The captain nodded. “I’m guessing that’s how he met Melissa?”
“Seems like it. She claims he’s a spy—for the CIA. She knows he has an office in Chicago but believes he travels all over the world when he’s away from her. And here’s the best part.”
Ryan paused.
“Don’t leave me in suspense,” the captain said.
“Once we got a name and his other records, he wasn’t that hard to track. And some of his travel doesn’t match with what either wife accounted for.”
“What do you mean?”
“It seems he spent a fair amount of time in the DC area and the Pittsburgh area.”
“Your point?”
“Let’s say we won’t be surprised if a Mrs. Claussen #3 shows up.”
21
Leigh hummed as she checked her makeup. It was ridiculous how the thought of Ryan walking through her door could make her forget—for a moment—that there was a maniac trying to kill her.
The doorbell rang and she adjusted the collar of her shirt one last time. The bruising had gone green and purple today, but this shirt covered up the worst of it.
She looked through the peephole and then opened the door to find Sabrina waiting, a tentative smile on her face.
“Could I come in?”
“Of course,” she said. “I’m waiting for the invasion to begin. You’re the first one to arrive.”
Sabrina hung a garment bag on a doorknob and then unpacked a laptop. Then another one. She didn’t say much, but Leigh didn’t mind the quiet. It was nice to have someone else in the house.
“I can’t stay long,” Sabrina said. “I have a dinner engagement at eight.”
Leigh glanced at her watch. Sabrina would need to leave in an hour. “You shouldn’t have tried to come tonight. I don’t want to mess up your date.”
“Oh, it isn’t a date,” Sabrina said with an indelicate snort. “And what we found today can’t wait.”
Her tone pulled a veil over Leigh’s earlier mood and the heaviness of her present reality settled around her.
Sabrina seemed oblivious to the effect her words had. “Are the others on their way?”
The knock on the door and the accompanying chatter behind it answered for her. Gabe, Anissa, and Adam spilled into the house, pulling off rain jackets and laughing at some joke. They each carried a bag from Luigi’s and the smell of garlic permeated the air as they unloaded them on the counter.
Where was Ryan?
She peeked out the door and found him on the porch, out of the rain, leaning against the house, phone to his ear.
“Hey, buddy. I know. It’s been ages. I’m going to come see you this weekend and we’re going to play Trouble for an hour.”
Ah. Caleb. Poor guy. He couldn’t possibly understand why his uncle Ryan hadn’t been by to see him. She’d picked up from previous conversations that Caleb didn’t say much, but Ryan talked to him whenever he called Rebecca. Caleb’s lack of response didn’t seem to faze Ryan.
“Okay. Let me talk to your mom.”
Leigh pulled her head back inside, but before she got away from the door, Ryan’s hand closed around hers. He pulled her outside and into the protective shelter of his arms. She knew what he was doing. If someone was hoping to get to her, they’d have no shot with her back to the house and her face buried in Ryan’s chest.
She could barely hear Ryan’s words over the din of the rain pelting the porch roof, but she could feel the vibration in his chest as he spoke. His laughter at something his sister had said. Then the hand that had been holding the phone was on her face, and for the next few moments, nothing else mattered.
He was the one to break the kiss. Probably for the best. She would have been happy to stay here all night.
“Oh baby,” he whispered into her ear. “You’re killing me.”
She kissed him again in response. Life was too short to play games. He clearly cared about her. Might even be on the way to being in love with her. And she wasn’t going to leave any doubt in his mind about whether those feelings were reciprocal.
“If we don’t go inside, they’re going to be merciless.” His breath tickled her ear.
She knew he was right, but she’d never cared less about anything in her life. Let them talk. Let Gabe make all manner of smart remarks. None of that mattered.
Ryan’s growling stomach pulled her back to a state of reason. “When’s the last time you ate?”
His arms tightened around her. “Who needs food?”
“You do, apparently.” She pushed against his chest with both hands.
He regarded her with a look that sent butterflies cartwheeling through her. How could this be happening? How, in the middle of so much that was wrong, could she have been given this gift?
Ryan claimed her lips in one more fierce but brief kiss. Then he opened the door and she braced herself for the chorus of innuendo and teasing that would come.
Silence.
What had happened to the jovial group that had entered her home only moments, okay, minutes ago?
Ryan’s gentle arm around her shoulder tensed and he pulled her in tight. “What’s going on?” Leigh asked.
All eyes flicked to Sabrina, who hadn’t looked up from her computer.
She was confused. “Sabrina?”
She bit her lip and shook her head back and forth.
Adam cleared his throat. “We may have another body.”
Leigh’s legs threatened to give out on her. Ryan’s arm moved from her shoulders to her waist, and she leaned on him as he ushered her to a seat on the sofa.
“Where?” Gabe asked.
“Chatham County.”
One county over. “The rain today,” Sabrina said. “A car lost control and flipped into a ditch. When the crew pulled the car out, they found a bone sticking out of the muck. Didn’t take long to uncover the rest of the body.”
“What was left of it,” Adam said.
Chills skittered across Leigh’s skin.
“Male?” Ryan asked.
