Double Vision

by Colby Marshall

  “Fine,” she said.

  Jenna yanked her favorite mug with Ayana’s handprint on it out of the cupboard and poured herself coffee. She didn’t bother adding cream or sugar, even though it would taste better. She would sit here and hear the guy out, but she didn’t have to enjoy it.

  “I’m supposed to go down to the lawyer’s office to file some paperwork regarding the estate today,” she said, as if the information was relevant to the topic at hand. Who cared if it wasn’t even close. Hell, it was the only talking point she had.

  “That’s why I’m here,” Victor said. “Sort of.”

  Jenna looked at him but said nothing.

  “I’m afraid my mother isn’t exactly going to be, erm, helpful there.”

  “Your mother?” Jenna parroted.

  Victor nodded, sipped his dark roast. “I’m not sure how to say this, but she’s planning to challenge Ayana as the beneficiary of Hank’s will.”

  “What?” Jenna shouted. She’d never even met Hank’s mother. They’d never been close, and the woman had never really wanted a relationship with Ayana, either. Jenna had always assumed it was all because Hank and his mother hadn’t had much to do with each other anymore.

  Victor nodded. “I’m sorry.”

  “Let me guess,” Jenna said. “She wants the money?” People Hank probably hadn’t even met in real life had come to chase the invisible money. Why not his mom? If she and Hank didn’t speak very much—as Jenna had known to be true in past years, anyway—she had no way of knowing that the only cash money anybody would be getting was the life insurance, and that went to Ayana without question.

  “Not exactly,” Victor replied.

  “Do you ever answer a question with a straight answer?”

  Victor’s eyes narrowed. “Do you ever not bite the hand that feeds you?”

  A rose color permeated Jenna’s mind. Familial love. He was sincere, wasn’t he?

  “I apologize,” she mumbled.

  “It’s fine,” he said curtly. “It’s not that she wants the money. Yes, I said the money. I know the land is worth a lot of money, as everyone in the continental US does by now who ever shared the two traits of some obscure blood relation to Hank and enough coins in a jar to roll and afford a two-bit lawyer to contest the will. But I knew what it was worth before all this, for what that matters, and Mama did, too. She thinks you want the money.”

  Jenna shook her head. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “I know. But she’s old-fashioned. The two of you weren’t married, so she automatically views your relationship a certain way.”

  “The gold-digging bimbo way?” Jenna asked.

  Victor let out a big sigh. “Maybe. Who knows. But I wanted you to be ready, because I know Hank wouldn’t want this. She’s going to try to prove Ayana isn’t his kid.”

  At this, Jenna stood up and started pacing. “That’s just . . . that’s crazy.”

  “You know it, and I know it, but she doesn’t think it is.”

  Jenna whirled around. “Why? Because Ayana looks white?”

  Victor looked down at the table. “Something like that.”

  “Shit,” Jenna said.

  “My thoughts exactly,” said Victor. He stood. “I should probably go. I’ve brought enough trouble for one day. Just know I’ll try to help in any way I can, though I have no idea how that will be yet.”

  Jenna looked into Hank’s brother’s eyes and saw Ayana’s looking back at her. A rush of affection surged through her, one she resented, given that this man had been following her for months without so much as a peep. Invading her family’s privacy. Knowing about a compromise of their safety and never saying anything. He didn’t look much like Hank otherwise, but the eyes were uncanny.

  “Thank you for coming,” she said. This time, she extended her hand.

  He stepped forward, shook it. “I’m sorry for the scare.”

  She nodded. “Just don’t call me miss again, okay?”

  He smiled. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Ma’am, either.”

  Victor grinned. “Would Hardass suffice?”

  For the first time, she smiled back. “I think that would work.”

  She opened the door for him, one lock at a time, aware of Charley watching her from behind.

  “I’ll be in touch,” he said.

  She closed the door and turned to face Charley, ready to give him a thorough dressing down for letting anyone inside the house.

