. Still, Anna couldn’t figure out why anyone would kill Courtney and then go to so much trouble to make it appear as if she’d run away. It was the type of thing only a murderous husband might do, and Anna refused to believe Russ was capable of that.
Sally finished her recap of Courtney’s disappearance. Then an unflattering photo of Anna came up on the screen—beside a shot of Russ, who didn’t seem capable of taking a bad picture. “Jesus-please-us, where does she get these terrible photos of you?” George asked. “You look drunk and pissed off.”
Anna just shrugged and shook her head in resignation.
“By their own admission,” Sally said, “Courtney’s husband, Dr. Russell Knoll, and Seattle TV reporter Anna Malone have been carrying on an illicit affair for quite some time.”
Another clip—with Property of KIXI-TV News emblazoned across the bottom of it—came on the screen: Anna’s announcement on Monday evening’s news show. “I spoke to the Seattle Police this morning to clarify my role in the events that led up to Courtney’s disappearance early Friday morning,” Anna said from the news desk. “But I omitted one detail—which is that I’ve been in a relationship with Courtney’s husband, Dr. Russell Knoll, for eighteen months.”
Sally came back on the screen. She clicked her tongue and shook her head. “This bombshell hit us just forty-eight hours after Anna Malone had made what seemed like a video valentine about Courtney for her news program,” Sally pointed out.
On the screen, they showed a muted scene from the KIXI-TV News puff piece with Anna talking to Courtney. “And just think about it,” Sally narrated. “When this was airing on Friday night, Anna Malone already knew that Courtney had disappeared. She and Courtney’s husband were still keeping it a secret. Look how chummy-chummy she is with her lover’s wife! Butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.”
“Oh brother,” George murmured.
Anna took another swallow of wine.
“Just who is this Anna Malone?” Sally asked, as a more flattering photo of Anna appeared in a box over her shoulder. “It’s stunning how much we don’t know about the people we trust to bring us our news every night on TV. We know from her official KIXI-TV News biography online that Anna Malone is thirty-four years old—”
“Try thirty-one, Sally,” Anna grumbled.
“She studied broadcasting in college,” Sally went on. “Then she worked at a small TV station in Spokane before joining the KIXI-TV news team in Seattle two years ago. Here’s what the official biography doesn’t say.”
Anna’s least favorite childhood photo—eighth-grade graduation—came up on the screen. Even with the acne airbrushed out, it was terrible. She smiled awkwardly, her mouth closed to hide her braces, and her hair looked greasy from some product she’d put in it the night before to remove the frizz.
This dissolved to a photo of the big, impressive red-brick house in which she’d spent her childhood.
“Like her married lover, Anna also had a privileged childhood, growing up in this mansion on Bainbridge Island, Washington. But to say she came from a dysfunctional family would be putting it politely. Criminal would be a more accurate adjective. Her older brother, Stuart, was arrested several times before he ran away from home and completely disappeared at age eighteen.”
They showed a slightly fuzzy snapshot of Stu, one Anna hadn’t seen in a long time. Her heart ached to look at it now. She glanced back at George, who knew all about her family. He caught her eye and gave her a sympathetic look.
Turning back toward the TV, Anna saw another old photo fill the screen: her and her father at some silly high school daddy-daughter dinner dance. Then there was a studio portrait taken of him for his company newsletter�
��the same one used for his obituary. “When Anna was sixteen,” Sally continued, “her financier father, Martin Malone, was arrested and convicted of insider trading. He hung himself in federal prison. Penniless, Anna and her mother moved into this houseboat on Seattle’s Lake Union.”
On TV, there was a shot of Anna’s floating home.
“Oh, thank you for showing my house, Sally!” she moaned. “Why not give out the address so every nut and his brother will be stalking me?”
A photo of Anna’s mother came up on the screen, one Anna had never seen before. Her mom must have been about thirty when it was taken. She was holding a baby—Stuart, obviously. She looked so pretty and happy.
