“It sounds like he shares a lot.”
“No, I learned nearly everything from David, my assistant. David has a manipulative ex—this one an ex-girlfriend who’s the mother of his daughter, they never married so David has even fewer rights than Nick—and he and Nick talk more about Nick’s problems than me and Nick.”
“That bothers you.”
“Wouldn’t it bother you if Sean refused to talk about something important to him? Maybe something about his personal life or his family, but he didn’t want you involved at all? Told you it’s an off-limits subject?”
Something flashed across Lucy’s face, then it was gone. Had she and Sean had growing pains? Were they going through something now? Recently? Max’s instincts hummed.
Lucy said, “We have no off-limit subjects.”
Max didn’t believe it. “None?” she said flatly.
“There was a time when both Sean and I would try to keep … secrets, for lack of a better word. I had a case last year that deeply affected me. I developed insomnia, but I kept telling Sean I was fine, that nothing was wrong, but it got to the point where I lied to him about it. Point-blank. And he knew I lied. I’m not a good liar, but I didn’t want to talk about it because I didn’t want to address the fundamental problem.”
Max waited for Lucy to elaborate on what her fundamental problem was, but she didn’t. Instead, she said, “Sean’s done the same thing, ostensibly to spare me emotional pain. It took time, but we worked through all that. We couldn’t possibly have gotten married if we didn’t have complete trust and honesty between us. It’s not who we are. But I’m certainly not one to give relationship advice. I was lucky Sean came into my life when he did. You might consider that Nick is trying to protect you or maybe doesn’t share for reasons even he doesn’t fully understand.”
Max considered what Lucy said, not only about what Nick may or may not be thinking, but that Lucy said more about herself in that one comment than she had in the last two days Max had spent with her.
“Nick knows I’m not a woman who wants or needs to be protected—I’m a big girl, my self-confidence is stronger than most. I’ve asked him to tell me what’s going on, and he won’t. He won’t even elaborate on why he won’t discuss it, other than the subject is off-limits. And it’s driving me crazy.”
“Is it driving you crazy because you’re worried about him and what he’s going through, or because you can’t stand being kept in the dark about anything?”
Max opened then closed her mouth. When had the conversation turned around from her digging for information to Lucy psychoanalyzing her?
“I tried a shrink for ten minutes. It didn’t go over well,” Max said drolly. She finished her wine. The waiter delivered their desserts and coffee.
Lucy took a bite of the chocolate concoction she ordered, the special of the day. “Oh, my God, this is amazing,” Lucy said. “Take a bite.”
Max did and concurred, though she wouldn’t be able to eat more, it was far too rich for her taste.
Max didn’t bring up Nick again and neither did Lucy. But Max couldn’t stop thinking about what Lucy had said—was it simply the not knowing that drove her up a wall or how Nancy’s shenanigans impacted Nick and his relationship with both his son and with Max?
She didn’t know. Maybe a combination of both. Maybe she really was a selfish bitch who needed to know everything about everyone.
Or maybe she just couldn’t stand the fact that Nancy was, essentially, a bully and Nick wasn’t standing up for himself. He wasn’t even using Max as a sounding board. If there was one thing that Max was good at it was weeding through bullshit and getting to the truth.
“Your husband is returning on Sunday?” Max said.
“Most likely.”
“So you’ll be leaving then?”
Lucy put her fork down and sipped her coffee. “I’m not leaving.”
“Don’t you have a job?”
Lucy didn’t respond to the question. Instead she said, “When you get the names of the possible suspects from Andrew tomorrow, we’ll talk to Katella, then to the chief in Santa Barbara and go from there.”
“You’re staying until we find the killer.”
“Aren’t you?”
“Until we find the killer or hit an impassable brick wall. My producer will throw a shit-fit if I’m not making forward progress, but I have some wiggle room.” Max waited as the waiter refilled their coffees. When he left, she said, “Tell me the truth, Lucy. Are you risking your job by staying out here? You said something earlier about not having the vacation time.”
“It’s my job to risk. I’m okay with that.”
Max believed her. Most cops Max knew were willing to risk their lives for others, they were the ones who ran toward trouble, not away from it. But they all played the game. Most wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize their jobs, because they were cops not simply because they wanted to protect the public. It was a job and they had families to support. And with only a few exceptions, the agents Max had worked with in the FBI were even worse—they were bureaucrats as well as cops.
Lucy was the furthest thing from a bureaucrat.
“That said,” Lucy continued, “I’m confident that the name of the killer is in those employment files. We just have to figure it out sooner rather than later. Did you find out if Peter Caldwell was buried with a stuffed toy?”
“I left John a message. He wasn’t happy that I was continuing the investigation.”
“He wasn’t? Or his wife?”
“He wasn’t happy because it upset his wife. He’s going through hell and all he wants is to make everything easier for Blair. My involvement is unsettling to her, even though I assured them both that my focus was on the first three victims.”
“You don’t like her.”
“Never did. Doesn’t make her a killer.”
“Andrew can get the information.”
