by David Banner
Either way, good or bad, most people are loved by someone. We all have our flaws and shortcomings, but usually, we find that that special someone willing to overlook them. Still, there is this sound that comes from people, the sound of grief in its truest form. In all her life, Virginia had never heard anything else close to the sound a person makes after losing a loved one.
It came from a place deeper than any other sound. A mix of disbelief and sorrow. It was the sound of someone’s future crumbling before them, the sound of how fragile life truly is, and it was always the worst in murder cases.
“Hello,” she said as she handed the woman a cup of coffee. “My name is Virginia Nixon. I’d like to speak with you, if that’s okay.”
“All right.” She slowly took the hot cup into her hands.
“What’s your name?”
“Sarah Wilde,” she answered, her nose resting against the cup.
“Can you tell me a little bit about what happened, Mrs. Wilde?”
“We were walking . . .” She took a long and worried breath. “Last week, we decided to buy a new house. My husband took out a loan. One of the houses we were looking at is in this neighborhood. Kenny wanted me to see the park. We were talking about paint colors, I think . . . that’s when she came out of nowhere.”
“She?”
Was it possible that this hadn’t been the work of her killers? Connie and Clyde were only known to hunt together, and the woman had made no mention of a man.
“Yes.” A steady stream of tears rolled down Sarah’s face. “I don’t know who. I’ve never seen her before.”
“Did she say anything?”
“She said, ‘Hello.’ ”
“Hello?” Virginia asked. “Are you sure?”
“I think so.”
“And you have no idea who she is or why she’d want to hurt your husband?”
“No.” She swallowed hard. “Like I said, I’d never seen her. But I don’t know a lot of my husband’s acquaintances. I’d never heard him mention her.”
“I thought you didn’t know who she was,” Virginia said.
“I don’t, but my husband knew her. Right before she shot him, he said her name. Connie.”
And that was it, the name that put this case squarely in Virginia’s lap.
“Do you recognize the name Patrick Maynor?” Virginia leaned in, dripping a little hot coffee on her hand.
“That’s my husbands boss.” The grieving woman finally lifted her head. “Why?”
Chapter Twenty-Three
THURSDAY, 3 PM
TAYLOR
There were things Taylor Clarke loved about journalism, one of them being the thrill of the chase. There were also things he didn’t love so much, one of those being the boredom of the chase. The young journalist had spent the better part of his day following Patrick Maynor around the bustling city of Savannah, Georgia, just waiting for something exciting to happen, something incriminating or suspicious.
Instead, what he’d gotten was a day filled watching Patrick climb in and out of his chauffeured car as he went from one hour-long meeting to another. Save, of course, for the lunch hour he spent entertaining a young brunette on the fifteenth floor of the Savannah Westin Hotel. It would have made for a salacious story anywhere else, but in a city like Savannah, extramarital affairs came a dime a dozen. Still, he managed to convince the housekeeper to snap a few key photos from across the hall as the pair entered and exited the room an hour and a half later. It was always nice to be prepared, right?
Taylor watched as the black Cadillac’s turn signal flickered a few cars in front of him. He wasn’t sure where they were headed, but if it was anything like the first part of the day, the young journalist was going to need more than a few shots of Kentucky whiskey when he got home.
The sound of his cellphone cut through the quiet car, shattering the haze of boredom he had managed to fall into over the last twenty minutes. He grabbed the device from the cupholder and looked at the screen. It was Virginia. His finger hovered over the answer button as he contemplated what to do.
He hadn’t told her he’d planned to follow Mr. Maynor around town, nor had he told her that he’d been secretly working on his article this whole time and had almost published it the night before. Normally, he could judge a woman. He could spend a few hours around one and be able to predict her reactions. Virginia Nixon was different, though. He just couldn’t seem to pin her down, which only made her all the more appealing.
“Hello?” he answered.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“Abercorn,” he said, leaving out a key piece of information.
“Have you seen the news?”
“No . . .”
“There’s been another murder. Only this time, they weren’t together.”
“Connie and Clyde?” he asked as the light turned green. “Are we sure it was them?”
“Three gunshots. Execution-style. The victim said the killer’s name. Connie.”
“Oh, my God,” Taylor said, pulling his car into the first space he saw and scribbling the information down. “What about Clyde? Any mention of him?”
“None.”
“Do you think he was there? Like . . . watching?”
“I don’t know. I doubt they would split up. Unless . . .”
“What?” Taylor asked, his curiosity peaked.
“Unless Clyde isn’t in the picture anymore.”
“As in . . . she killed him?”
“I don’t know,” Virginia clarified. “It’s too early to tell. I talked to the chief. He’s putting a few more guys on it, but I think we need to—”
“Who is the victim?” Taylor interrupted.
“A guy. Kenny Wilde.” She paused. “And are you ready for this? He worked for Miller, Maynor, and Mont.”
“What?” Taylor’s eyes grew wide. “Are you sure?”
“Patrick Maynor was his boss.”
