33
Kelsey left the stables thirty minutes later, watching to see if she was followed. She couldn’t stand it anymore. She had to make Alan—no, not Alan, Lyle—face her and explain why he betrayed her. If he needed her to help him with some kind of research, he should have just been honest about it. But maybe using eggs women donated for research, even with their consent, would make him a candidate for a lawsuit down the road.
If he had told her what he needed from her and explained its importance, she might have done it willingly. The betrayal with Whitney, though, she could never get past that. She hoped someone had murdered Whitney; she deserved it for what she’d done. Kelsey, running on anger, wasn’t ready to consider the other possibility, that Whitney had been another victim of Lyle’s deceit.
She drove to Mayfair and parked in front of a tall office building at the end of the parking lot, then stopped to consider whether she was doing the right thing. She quickly decided she had no choice—she had to confront him or she wouldn’t be able to live with herself.
Kelsey stepped out of her car and entered the lobby. Lyle Felhaber’s office was on the third floor. She took the elevator up, all the while ignoring a little voice in her head telling her she was out of her mind for trying to face him.
He shared a suite of rooms with two other fertility doctors. Five women sat waiting in a room richly appointed in sleek shades of aqua and mauve. Kelsey entered quietly and, unnoticed, took the seat nearest the door. She picked up a magazine and glanced around. Two women wearing aqua smocks covered the desk, one talking on the phone and the other filing forms. They hadn’t noticed her.
A tall, dark-haired woman came in and approached the desk. Kelsey barely managed to keep her cool when the receptionist addressed the woman as Mrs. Felhaber. When she turned to greet a nurse, Kelsey nearly went into shock—although older, the woman looked enough like Kelsey to be her sister.
Kelsey held the magazine higher, trying to remain unobserved. The woman told a receptionist that since her husband was busy, she’d stop by later after she did some shopping. When she left, Kelsey ducked out into the hall and found a ladies room where she reconsidered tracking him down in his office. As much as Kelsey looked like his wife, she’d hardly get in unnoticed.
She returned to the waiting area wearing a scarf around her hair—she’d taken it from around her neck—and dark glasses. No one was behind the desk and the waiting room was deserted. The time was right. Because the workday was ending, he would most likely be in his office, alone. If not, she would wait for him there. Her heart beating wildly, Kelsey crept into the hallway to the office area. Luckily, the office door with Dr. Felhaber’s name on a plaque was one of the closest to the reception desk, so no one else was likely to see her slip in. The door was open just a crack, so she could see Lyle bent over, writing in an open file on his desk. He was alone.
As she walked in, she pulled off the scarf and glasses.
He looked up. “Kelsey! What are you doing here?”
“How can you ask me that?”
He stood quickly, crossed the room and closed the door, locking it behind him. “You look wonderful,” he said, stepping in front of her.
“Don’t bother with flattery. You’re nothing but a liar and a cheat.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked, his forehead scrunched with fake concern.
“You bastard. You can’t even admit it, can you?”
She didn’t know how he managed to fake it, but his eyes misted over. “Kelsey, all I ever did was love you.” He held out his arms to her.
Kelsey backed away from him, edging closer to the door. “I can’t believe I ever loved you.” She reached behind her back and unlocked the door without letting him out of her sight, then stepped into the open doorway. “I’ll make you pay for what you did to me.” She rushed out, slamming the door behind her.
Back at her car, she found TJ leaning against it, her arms crossed over her chest. “Thought you weren’t gonna to do somethin’ stupid,” TJ said.
“I needed closure, that’s all.”
“Fuck closure!” TJ grabbed Kelsey’s arm and pulled her close. “I know where you were and why. You got out alive now, but you just set yourself up, little girl. Didn’t what happened to Whitney get through to you?”
“You don’t know what happened to Whitney, not really. And if that woman they found is her, anyone could have killed her, not Alan.”
“Alan? You’ve forgotten that isn’t even the asshole’s name. He lied to you, had sex with you, and invaded your body. Some other woman could be carryin’ your kid. How in the hell can you be fuckin’ stupid enough to defend him?”
“I’m not defending him—not anymore. I just don’t think he’s capable of murder.”
TJ shook her head. Kelsey didn’t want to believe the man she had loved so completely could do such a thing. “Jeez, you’re a piece o’ work.”
A young man joined them, a man with a neck the width of TJ’s waist and muscles to match. Rina’s security guard had called TJ and reported Kelsey’s visit to Felhaber’s office. It hadn’t been hard to figure out the rest. “Kelsey, meet Jake. You two gonna be joined at the hip.”
Kelsey’s face reddened. “I don’t need a freaking bodyguard.”
TJ said, “Jake, she’s all yours.”
34
When Jen called mid-afternoon, Bart convinced her to stay with him again that night. She offered to cook for them.
“Thanks,” he said, “but I think we need to get out of here. Let’s have dinner somewhere. How about The King and I?”
“Sure, I love Thai. I’ll need to pick up some things, though.”
“We’ll go to eat and stop at your place on the way back. I don’t think you should go back there alone.”