  He waved her off. “Save it, sister. I know all the reasons I shouldn’t ever do it again, but for once, can’t you just be glad I’m not as antisocial as you are?”

  As much as she hated it, he was right. “What are we going to do?”

  Charley gulped the last of his coffee. “I don’t know about you, but I’m going to see if Dad and A need an extra Hungry Hungry Hippos player.”

  He left her standing in the kitchen, wondering what the hell had just happened, and how exactly Charley had a way of insufferably ignoring everything risky in their lives while at the same time making her want to ignore them, too.

  She followed him toward A’s room. Maybe Hungry Hungry Hippos was exactly what she needed.

  25

  Yancy drove and drove and drove, all the while thinking about everything he’d been trained to do before he’d lost his leg. He was going to be an agent, just like Jenna. Well, maybe just like Jenna but on a state and not a federal level, and completely aside from the fact that she had a weird human trick and wouldn’t compromise every single ethic she’d ever had for someone she didn’t know. You idiot.

  The car could be traced, he knew, but it was maybe the only point he couldn’t control. Not entirely, anyway. Someone—anyone—could’ve seen his car at CiCi’s. He’d had to leave in it, and he couldn’t leave with it inside a giant tarp. Not like they’d had one, anyway.

  Heat crept up Yancy’s neck as he played the scene over and over in his mind, both doing his best to convince himself there’d been no other course of action and yet trying to find a way he could’ve done things differently all at the same time. A ring of dirty cops running a high-dollar hooker outfit, one of their own dead with Yancy’s hand left holding the smoking gun. CiCi would be dead if they found out, but so would he. In the process, he’d put every single person involved with him in jeopardy. They didn’t have to worry about the husband coming home and finding the body. In the blur that had been getting the mess cleaned up, Yancy had ascertained through some of CiCi’s traumatized muttering that he’d left her months ago. She hadn’t said why and hadn’t been in any condition for Yancy to interrogate her about it, even if his mind hadn’t been preoccupied with the more pressing task at the time. Maybe he’d left her because she was hooking, or maybe she was hooking because she needed money after he left. Who knew? It didn’t matter right now. What did matter was that whatever route he took—leaving the body to be found, calling the police—both options led to the same climax. The cops would eventually come, good or bad. And eventually, the dirty cops would hear. He could confess, but then it was only a matter of time before they came after him. If he didn’t and the body was discovered, there would be an investigation. Yancy knew way too much about police and evidence to think something in the kitchen wouldn’t lead to him. Not to mention CiCi’s frequent 911 calls, his car parked in front of her house . . .

  The choice was the only one he had.

  Right?

  CiCi had met him, as he’d told her to. She’d wanted to come with him, but that was out of the question. The less involved she was, the better. She was going to have too many questions to answer as it was. God help him, hopefully everything he’d set in motion for her when the bad guys came calling would hold up. He’d tried so hard to think of everything, but if he’d thought of everything, he wouldn’t even be here.

  Goddamnit, asshole!

 
He tried to force his mind to focus on anything but what he was doing, where he was going. Keeping the car at an even forty-five when the speed limit changed to fifty, he recited children’s nursery rhymes he’d heard as a kid, turned on the radio, sang three dozen rounds of “I’m Henry the Eighth I Am” and a full, no-holds-barred rendition of “Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall.” When that didn’t work, he let his mind drift to the one place he never allowed if he could manage it: his godforsaken leg crushed in the elevator shaft, and how bad it had hurt. The hospital afterward, the flood of visitors from the Academy at first, then the way they slowed to a trickle. How they stopped completely.

  He revisited the humiliation of rehab, of being fitted for his first prosthetic. Of gradually learning to walk again.

  Oboe came to mind, that first day at the shelter when he’d considered the dachshund in the cage next to the German shepherd that looked just like Rin Tin Tin. The German shepherd was young, sleek, the perfect dog. Ten minutes later, he’d left with the dachshund.

  The dog had turned out to be a pain, but then again, Yancy was probably a pain to him, too. So, they deserved each other somehow.