Nods around the room. “Their ME called our ME, who called the anthropologist again. She’s coming out tomorrow. But based on initial examination, there’s no way we aren’t dealing with the same killer.”
Sabrina finally looked up. “Which is why what we have to say is more important than ever.” She nodded at Adam.
“Sabrina came up with a theo—”
“No, Adam. This was yours.”
“Let’s eat while we hear it,” Gabe said. Everyone jumped to their feet and began piling plates high with lasagna and chicken parmigiana, salads, and garlic bread.
Leigh didn’t move until Ryan laced his hand through hers and pulled her to her feet. “You need to eat too.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“At least come with me,” he said.
That was a request she would never deny. Five minutes later, everyone was sitting around the coffee table, eyes focused on Adam. She really needed to replace the dining room table. Soon.
“I’ve been reading your notes from the interviews with the families,” he said. “Both men were known to be in Richmond. Both men fell off the grid as soon as they arrived. I did some digging into their financials and discovered both men made significant cash withdrawals the day before they left.”
“Define significant,” Ryan said.
“Twenty thousand dollars.”
Anissa whistled.
“That’s pocket change for some people,” Gabe said.
“Not really,” Adam said.
Gabe started to argue, but Adam cut him off. “Come on, man. I know that much cash might be normal in the circles you’re used to traveling in, but for a legit businessman? No. He might have several thousand dollars in cash, but he’s going to use his card.”
“Unless he doesn’t want someone to know what he’s doing,” Anissa said.
“Exactly.” Adam handed a tablet to Sabrina. She started working her magic, and once again, images appeared on the TV.
“As soon as we got a name for our John Doe #1, I got access to the video footage from the Richmond airport.” Adam studied the screen, then tapped the tablet. The image stopped moving. “There.”
“Harold Jackson Claussen,” Ryan said.
They all stared at the grainy image. Was this the last footage anyone had of him alive?
Adam tapped the tablet again, and they followed Harold Claussen from the airport to a cell phone lot.
“We learned that the cameras in the cell phone lot had been malfunctioning when Calvin Staton came through Richmond, but they were working just fine last month.”
As they watched, Harold Claussen climbed into the passenger seat of a white Cadillac Escalade. A nice car, to be sure, but not one that would generate any particular notice on the street.
The tag on the Escalade was partly obscured, but they were able to get four out of seven digits from it.
“We ran the plate and came up with a list of possible owners,” Adam said. “Only one of the tags with these four digits is also supposed to be on a white Cadillac Escalade.”
“The tag could be stolen,” Ryan said.
“I agree, which is why I’m calling this a theory.”
“Carry on,” Ryan said.
“The car is registered to a company called PSA.” Adam tapped the tablet again and the image on the screen changed. “It took some digging, but I found out the PSA stands for Plastic Surgery Associates.” Leigh leaned closer to the screen. The website Adam had pulled up was for a plastic surgery center. “What’s this?”
“This is where I think your guy might have been planning to spend that money.” A few taps and everyone’s phones buzzed. “I just sent the link to your phones.”
“So these guys were planning on spending twenty grand on plastic surgery?” Gabe asked.
Leigh scanned the page from her phone. “Oh,” she said.
“Sorry. I don’t get it.” Gabe took a bite out of a piece of garlic bread. “Plastic surgery gone wrong?”
“Leigh, what do you think?” Sabrina asked.
Leigh took a sip of her tea. “I’ve heard rumors of a place like this. It’s a very posh plastic surgery center, by the looks of it.” She scrolled through the pages. “Privacy is their biggest selling point. They don’t take insurance. They check people in under false names. This may not even be legal. How did you find it?”
“Adam found it,” Sabrina said.
“You mean to tell me that pretty face of yours isn’t natural?” Gabe asked, directing his question to Adam.
“I haven’t used them,” Adam said. “But I know people who have. When I saw the Plastic Surgery Associates and connected it to the Richmond angle, I remembered my uncle had a friend who flew into Richmond and was whisked away for some sort of implants. My uncle went to see him while he was recovering. The place is about an hour from here. In between the state line and the Raleigh area.”
“Then why not fly into Raleigh?” Anissa asked.
“The privacy.” Adam said this like it explained everything.
“I don’t get it,” Gabe said.
Adam shifted in his seat and ran a hand through his hair.
“Uh-oh,” Gabe said with a conspiratorial tone. “We must have ventured into the secret lives of the rich and famous. Is this information too precious to be shared with those in the lower classes?”
Leigh wanted to jump to Adam’s defense, but before she could, he threw a piece of garlic bread at Gabe and then straightened his posture and adopted a haughty expression. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand, my dear fellow, but I feel sure the ladies will follow along. Have one of them explain it to you later.”
Gabe and Ryan laughed. Anissa rolled her eyes.
They must have teased Adam about his silver spoon upbringing a lot, because he didn’t seem to be truly upset. He grinned at Leigh before he continued.
“Several of the women in my family have had plastic surgery,” he said. “It’s not a secret. They talk about their surgeons to their friends at lunch or at dinner parties. They brag about it. There’s nothing taboo about it.”
