Fight Dirty

by CJ Lyons

  She glanced at Bree’s pathetic Facebook page with her smile full of hope gleaming from the profile photo, then dialed Jenna’s number. “Where are you?” she asked, even though she could easily check the GPS tracker she’d planted on Jenna’s phone. Part of playing a Norm.

  “Headed over to the Greenes’ home. Why? I thought you didn’t want to have any part of this case.”

  “Maybe I’ve changed my mind.”

  “Even if it means going undercover at ReNew?” Jenna’s voice sounded eager. Morgan blinked slowly, imagining the other woman’s triumphant smile. Jenna loved to win.

  “I’m on my way.” Morgan hung up and put the car in “Drive.” She didn’t like the idea of going to ReNew, not at all. In fact, she hated it. She hoped she could find some solid leads at the house, anything that would provide an alternative angle to the case.

  But damned if she was going to let Bree down. Not again. Not after every other person in her life had abandoned her.

  CHAPTER 10

  Morgan arrived at the Greenes’ Sewickley Heights home; Jenna and Andre pulled into the drive right behind her. The house sat alone at the end of a cul-de-sac, surrounded by an eight-foot-tall fence made of twisted iron bars with delicate curlicues to mask wicked points at the top. It wasn’t on a golf-course-sized lot like many of the newer mansions nearby, but made up for its lack of land with haughty, disapproving grandeur. The house was a simple three-story brick colonial. Aligned between the twelve-foot-tall windows were wide white columns, soldiers guarding a maiden’s virtue.

  The drive was circular, which meant that Jenna parked her black Tahoe directly behind Morgan’s Audi.

  “Nice car,” Andre said, eyeing the Audi.

  Morgan cursed beneath her breath. Should have known a guy like Andre, always looking to do the right thing, wouldn’t let anything slide. “Thanks,” she replied in a perky voice. “I’m borrowing it from friends while they’re taking a cruise.”

  “Thought you were only fifteen? Could have sworn Jenna said something about you being an emancipated minor.”

  So that was the story Jenna had gone with. Surely she could have picked up on Morgan’s cues this morning and told Andre she was older. As always, it was up to Morgan to clean up the mess. “You’re so sweet. I’m way older than that.”

  Jenna was halfway up the steps to the front door and turned to look back at them impatiently. “Come on. We’ve got work to do.”

  Morgan dashed up the steps to join Jenna. “You told him I was fifteen?” she whispered.

  “No.” Jenna frowned. “Oh, maybe when he first met you back in December. Seriously, Morgan, don’t expect me to keep your lies straight.”

  Andre caught up with them. Jenna straightened as if preparing for battle. “Morgan, you take the girl’s room and talk to any staff. Andre, you’ve got the mom, and I’ll take the dad.”

  Divide and conquer. After what Morgan had seen of the Greenes in the office earlier, it seemed like a good plan. They reached the front door. To Morgan’s surprise, Robert Greene opened it himself. She had the feeling he did it on purpose, trying to show them he was a self-made man, down-to-earth, blah, blah, blah . . . Anything but a man who’d had no earthly idea what was going on with his family while he was off fracking his way to billions.

  The front entrance was the size of a ballroom. An empty ballroom. Except for the grand staircase leading up to the second floor and a large chandelier suspended from the ceiling three stories above them. Balconies made of dark wood broke up the space at the second and third floors, but there was no sign of the rooms beyond them.

  With the tall windows flanking the door and the arched skylight above it, the space should have felt light and airy. But it didn’t. Instead the house felt heavy, as if gravity had folded in on itself, making Morgan’s shoulders sag with imaginary weight.

  Each footstep was a chore, resulting in an echo that could make a heart ache with emptiness. Morgan didn’t believe in ghosts—how could she, with the number of tortured souls her father’s murder spree had created?—but something haunted this house.

  “I know you came to see BreeAnna’s room,” Greene said. “But before you do, I had an idea that might help. Caren’s waiting for us in the den.”