“Anna’s mother, Jacqueline Malone, became an alcoholic,” Sally said—as the sweet picture was replaced by a driver’s license shot of Anna’s mom in her later years. She looked haggard and wasn’t smiling. Anna still remembered her mom practically crying when she’d gotten home from the DMV with the new license. But then they’d somehow ended up laughing about it.
“Four years after her husband committed suicide, Jackie Malone, driving while drunk, killed herself and a pedestrian.”
Anna shook her head. “That’s not how it happened,” she said to George.
“Anna was in the car at the time,” Sally went on. “And we don’t know for sure if Anna wasn’t actually driving the car that killed her mother and that unfortunate pedestrian—a young woman who was about to be married, by the way. All I can say is that it’s possible, and Anna never proved that she wasn’t behind the wheel.”
“What?” Anna yelled. She got to her feet. “Where did she get that idea? God, that liar! I should sue her.”
“It’s no use,” George said. “She’s got a whole army of lawyers. Anyway, c’mon, consider the source.”
“My mother wasn’t drunk at the time,” Anna said, rubbing her forehead. “There are medical records to back that up. Y’know, Sally can invent all the lies she wants to about me. But she’s going after my dead mother, and that’s something altogether different.”
Anna was only half paying attention to Sally, who was still sniping about something. On the screen was the clip of Anna interviewing Courtney for the KIXI profile piece that ran on Friday. It was probably the only image available showing her and Courtney together.
“Take another look at her, pretending to be Courtney’s friend!” Sally said, once again on camera. She had a disgusted look on her face. “Well, that seems to be the way this homewrecker works. And I don’t use that term lightly. My guest tonight is someone whose marriage was constantly undermined by Anna Malone.”
The camera pulled back to reveal George’s wife, Beebe, in the “witness box” beside Sally’s judge-desk. She wore a navy blue dress and her brown hair fell around her shoulders. She must have had on the minimum of makeup for a television appearance. She looked like an overworked mom who had barely had time to put herself together for this TV appearance. Anna imagined that anyone who didn’t know Beebe would instantly feel sympathy for her.
“I’d like you to meet Beebe Danziger, an artist, a mother of two, and married for fifteen years to George Danziger. Her husband has been Anna Malone’s cameraman for nearly all of her news stories since she started working in Seattle. Thank you for being on the show, Beebe.”
“Thank you for having me, Sally. I’m a really big fan.”
“Well,” George muttered, “already that’s a lie. Beebe never watches this piece-of-shit show.”
“First off, Beebe,” Sally said, “tell us a little bit about your family.”
“Well, my two children—April, who is fourteen, and Lucas, he’s eleven—they’re my touchstones.” Beebe’s voice quavered, and her eyes started to well with tears. A family photo of the Danzigers on vacation at the beach came up on the screen. “I sometimes feel like I’m a single mom. I’ve practically raised these kids on my own. Anna is so demanding of my husband’s time. She has her pick of videographers for her stories, and she always insists on using my husband. It’s been like that for the two years she’s been working at KIXI-TV.”
More family snapshots came up on the screen. Anna thought George looked cute in the photographs; Beebe, not so much.
“Jesus, my kids are going to be mortified,” George murmured. “I need to go to them as soon as this is over.”
Back on camera, Beebe wiped away a tear. “Anna has always been so controlling. George used to complain about her. Then, after a few months of them working together, I noticed the complaining stopped. I never thought of George as the type of husband who would stray. He told me that he and Anna were work friends, and I believed him. I even tried—very hard—to be Anna’s friend. As I said, I’m an artist, and I spent hours and hours creating these two beautiful vases. I’m sure I could have sold them for at least a thousand dollars each. But I gave them to Anna for her birthday.”
It took Anna a moment to realize that Beebe was talking about the two hideous eyesores she had stored in the toolshed outside.
“She never even thanked me,” Beebe said.
“Well, that’s bullshit,” Anna said. “I sent her a card, remember?”
“I’m sorry,” George whispered. “And for the record, I didn’t complain about you.”
“It’s okay,” Anna murmured.
“She pretended to be my friend,” Beebe continued. “And all the while, she was trying to steal my husband away.”