“Would he?”
“Yes,” Lucy said without hesitation. “But I want him to do it right.”
“I don’t know what you mean by that.”
“If there was no stuffed animal, that means Justin’s killer didn’t kill Peter Caldwell. Which means that Blair Caldwell is more than likely guilty, yet she planned this by studying the murder of my nephew. She used the pain and suffering of three other boys to inflict pain and suffering on her own child and her husband. Yet you said yourself that she has a top defense lawyer and he must think that the evidence is weak otherwise they would have pled out.”
“Not all guilty people will plead. Most think they can game the system or that they’re smarter than the jury.”
“True, but Peter’s murder was methodical. You said it had all the same elements as Justin’s murder—all the same public elements. Though Andrew’s affair was made public during the investigation, it wouldn’t be something a copycat would consider part of the MO. It wasn’t publicized in the Porter case, not widely. You said you believed John when he told you he wasn’t having an affair.”
“I did, but he could have been lying.”
“Do you think he was lying? This is important, Max. You have good instincts. What do they tell you?”
Max considered everything she’d learned during her investigation into Peter Caldwell’s murder. She hadn’t learned much about the murder itself that wasn’t already public information, but she had learned a lot about John and Blair and how the people around them perceived them.
“I don’t believe he has ever been unfaithful to his wife. But there’s another key point—the first three murders the husband was with his mistress during the murder and the wife was working. The Caldwells were at a party in the same neighborhood where they lived. They were seen by dozens, if not hundreds, of people. If John had disappeared long enough to have sex with someone, even if they screwed up against the wall in the bathroom, someone would have noticed he was missing. And Blair was at the same party. If John was having an affair, he would be far more discreet. And honestly, a quick fl
ing isn’t his style.”
“I am positive,” Lucy said, “that the affair is the primary motivation for this killer.”
“You think Blair’s guilty.”
“I didn’t say that. I haven’t seen the evidence. I’m suspicious. I also want to know if John found the information about Justin’s murder on his own or if Blair steered him to it.”
“He told me he found it when he was doing research into like crimes. He was desperate to help the defense.”
“He could have, but my guess is that Blair knew about Justin’s murder, and most likely Tommy Porter as well because it’s also unsolved. Porter’s affair wasn’t as widely reported in the press.”
That was true—Max had read every press clip on the murder and the affair was only mentioned in one article, almost in passing, and in the context of the father’s alibi.
“And Chris Donovan?” Max asked.
“Another similar crime, but she wouldn’t have concerned herself with it because he was convicted. If she had read the trial transcripts, she would have known about the stuffed animal.”
“You really do think she’s guilty,” Max said.
Lucy didn’t comment. Max found both what she said—and what she didn’t say—intriguing.
“I’ll talk to Andrew,” Lucy said. “If John returns your call, let me know what he says. Otherwise, we’ll get the information another way. And if my suspicions are right, fair warning—I’m going to have Andrew suggest that the prosecution bring in my brother Dillon as an expert witness. Because if there is any reasonable doubt, the jury won’t convict Blair Caldwell—no one wants to believe a mother can kill her son in cold blood. It’s a difficult case to prosecute unless they have hard evidence.”
“You’re far more familiar with these cases than your brother.”
“I can’t testify as an expert witness—I’m a forensic psychologist, Dillon is a psychiatrist—a medical doctor—who has testified dozens of times. He has the credentials. And trust me on this, if he believes she’s guilty and goes on that stand, the jury will believe she’s guilty.”
Max didn’t doubt it for a minute. She couldn’t wait to meet Dillon Kincaid in person, though he might not be as friendly as his sister.
Lucy ate almost the entire chocolate mousse before she pushed it away. “When does the trial start?”
“Week from Monday.”
“Ten days. We’ll have to work double-time to have answers by then. If she’s guilty, we can’t let her get away with it.”
“We? It’s not us, Lucy, it’s the system—the prosecution had better have a good case.”
But Max’s comment fell on deaf ears, and she learned more about Lucy in that moment than she had in the last two days.
Lucy Kincaid took the world on her shoulders, as if she were solely responsible for putting every bad guy in prison. She didn’t even know Blair Caldwell, she wasn’t involved in the Peter Caldwell investigation, yet she wanted Blair to be punished to the fullest extent of the law. Maybe that wasn’t unusual—most people wanted criminals to be caught. But this was … different.
We can’t let her get away with it.
Interesting.
Chapter Twenty-three
Danielle bowed out of bunco with Nina, Grace, and the others. At lunch with the girls she’d made up an excuse about menopause, that her doctor had adjusted her hormones and she wasn’t quite feeling herself.
She listened to the older women talk about their own menopause stories, and the younger women talk about childbirth.
It was exhausting.
But she stayed because she needed information.
For the last six weeks, ever since she’d seen Tony and Lana at the Christmas party and just knew what was happening, Danielle felt off. As if she wasn’t completely in her body. As if everything was happening around her and no one actually saw her. If they did, wouldn’t they see her suffering? Wouldn’t they recognize that they were as much to blame for what had happened … what would happen … as she?