  He led them through an archway that opened into another immense room filled with stiff toile-covered furniture that had high backs and not enough padding to look at all comfortable. Then into a dining room that could seat two dozen at the mahogany table that appeared as if it had never been used, through a butler’s pantry filled with china, past a caterer’s nook, through a large kitchen equipped better than most restaurants, and finally into a room at the rear of the house that had rows of plush leather couches lined up facing a projection screen.

  Caren lounged in the front row, sipping a martini. One wall was taken up with a well-stocked bar, and the opposite wall held DVDs and actual movies on reels like a cinema. Morgan could just imagine the three Greenes sitting in the dark, side by side yet utterly alone during their “family time.”

  American dream, her ass.

  “Caren,” Greene said, gesturing to the bar, giving them permission to make their own drinks since clearly they weren’t guests he was obliged to serve. “I was just about to tell them my idea.”

  He slid in beside her, jostling her to sit up straight. She finished her drink in a slow sip, but he didn’t take the empty glass from her or offer to get her a refill. Morgan had the impression Caren had already had one refill too many.

  “So,” he said, leaning forward eagerly. It was the first hint of nerves Morgan had detected in him. “I realized that no one at ReNew has ever seen me. There’d be no reason for them to have any idea what I look like. I thought I could help out. Play the father when you go undercover.”

  He sat back, beaming, waiting for their cheer of approval. There was no place for them to sit, unless they wanted to sit behind the Greenes or on the floor in front of them. Andre settled in, leaning against the wall opposite the bar while Jenna paced the small space between the Greenes and the screen.

  Morgan decided to push Greene, see if she could figure out why he was nervous. And why he wanted to insert himself into their investigation.

  “Why is it that no one at ReNew knows you, Mr. Greene?” she asked, sliding in beside him on the couch. Caren jerked her head up at that, staring at her. Hey, if he was supposed to be playing her father, she needed to know him better, right?

  Greene relaxed into the leather cushions, basking in the attention of the two women on either side of him, and sipped at his whiskey, taking his time. “I was out of town when BreeAnna was enrolled at ReNew. Work.”

  Something in his tone made it sound as if he’d had nothing to do with the decision to ship his only child off to a facility guarded by razor wire and steel bars.

  Caren picked up on it as well, straightening, one hand possessively on her husband’s thigh. “We had, of course, discussed it,” she said. “Options to deal with BreeAnna. But Robert wasn’t there when things came to a crisis.” She sighed, enjoying her role as martyr. “I had to make the call myself.”

  “You took BreeAnna to ReNew?” Jenna joined in. “Could you walk us through the admission process?”

  Caren squirmed. Robert answered for her—he did that a lot, Morgan had noticed. “ReNew has an emergency transport team that will pick up the child. Caren called them.”

  “She was so out of control. She’d never have gone on her own. I was worried that she’d hurt me—or herself.” The last came as an afterthought.

  “How did that work?” Jenna asked.

  “I called them, agreed to the extra fees—”

  “Forty-five hundred,” her husband grumbled. “For a twenty-minute ride.”

  Caren ignored him. “They told me where to meet them. I told BreeAnna we were going to a movie, but before we got there I pulled into the parki
ng lot where the ReNew van was waiting. They had her out of the car and into the van before I had a chance to turn the car off and unbuckle my seat belt.”

  “She had no idea what was happening?” Andre voiced Morgan’s own thought. She’d helped her father grab fish that way, knew the panic and terror that kind of blitz attack produced. For the first time, Morgan understood a piece of what Bree had gone through.

  Caren shook her head. “They said it was better that way. So she couldn’t try to run away or do something. Said by law, they aren’t allowed to chase any juvenile who runs—for their own protection—and we couldn’t risk that, could we?”

  “Yet she was calm enough to get in the car and want to go to a movie with you?” Morgan asked, ignoring Jenna’s glare commanding her to leave things alone.

  “Thanks to Caren’s quick thinking,” Robert put in. “She gave BreeAnna a Valium, calmed her down before things could escalate.”

  “Walk us through what the men did.” Jenna moved the discussion back to tactics. “Did they restrain her? Search her?”