  Oboe might be an asshole, but he deserves better than to have some common criminal-liar-douchebag for an owner.

  He’d get home in time to feed him not too late, right? Yeah. He could get home and be just a couple hours late. Oboe wasn’t missing many meals by any stretch of the imagination. The wiener would be okay. Still, he’d throw in an extra scoop for the lateness . . . and for being a murdering, lying scum of the earth. Make it two scoops.

  Normally, he’d try to get Jenna to go over and feed Oboe if he was going to be really late, but the thought of talking to Jenna right now . . . geez. His first instinct had been to call her, tell her everything. But if she knew, she’d only be in danger. Besides, if she helped him or even knew what he was doing and wasn’t in danger, her career would be on the line. He wouldn’t put her at risk just because he . . .

  Shit, dumbass. You’ve really done it this time.

  He made a right-hand turn. Finally, he was there. The big thing would be to do what he had to, then to handle himself once he left.

  26

  The break hadn’t been long enough, but when Saleda called to say she’d done the impossible and gotten Brooklyn Satterhorne’s family to agree to another FBI visit in addition to the one Porter had already paid them—this time accompanied by their own volunteered signed agreement to allow the BAU to perform a second unwarranted search of their home—Jenna couldn’t pass it up. She’d kissed Ayana, who had grinned and winked—her newest trick.

  “See ya later, alligator!” Ayana had said.

  Now Jenna and Saleda padded through the hallway toward Brooklyn’s room. The feeling was very different from that of the day before at Diana Delmont’s. First of all, this time the mother declined to go with them. Obviously they’d find no daughter inside.

  The hall was different from the Delmonts’, too. Instead of fruit, it was covered in pictures of Brooklyn. As a baby, a toddler, a six-year-old flashing a toothy smile, an awkward tween with braces and frizzy hair. At graduation with no braces. With friends in bikini bathing suits, her characteristic spiral red curls flat from a recent ocean swim.

  The door to the room at the very end of the hall was open, afternoon sunlight streaming inside. A black-and-white floral comforter, satin, covered the four-poster wrought-iron bed, and a matching full-length mirror of black-painted iron stood across from the bed.

  “Vanity,” Jenna muttered as the familiar thistle color flashed in.

  “You’re thinking narcissism?” Saleda asked.

  “Not yet,” Jenna replied. “Simple vanity right now. Maybe narcissism later.”

  She crossed the room toward the bureau, where a vase of dried roses stood. Jenna had always hated the tradition of drying flowers. Maybe they had sentimental value, but once deprived of their beauty, what was the point?

  “Did you ever dry your flowers, Saleda?”

  “No. Always thought it was a little creepy. Why?”

  Jenna nodded to the vase. “It’s always been a certain type of girl I’ve known to dry bouquets. That’s all.”

  “What kind?” Saleda asked, shifting a notebook from the desk to look at the binder underneath.

  Jenna wandered toward the open jewelry box, which was filled with expensive-looking pieces most college-aged students didn’t own. Heck, most thirty-year-olds didn’t own diamond earrings that big. Jenna sure didn’t.

  “Usually the kind of girls who’ve been programmed to think that’s what you’re supposed to do. The same ones who end up steam-cleaning their wedding dresses and sealing them in a box in the closet, never to be seen again,” she replied. “Not a bad thing necessarily, just a type.”

  Jenna’s gaze roamed the pictures on the chest of drawers, all in ornate iron-looking frames. While she’d said it wasn’t always a bad thing, this room made her think of all the girls she’d ever known with perfect, just-so clothing, shoes that cost more than Jenna’s entire wardrobe. The word “spoiled” came to mind. Based on what Diana had told the team about Brooklyn, that guess probably wasn’t too far off.

  “I think I’ve got about the same picture of Brooklyn I expected to have,” Jenna said. Porter and Teva had already collected anything and everything of interest from the room, including the computer. They’d found nothing on it so far. “Any word on the boyfriend?”

  “Don’t you mean ‘talking friend’?” Saleda asked.