Frowning, Sally shook her head. “And she was carrying on with Courtney’s husband at the very same time. It just makes me sick.”
“I know how Courtney Knoll must have felt,” Beebe said, a hand over her heart. “I’ve been victimized. And the thing is, my husband insists that he and Anna have never had sex. But she clearly seduced him, and he—he’s fallen in love with her. He won’t deny it. We’ve recently separated. It’s been absolutely devastating for our kids.”
Sally now had this pained, compassionate expression on her face. “Tell me, Beebe,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. “If you could talk to Anna Malone right now, what would you say to her?”
Beebe sighed. “I’d ask her, Why my husband? Why did she pick the father of my children? She already had a lover. She certainly must have realized my husband was falling in love with her. I could tell months ago. So she must have seen it, too. Why did she keep insisting that he work with her? I think she enjoyed the attention—and having a man at her beck and call. It’s been good for her ego as well as her career. Never mind about the children she’s hurting. It’s all just a game to her. It wasn’t enough that she already stole one woman’s husband. She had to go after mine.”
Behind her, Anna heard George clear his throat. “I’m so, so sorry,” he murmured.
“Beebe, do you believe Anna Malone and Russ Knoll when they say that they had nothing to do with Courtney’s disappearance?”
She slowly shook her head. “Not for a minute. And I guess I should feel lucky. I shudder when I think that what happened to Courtney could have easily happened to me.”
“Thank you, Beebe. It was really brave of you to come here and share your story with us.”
The camera zeroed in on Sally for a close-up as she turned to address her viewers. “So, what do you think? The disappearance of Courtney Knoll is no longer just a missing person case. This is clearly a murder without a body. Do you believe Dr. Russell Knoll and his mistress, Anna Malone, when they claim they don’t know what happened to his brilliant, beautiful wife? I’ll take a call or two after the break. You can go online to tell us what you think. Make your opinion count! Yes or no? Is this illicit couple telling the truth? Go to www-dot-vote-sally-justice-dot-com! We’ll be right back.”
With the remote, Anna switched off the TV. Then she took a final gulp of chardonnay, draining the glass.
“Well, that was humiliating for everyone involved,” George said. He got to his feet.
Anna turned toward him.
Obviously, George couldn’t look her in the eye. With
the half-full glass of wine in his hand, he stared down at the floor. “All I can do is apologize again for Beebe. Do you—do you want any kind of explanation for what she said?”
“Not right now, George,” she murmured. “There’s so much going on. Maybe later.”
Her phone chimed. She immediately thought of Russ. She reached for the phone on the coffee table but hesitated and glanced at George.
“Go for it,” he said. “I need to leave anyway. I want to go check on my kids and make sure they haven’t died of mortification.”
She snatched the phone off the coffee table and checked the caller ID. It was an incoming text from Taylor Hofstad.
“Is it him?” George asked quietly.
Anna shook her head. She knew the disappointment on her face must have killed him—if what Beebe had said about him loving her was true. And she knew it was. Even though it was supposed to be over between her and Russ, she still longed to hear his voice. She wanted him to reassure her that they’d get through this.
George finally looked at her, and Anna worked up a smile. “It’s a text from Sally’s daughter, Taylor.”
She’d already explained to him about Taylor earlier, when she’d left the message about someone from the office appearing on Sally’s show tonight. George cleared his throat. “What does your spy in the enemy camp have to say?”
Anna tapped her phone screen and read the text aloud: “‘I’m sorry I couldn’t get more accurate info ahead of time re Sally’s guest tonight—’”
“She calls her mother Sally?” George asked.
“Sometimes,” Anna answered. She went back to reading the text out loud: “‘I’m also sorry for the shoddy, malicious treatment you got tonight. Tomorrow’s show focuses on the fact that you claim not to remember anything from Thursday night. Sally will also look at famous movies and books with illicit couples plotting to kill a spouse: Body Heat, Postman Always Rings Twice, and Double Identity . . .’ I think that’s supposed to be Double Indemnity. Good old autocorrect.”
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