  “First, they put a hood over her head—to disorient her, I guess,” Caren answered. For the first time a hint of regret entered her voice. “They yanked her out of the car, and she was screaming, trying to hit and kick.”

  She swallowed and turned her head away to stare at the bar. “She called out—for you, Robert.” Her voice broke. “She kept yelling ‘Daddy, Daddy.’ They handcuffed her hands behind her back and did something with her ankles—I couldn’t see, it happened so fast—but then she was facedown on the pavement. Two men, one at her shoulders and one at her knees, picked her up and laid her in the van. They closed the doors, and after that I couldn’t hear her scream.”

  Caren paused to try to take a drink, frowning when she found the glass empty, her hand trembling as she set the glass down. Andre moved forward to rescue the martini glass before it toppled over and set it on the bar, ignoring Caren’s silent plea for more.

  Finally she continued, “I followed the men to ReNew, met the administrator, Mr. Chapman. By then it was after ten at night, so I didn’t meet anyone else. Oh, except the student leader, Deidre. She was so sweet and helpful. And Mr. Chapman was very kind, assured me BreeAnna was in good hands—even showed me her on a video monitor before I left. She was sound asleep, looked so peaceful.” She sniffed. “And I, I left her there. I thought they could help her.”

  Her voice rose, then faded. Everyone was silent for a moment. Caren’s fingers curled into the muscles of Robert’s thigh, but he didn’t move to touch or comfort her.

  Morgan forced a mask of serenity, relaxing her hands before she could slash Caren with the blade nestled in the sleeve of her jacket. How could a mother betray her own daughter that way?

  And the father, he’d just let it happen. Kept his distance, as if he was above it all.

  She had the sudden thought that the Greenes weren’t all that different from her own father.

  Maybe for BreeAnna, escaping ReNew, returning home to these two, wasn’t much of an escape. Could that explain why she’d killed herself?

  “And you weren’t there to pick her up, either? Never visited her, sent her any photos?” Andre asked Greene.

  “No.” Greene didn’t even seem flustered by the questions. “I was on the road, but I wanted both my girls home. After talking it over with Caren, we decided it was better for BreeAnna to live at home while she got the help she needed. So Caren went to get her, and when I got off my plane, there they were, both my girls, safe and sound.”

  Right. A real Hallmark moment. Then why was his daughter dead less than ten hours later?

  “Like I said,” Greene continued. “No one at ReNew has ever seen me. The only thing they know about me is my credit rating. So instead of wasting time and money hiring an actor, I say we do this. Tomorrow. I’m tired of waiting for answers.”

  He glared at each of them in turn, the CEO demanding his board’s approval.

  “At least let us look around BreeAnna’s room, first,” Jenna broke the silence. “Make sure we’re not overlooking any other avenue of investigation.”

  Andre stepped forward, offering Caren his hand. “Mrs. Greene, is there someplace we could talk? Your impressions about what you saw at ReNew and how they operate would be most helpful.”

  Caren simpered and stood, smoothing her dress. Morgan felt Robert stiffen, watched his lips tighten as Andre led Caren out. He didn’t like the idea of Caren talking without him there to monitor her, but Andre had given him no chance to make an excuse.

  The Greenes were hiding something—but then why push forward with the investigation at all? The police were satisfied; BreeAnna’s death was a closed case to everyone except her parents.

  What were they so desperate to find? It definitely wasn’t the truth.

  CHAPTER 11

  Morgan wondered what rich-girl rebel decor would look like. She found Bree’s rooms on the top floor of the mansion. Bree had an entire wing to herself on one side of the open space above the foyer, while the other wing consisted of two tastefully appointed guest suites.

  On Bree’s side of the floor, the first room at the top of the stairs was a music room with wide windows, hardwood floors, and a baby grand piano taking up most of the space. One wall held a large whiteboard covered with musical notations, pages of sheet music with scribbled notes attached by magnets.

  Interesting. Why didn’t her parents mention that Bree was a musician? Must have been half-decent to have her very own grand piano to practice on. There was also an expensive computerized keyboard and recording equipment, microphones, and headsets.