  “Yeah, whatever they call it. Kenny.” Though, as she glanced around, the room didn’t show any signs of Kenny, if he was involved with her. Or any signs of any other boy involved with her in a way that seemed more than the fleeting, friend-zone type of relationship.

  Saleda clicked a button on her phone, read a text. “My sources say he’s at work now.”

  “What are we waiting for?”

  • • •

  Twenty minutes later, Jenna and Saleda sat in the Target break room with Kenny Ingle.

  “I want a lawyer,” he said for the dozenth time.

  Jenna folded her arms as she watched Saleda field the request. Again.

  “Kenny, we’ll get you a lawyer, but like I said, you are in no way at all implicated in Brooklyn’s murder. We already have a suspect, and this person was most likely a stranger. You don’t fit his profile . . . at all,” Saleda replied.

  Frankly, you’re not smart enough.

  “I don’t know nothin’!” Kenny said.

  Shocking. I believe you.

  “Kenny, we need to know more about Brooklyn and what she was like. It might help us learn more about who might’ve wanted to hurt her,” Jenna said. The kid might not be a murderer, but for someone whose maybe-girlfriend had just been killed, distraught he wasn’t.

  “Look,” he said, “I don’t know what you’ve heard, but I don’t even know her that well. She wanted to date, but she wasn’t really my type.”

  “Meaning what?”

  Kenny laughed. Great reaction to a murder.

  “Meaning she was a bitch!”

  Whoa.

  “But her friend said you two were ‘talking,’” Saleda said.

  Kenny smirked, leaned back in his chair. “She was talking. I was not listening.”

  “So she wanted to date, but you told her you weren’t interested?” Saleda asked.

  “Kinda. She texted me a lot. Bugged the crap out of me.”

  “How was she ‘a bitch’?” Jenna asked, miming air quotes with her pointer and middle fingers on each hand as she repeated his words.

  He rolled his eyes. “You name it. She was always doing things just to be bitchy. She’d talk about her friends behind their backs, do stuff like take pictures of them without makeup and send them to me. I think somehow it made her feel good about herself, to point out how b
ad her friends looked.”

  Wow. Good insight for a kid exhibiting an amount of mourning equal to that of a bird passing a cat’s flattened carcass on the roadside.

  “You mean she’d text pictures of friends without their knowledge or consent?” Saleda clarified.

  “Not text. She wasn’t that dumb. She’d snap them.”

  “You mean Snapchat?” Jenna asked, unsure if this was the verb form of the term but going with it. Seemed right, and better to stay in the lingo with this kid since he was already acting like they were only one degree of difference from his own parents grilling him about the hygiene habits of his peers.

  Kenny nodded, his face conveying the “Duh” that his mouth somehow seemed to hold in.

  Saleda looked at Jenna, questioning.

  “Snapchat is an app that lets kids send photos or videos that disappear in a few seconds,” Jenna said. “Right?”

  “Yeah,” Kenny answered, sounding annoyed that he was having to tell adults something they should already know.

  “And there’s no way to access the messages?” Saleda asked.

  “You can take a screenshot of the snap, but I think the sender is automatically notified when that happens. Am I right, Kenny?” Jenna asked. She hated that she knew about this at all, but her dad had sent her an article about it as soon as he’d seen it online as a heads-up on a new way people were sending information. He knew anything Claudia could use was important for both of them to be aware of.

  “Used to be, but now there’s Snap Save,” he said.

  “Snap Save?” Jenna asked.

  “App you can use to save snaps without the sender knowing.”

  “God, I hate technology,” Saleda muttered.

  Jenna, however, felt her pulse build. “Did you save any of hers, Kenny? Any of Brooklyn’s snaps?”

  His eyes narrowed. “Why?”

  Jenna sat down across from him and folded her hands. She leaned in toward him. “Oh, I don’t know, hotshot. Maybe because someone has been killed. Anything we know that could’ve earned her an enemy could be a lead to help us find her killer. Unless, of course, there’s some reason you don’t want us to find who did it?”