“Why didn’t you lead with that?” Taylor dropped the notepad onto his passenger seat and looked up. He’d lost him. The black car he’d spent the better half of his day tailing was now gone, lost in the endless sea of Savannah’s midday traffic.
“I was about to tell you and you cut me off.”
Taylor’s mind raced with a million thoughts. A woman gone rogue from her husband after setting off on a killing spree? This was the kind of story that could make a journalist’s career. This was just the thing to put him on the map. He turned his eyes to the passenger side floorboard of his car and looked at his laptop. He couldn’t publish his story now, not after this new development. He needed to stick with the detective. He needed to get everything from this that he possibly could. She could be the means to everything he wanted and needed if he continued to play his cards right.
“So, what now?” he asked.
“We need to visit him again,” she said. “He asked for a lawyer, but that was before one of his employees had been murdered. Maybe now, he’ll feel a little more up to talking. I’ll meet you at your place in an hour.”
“All right.” Taylor ended the call and headed home.
Dashing through his front door twenty minutes later, the young man threw on a pot of fresh coffee, stripped his clothes off, and hopped in the shower. Things were beginning to get interesting.
Chapter Twenty-Four
THURSDAY, 3 PM
CONNIE
Connie watched her husband stare at the corkboard in the kitchen of their rundown rental apartment. He had no idea what she’d done, that she had taken out the next target all on her own, and she knew he wouldn’t take the news well. Whatever chance she stood of impressing the man flew out the window when she left behind a witness.
She couldn’t help herself. She had to draw the line somewhere. Kenny Wilde was her target, not his wife. She’d lived these last few months knowing exactly what it was like to be blamed for the actions of a man just because you’d happened to marry him. Sarah Wilde, as far as she knew, had nothing to do with her hus
band’s affairs. He was part of the reason she was where she was, not his wife.
Connie listened to her husband go over the names and locations of each person on that board. For a moment, she’d even been so silly as to hope he would skip over Kenny’s name. That he might move on to someone else and give her a little more time. But just like every time before, luck wasn’t really on her side.
“Kenny Wilde.” Her husband pointed to the photograph of the man she’d just killed. “He’s our next target. He and his wife are in the market for a new house. They’re going to be out every day this week, previewing. We can catch them in one of the empty homes. No witnesses.”
“What about Sarah?” Connie asked.
“Who?”
“His wife . . .”
“She’ll likely be a casualty. It won’t matter.”
It wasn’t the idea of an innocent life being lost that upset her so much in the moment. She didn’t like it, of course, but something else pulled harder at her. It was the idea that Kenny’s wife was nothing more than an object by his side. Like a dish that breaks when a shelf falls, destroyed by someone else’s mistake.
“It’s done,” she said, taking a red marker and crossing off his name.
“What do you mean?” Michael looked at her, his eyes a mix of confusion and anger.
“I mean it’s done.” She tossed the marker back on the table and headed for the refrigerator. “I’ve already taken care of him. While you were asleep.”
Even with her back turned to him, Connie could hear her husband’s breathing slow. He was angry, to say the least. She felt him step closer, his hot breath on the back of her neck as he leaned in and asked her to repeat herself.
“He’s dead.” She pulled a beer from the refrigerator.
“What the hell were you thinking?”
“I was thinking I wanted to do it on my own. To show you I’m more than just an object at your side. And I almost did it, too.”
“Almost?” He tilted his head and wrinkled his brow. “What do you mean, almost? Is he dead or isn’t he?”
“He’s dead, all right. Three to the chest. That’s not the problem.”
“And what is the problem?” He stepped closer to her, his face only inches from hers.
“His wife. She saw my face. She looked right at me. She knows my name.”
“And then you shot her, right?”
“No.”
Her body tensed with the words. She knew her husband’s temper. She knew how far off the rails he was capable of going once upset. He pulled back and slammed his fist hard against the countertop. A loud crash of dishes followed as they collided with the floor and shattered.
Connie watched it play out in slow motion as though it was the last second of her life. How strange, she thought, to see them fall like this, to see them shattered by the rage of her husband. Was this also her fate? Would she be nothing more than broken pieces of something that used to be?
His hands tightened around her neck as he slid her up the wall. She kicked her feet, struggling to free herself as her body convulsed and begged for breath. She felt the anger and hate, the rage and jealousy as they surged out of his body and into hers. Connie had gone against his wishes. She’d tried to show him they were equals and had failed.
Her body slammed hard against the kitchen floor as he released her. A rush of pain ran through her bones. Michael stepped away, screaming at the top of his lungs. Connie stood to her feet, her body still reeling from the near suffocation as she pulled a gun from the kitchen cabinet and aimed it at his head.
“Do it!” he yelled, his words dripping with fury.
She felt herself instinctively pull back as he charged toward her, grabbing her hand and placing the gun against his forehead.
“Do it!” he repeated. “Three shots. Be the woman you think you are. Kill me! How long do you think you’ll last without me? How long until your mistakes land you behind bars, Connie?”