He stabbed some lasagna with his fork. “But several of the men in my family have also had plastic surgery. And they are not willing to talk about it. At all.”
“Who?” Gabe asked.
Adam twisted an imaginary key in front of his mouth. “I’m sworn to secrecy. But I can tell you that while the women in my family don’t mind disappearing from view for a few weeks, or even a few months, while they recover, the men handle it quite differently. In fact, one of my uncles had some work done and it was so skillfully handled that it was six months before any of us realized it. It wasn’t so drastic that I noticed it when I saw him in person. Only when I looked at a family photo from a few years earlier did I realize it.”
“These guys want plastic surgery done in complete privacy? They don’t even want their wives to know?” Ryan asked.
“Not all men, but some. And this place”—he pointed to the tablet—“caters to those clients. The place is more like a spa than a hospital. Men go in for surgery, they get treated like kings while they recover, and then they go home. The family thinks they went on a business trip and never realizes they had butt implants or an eye lift or a tummy tuck.”
“I would think the wives would notice,” Anissa said.
“Depends on the wife,” Gabe said.
“Or the procedure.” Adam flipped to a page on the tablet. “The photos we have of Claussen and Staton are not of men who have let themselves go. In fact, I would argue they look quite young for their age. If we dig deeper—”
“Which we will,” Sabrina said.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if these men have been getting plastic surgery done for a while. And there’s a good chance that when we ask the wives—”
“All three of them.” Gabe chuckled.
“They may not know anything about it,” Adam explained. “If you want to keep plastic surgery a secret, the best way to do it is to start young so the changes each time are quite minor.”
“So you have gone under the knife,” Gabe said.
“The point is, this facility has a whole procedure for the man who wants to keep his surgery a secret. The flight into Richmond, the walk to the cell phone lot. The unmarked car that whisks them away. It fits. And it explains why they both wound up in North Carolina when no one expected them to be.”
“That’s it,” Leigh said.
“What’s it?” five voices asked in unison.
“We need to find out who works there.”
“What do you mean?” Ryan asked.
“Nurses, techs, even doctors who work during the week in a clinic will often moonlight at hospitals. They’ll come pull a weekend shift in the ED or the recovery room or anywhere in the hospital to make extra money.”
Gabe scooted his chair back. “So we’ve got a serial killer knocking off guys who are having plastic surgery? What’s the motive?” He disappeared into the kitchen and returned with the whiteboard they’d brought in a few days ago.
“Money?” Leigh asked
Gabe wrote it down, but Adam shook his head. “I don’t think so. These guys made pretty significant withdrawals, that’s true. But that’s it. Their financials are in order.”
“What if the killer is getting to them before they pay? A robbery/homicide.”
“Seems risky. The clinic would have to know they’ve had multiple patients who have disappeared—”
“Unless they don’t know,” Anissa said.
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe they never got there. Maybe this person does work at the clinic and knows the people are coming in, but every so often he or she picks them up at the airport but never delivers them to the clinic. They tell the bosses the guy never showed up. The bosses assume he backed out. Maybe the guy had given them a burner phone or a false email or something and they don’t have any way to track him. Maybe people back out from time to time. As long a
s it only happens every six months or so, no one would catch on.”
“It’s a theory,” Ryan said
Gabe laughed. “Do you have a better one?”
Ryan shook his head. “I don’t know. Revenge?”
“For what?” Gabe scrolled through some pages on his phone. “These guys don’t seem to have any other connection other than the possibility that they both had plastic surgery.”
“Maybe it’s a woman and she hates men,” Anissa said.
All three men moaned. Leigh chuckled. “That would have to be some serious hate.”
Sabrina rose and leaned in near Leigh’s ear. “Mind if I use your powder room?”
“Be my guest.”
The conversation had continued for ten minutes with theories as varied as botched plastic surgery to love affairs gone wrong when Sabrina returned. “I’m sorry to have to cut out on you all tonight.”
Adam jumped to his feet. Ryan’s and Gabe’s mouths fell open. Anissa’s eyebrows rose. Leigh turned and blinked a couple of times.
Sabrina had transformed. The glasses were gone, as was the oversized sweatshirt. Her hair was piled on her head in an elegant twist. The black sheath she wore hugged her curves, and the black heels accentuated her legs.
“You’re stunning,” Leigh said.
Sabrina blushed. “Thank you. I feel like a freak.” She shifted uncomfortably. “This dress is ridiculous.”
“Oh, Sabrina. It’s fabulous,” Leigh said. “I don’t know where you’re headed, but you will be the belle of the ball.”
“You really think it’s okay?”
The guys all voiced hearty approval. Anissa gave her a thumbs-up. “Adam,” Leigh said, “I have a ginormous umbrella in that closet by the door. Why don’t you walk Sabrina out to her car?”
The poor boy fell over his chair trying to get to her.
When he returned a few minutes later, he still wore a dazed expression.
“Where was she going?” Gabe asked.
“Dinner,” Adam said.
“With who? The president?”
“Close,” he said. “The CEO of DOR International.”
Beneath the Surface Page 24