  Other than the music, the walls were bare. No photos, no inspirational posters, not even any shelves with CDs or more sheet music. No place to sit, either, other than at the piano or keyboard.

  Was this a place to learn music? Or to be force-fed it?

  She left the music room and found a small kitchenette next door opening into another room that appeared to be where Bree did her schoolwork. An antique desk sprawled across one wall, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves on either side filled with volumes that appeared to have never been opened. Classics and actual paper encyclopedias and reference books. As if someone had mail-ordered a kit labeled “Student destined for Harvard.”

  There was a leather sofa along the opposite wall and on the coffee table actual water marks, indicating this was where Bree actually worked. Nothing to indicate what she was like—at least not until Morgan got down on her hands and knees and peered beneath the sofa.

  Neat stacks of paperback novels, pushed beyond the reach of the maid’s vacuum. Talking animals and knights riding dragons and fairy queens, judging from the titles and cover art. All with spines broken many times and pages rubbed raw. None with any explicit content, they all appeared aimed at a younger audience than Bree’s fourteen.

  Her mother had described a girl gone wild, complete with drug use, shoplifting, and a pregnancy scare.

  Which was the real Bree?

  Morgan put the books back where she’d found them and went into the remaining room: Bree’s bedroom. Another room mail-ordered complete with everything except personality. This time the product description would have read “Girl’s princess fantasy done in shades of lavender and rose with cream-colored accents.”

  The bed was a four-poster, complete with frilly canopy. The walls were adorned with hand-painted cels of Disney princesses. The only hint of the room’s occupant came from the small mountain of stuffed animals occupying the bed.

  That and the evidence bags stacked against the far wall, their bright-orange labels clashing with the princess-pink wainscoting.

  There, Morgan found Bree’s phone, iPad, and laptop. She grabbed them and their chargers. Jenna could work on them later—she was pretty good at computer forensics, even if she did fall short of Morgan’s cyberstalking capabilities.

  Ther
e was a final bag, this one brown paper instead of clear plastic. Brown paper—that meant the police had been trying to preserve biological evidence. She knelt before it, fairly certain she knew what she’d find inside.

  She flipped her knife open and sliced the orange evidence seal. The top of the bag had been folded over itself, each fold firmly creased as if whatever anonymous evidence tech who’d closed it hoped it remained sealed.

  Paper crackling beneath her fingers, Morgan unfolded the top and opened it wide. Puzzled, she stared into the shadows lining the interior before withdrawing the contents and laying them carefully on the bed.

  Who the hell killed themselves wearing Hello Kitty pajamas?

  They met at the cars twenty minutes later. Jenna took possession of Morgan’s electronic plunder, handing it off to Andre, who secured it in the rear of the Tahoe.

  “Anything from the mother?” she asked Andre.

  “Tears and blubber. Fell apart as soon as I got her alone. Only thing I can tell you is that she and Greene have separate bedrooms.” He shrugged. “No idea if that means anything or not.”

  “I called Nick. He can come tomorrow, around noon, take a crack at her. Hopefully before her happy hour starts.” Jenna eyed Morgan in a way that Morgan really didn’t like. Appraisal and judgment. “Greene didn’t give me anything, except more of his woe-is-me, I-have-to-work-so-hard story. According to his version of reality, he’s an all-American guy with an all-American family who has been victimized by some evil cult.”

  “Might be true,” Morgan said, playing devil’s advocate. “A lot of these privately run adolescent treatment centers basically forget about any actual curriculum and instead use coercive tactics to brainwash the kids.”

  Jenna didn’t look impressed. “I read that New York Times report, too. Innuendos about other programs won’t do us any good. We need concrete evidence.”

  “What about BreeAnna’s room?” Andre asked. “Any help there?”

  “Apparently she was a pretty serious musician—or her parents wanted her to be.” She told them about the music room. “Other than that, everything was normal. If anything, a bit juvenile for her age. No signs of any age-inappropriate clothing or that sexy lingerie Caren was freaked out by.”