A slow stream of blood ran down his face, landing in the corner of his eye and tainting it red. She couldn’t help but think how much he looked like a monster, how much he acted and sounded like one. Was this who he’d forced her to become? Was this who she’d let herself become? She pulled away, releasing her grip on the gun and falling back against the counter.
“Coward!” he called out, slamming the gun hard against the side of her face. She watched helplessly as the world around her went dark, as the sounds became distant and her body became cold and limp. She was gone.
Chapter Twenty-Five
THURSDAY, 3:30 PM
VIRGINIA
“There,” Virginia said as she spotted him from across the street.
After meeting at his apartment, she and Taylor headed straight for Miller, Maynor, & Mont to give talking to Patrick another go. As luck would have, it they spotted him as he was about to enter the building. The older man paused as the pair sprinted toward him.
“I already told you. I’ve said all I care to say.”
“Kenny Wilde,” Virginia said. “He’s been murdered.”
The look of surprise on his face was unmistakable. Virginia didn’t know what he’d been up to that day, but she knew it had nothing to do with watching the news. She always found it odd just how far removed some people can be even when close to a crime. There he was, the boss of a murder victim, one who was obviously hiding something, yet he had no idea what had happened to his employee only hours before.
“No,” Patrick said. “Are you sure?”
“Listen, man,” Taylor began, taking the darker side of a good cop/bad cop routine. “You really need to start talking here. Don’t be an idiot. You’re just going to make this harder on yourself.”
“I have nothing to say,” Patrick repeated.
“You’re in a bad way here, fella. I mean, look. You’re on the verge of upsetting a cop and a journalist, both of whom happen to have dirt on you at the moment, and at least one of whom is willing to share it.” Taylor pulled the snapshots from earlier in the day out of his pocket and flashed them. “Your clients and friends might be willing to overlook your indiscretions now. But if they just happen to leak to a gossip blog, do you really think they’ll still stand by you? Dirty laundry always smells worse in public, Patrick.”
“Where did you get those?”
“The Westin Hotel. Earlier today, room 1421,” Taylor answered flatly. “You know, I bet if you look hard enough, you can see Forsyth park across the river with a view like that.”
Virginia looked at the pictures, her mind realizing how Taylor had spent his day. They hadn’t talked about things like this, but she still assumed he’d have told her before trailing their prime suspect. The pictures would be helpful, sure, but that still didn’t mean she enjoyed being kept out of the loop.
“I’ll sue you!” Patrick said.
“Wouldn’t do you any good.” The young journalist smiled. “I’m a waiter. You couldn’t get much. Besides, it would be too late then. You’d have already lost your clients.” He turned to Virginia. “How many of those clients do you think would be willing to testify against good old Patrick here to keep their records private? Twenty percent? Fifty? Eighty?”
“I’d say we’d have trouble finding one who wouldn’t turn on him,” she answered. “Though I doubt it’ll come to that.”
“Fine.” Mr. Maynor bit his lip. “What do you want to know?”
“Just talk.” Vee folded her arms across her chest.
Patrick took a seemingly endless breath, trying his best to work up the courage to say whatever it was he was about to say. It always went like this. People never failed to waste time gathering themselves, taking dramatic and unnecessary moments before actually coming out with anything useful. Virginia hated it.
“We started this firm a long time ago. In the beginning, it was just like every other one. But then things changed. Some of the other members got greedy, and before I knew it, our business had become something else entirely.”
“So it
isn’t an accounting firm?”
“No, it’s still an accounting firm.” Patrick shook his head. “You see . . . we were all very close for a while. In the beginning, we were just borrowing the money. But paying back is a harder beast to conquer. Before long, we had to find new ways to cover the money we’d taken.”
“So, it’s a Ponzi Scheme?”
“No.” Patrick shook his head again. “There is no pyramid. There are just clients. The law is full of loopholes if you know where to look. We needed a legal way to cover the money we’d lost, so we started leveraging people’s properties against their debts, then when they can’t pay, we take them and resell them at a profit.”
“What debts?” Taylor asked. “I thought your clients were rappers and CEOs. Don’t they have money?”
“Everyone has debt. You just have to know the correct ways to handle it. Its legal, in a backhanded sort of way.”
“Legality and morality are two different things,” Virginia snapped.
“Morality is a fairytale,” Patrick scoffed. “No one is moral. No one is honest, and no one is innocent. It took me a little while, but I finally figured that out.”
“That isn’t true,” she insisted. “There are good people out there. Honest and moral people.”
“Who?” Patrick asked. “You? Look at what you’re doing. Following me around in secret. Blackmailing me. You’re no different from me. You just wrap it up in a more digestible bow, that’s all. That’s all.”
“Who are Connie and Clyde?” Taylor asked. “Former clients? Disgruntled employees? What?”
“Something like that.” Patrick brushed past them. “I’m finished talking. And if those pictures get out ,then so help me, I’ll—”