More so. She was a catalyst, nothing more.
Nina would be at bunco. Tony was staying home with Kevin.
“Having a boys’ night watching some action hero movie.”
That was good, right?
Just delaying the inevitable …
Nina didn’t know the truth. Danielle almost told her about Tony and Lana, wondered if that would change anything. She was so … so in love. She was smart, why couldn’t she see it?
Because she wanted it all. Career. Family. Husband. Friends. Everything.
And when she did find out, Kevin would be a pawn in the cat-and-mouse game of divorce. Because Nina and Tony were just as vindictive and angry as any other couple on earth. Friendly divorce? No such thing.
Danielle didn’t trust Tony. After all, he was a cheater. A male whore. Would he bring his mistress over to the house and screw her in his wife’s bed? Probably not … Kevin was eight.
Danielle waited until the bunco game would have started. She’d been to a half dozen over the last few years, she knew they would last until ten, sometimes longer. She drove to the Fieldstone house and parked down the block.
The Fieldstones lived in La Cresenta, in the hills above the 210 freeway. It was an older neighborhood with small, classic homes, many of which had been expanded and fixed up by the owners, increasing the value of the neighborhood. The Fieldstones were no exception. They had the money—Tony was a lawyer, Nina made in the high five figures as the senior legal secretary. They had one child.
There was one major problem with the Fieldstone house—one she hadn’t encountered before, but had been thinking about a lot over the last six weeks.
The bedrooms were upstairs.
She had a couple of ideas, but neither one was ideal.
The first was the fact that Kevin spent a lot of time with his grandmother, and twice in the last six weeks had spent the night at her house. Her one-story house.
But his grandmother had two small dogs who barked whenever a fly sneezed, so that wouldn’t work. And it would defeat the purpose of exposing his parents for the selfish, egotistical, undeserving, marginal humans that they were.
Danielle took a deep breath. Her head ached. She’d been drinking far too much this week, she had to stop. Relax.
But the nightmares will return …
She could suffer the nightmares to enact retribution. It would just be a couple of days, maybe a week. Two.
Sooner. Because Nina and Tony Fieldstone didn’t want to be parents. They would leave, abandon their son.
They all did it. They all left.
The darkness deepened as she watched the house: 7:00 P.M.; 8:00 P.M.
A tap on her window made her jump.
An older man and his wife stood on the sidewalk with their leashed dog.
She turned her ignition half the way and rolled down the window.
“Yes?” she said.
“Is something wrong, ma’am? Car broke down?”
“No. I was just talking on the phone. Sorry.”
The man looked down at her hands. Her phone was in her purse.
“I-I had some bad news. I needed a few minutes to compose myself. I didn’t meant to disturb anyone.”
“You didn’t, but you were here when we left for our walk nearly an hour ago. Just wanted to make sure, can’t be too careful.”
He stepped back from the door. Danielle didn’t want to leave, but now she would have to. She couldn’t afford to draw attention to herself.
She turned on the car and drove off. She glanced in the rearview mirror. The man was still watching her.
Well, shit.
She drove around for quite a while until she ended up in Burbank and saw a sign.
LAST WEEKEND FOR BLOW-OUT DEALS! LAST-YEAR MODELS CHEAP!
It was time to get a new car.
Just in case.
* * *
An hour later, Danielle drove off in a brand-new silver Nissan Ultima. Last year’s model, but with o
nly thirty-seven miles on it. She didn’t care much about cars, but this was a good deal, and she’d kept her four-year-old Honda in pristine condition so got a good trade-in. She hadn’t planned on getting rid of the Honda until she moved again, but it was time.
A sign.
She drove back through the Fieldstones’ neighborhood, but didn’t stop. She didn’t know where the old folks lived, and she couldn’t risk being seen again.
It was late, after ten, but Nina’s SUV wasn’t in the driveway. Tony always parked his sporty car in the garage, but with all their things, the two-car garage only fit one small vehicle. She couldn’t tell if he was still home, but there were no other cars in the driveway or directly in front of the house. They had two babysitters, other than Kevin’s grandmother—one had a small pickup truck, the other lived three blocks away and walked because she didn’t have her license.
Danielle drove around the block once.
She’d been to the house several times for parties and bunco. The master bedroom had been expanded out over the garage and looked over both the front and backyard. Kevin’s bedroom was in the front corner of the house. His bed was under the windows which met in the corner. Impossible to reach from ground level.
She left the neighborhood. There was only one way she could do this. She would have to go in through the front or back door. The Fieldstones had an alarm system, but they only used it when they were out of town.
As if their possessions were more important than their son.
Danielle drove home. She lived in a quaint older house in Glendale with a long narrow driveway that led to the detached garage. She didn’t park in the garage—she used it for other things.
She went inside her house and poured a glass of wine, then stopped herself. She needed to be clear this week. To plan. She put the glass down but didn’t pour it out. She might need just one small glass to go to sleep. To keep the nightmares at bay.
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