After he hung up, he sent RayAnn a text telling her to let herself in if they weren’t back by the time she arrived—he’d given her a guest code for the security system the day before.
Bart resisted only mildly when Jen grabbed the check after dinner. He feared he was becoming too enamored of her and wanted to talk about it, but had no idea how to broach the subject without appearing needy or too assuming, so he opted for nondisclosure and said nothing.
Her apartment on the third floor overlooked a small, rather dismal park with no greenery or even snow to dress it up. Bart waited in the living room while she gathered what she needed for the next day.
Jen’s décor was neat and uncluttered. Bart wasn’t sure what it was, maybe Scandinavian, with wood the color of caramels, the style sleek. Splashes of vibrant color perked up the simplicity of the rooms. She had a pots-and-pans rack over a small kitchen island, holding a set of copper-bottomed pans that would have cost a week’s paycheck. They even looked well used. Bart decided that next time she offered to make him dinner—assuming there would be a next time—he wouldn’t turn her down.
She had a small work area set up in a corner of the living room, her laptop on a desk that matched the rest of her furniture. Bart wandered over to the desk and opened her computer. Her Gmail page opened. Checking email must have been the last thing she was doing before she left the apartment the night before. Bart couldn’t resist looking over the column of senders, and what he saw near the top of the list made his scalp tingle with fear—Jen had a message from a John Doe, which was how Headliner sent his emails.
“Jen?” he called.
“Be right out. I’m almost finished here.”
“I think you’d better come and see this.”
She came into the room carrying a large floral travel bag. “See what?”
Bart stood up and gestured for her to sit in front of the computer.
“What am I looking at?”
He had a moment’s relief that she hadn’t asked him why he was looking over her emails. “I lifted the lid of your computer and this screen was open.”
“That’s odd. I always turn the computer off when I leave. I guess I forgot. You don’t think that hurt an
ything, do you?”
“It’s not the computer I’m worried about. It’s that message.” He pointed to the one from John Doe. “That’s him—Headliner.”
She pulled her fingers away from the computer as if she’d been burned. “My God!”
“I’m sorry I got you involved in this, Jen. That was never my intention.”
“I know that, but what are we going to do? Should I open the message?”
“No. We shouldn’t have even touched the computer.”
A few seconds passed before the impact of his statement hit her. “You think he was in here?” She looked wildly around the room, her voice shrill.
“I hope not. The message came as an email, but look around and see if you notice whether anything has been moved around or if anything is missing. When he got into my place he took some things.” Bart hadn’t told her how important the violets were to him and that Headliner had taken his two prize plants. When he’d given Jen a tour of his house, he hadn’t commented on them in case she thought African violets a weird thing for a man to be interested in.
She looked around the room. “Everything looks the same in here. What did he take from your place?”
Bart told her about the rare violets that were taken and admitted how dear the Krogmans had been to him.
“Oh, right. I saw them when you showed me your office. I love violets.” She left the room to look through the bedroom and bathroom, and when she came back, her face had paled.
Bart jumped up and went to her. “What is it? Did he take something valuable?”
“I have a collection, too.” Her pale face turned bright pink. “He took all my matched sets of silk lingerie.”
The pervert had invaded Jen’s bedroom. Bart wanted to wring Headliner’s neck, not that he would have been a match for him—or anyone else for that matter. The man had promised to leave them alone if Bart wrote the blog. He had been an idiot to take the word of a psychopath.
After they called the police and Conlin had shown up with an evidence tech, Bart finally calmed down enough to begin fantasizing about Jen’s lithe body in a red silk bra and matching panties.
35
Early that evening TJ received a call from Rina, who insisted on meeting with Lisa and TJ to discuss the case. “We need to touch base.”
“That’s fine, but Kelsey needs to be there too.”
“She might feel like we’re ganging up on her, don’t you think?”
TJ figured the time had come to be blunt. “If you just hired me to find out who took advantage of your niece and why, that’s one thing, and we can keep babyin’ your niece. You won’t need me anymore. But if you want the bastard that did it to be prosecuted we’re gonna need to get her to wake up. She’s thinking with her heart—not her head—and stickin’ up for this piece o’ shit.”
Rina sighed. “You are right of course. My concern for her mental health has had me walking on eggshells around her, but I realize she has to grow up and face reality like we have all had to do. We will encourage her to open up to us, but please, come here. She won’t be expecting this to happen at home and will be more likely to cooperate.”
TJ breathed easier and called Lisa.
Petretti’s home, an expansive, white brick ranch on Wauwatosa’s parkway, was decorated for the season, splendid with glittering lights, wreaths, and a backlit Nativity harboring gold figures. The rumor in the neighborhood was that Petretti spent a fortune every year to have her home professionally decorated. Even TJ had to admire the tasteful display—no plastic blow-up Santas, reindeer cutouts, or blinking, Las Vegas-style lights.
Jake, dressed casually in jeans and a white shirt, had his gun openly harnessed under his arm in a leather holster, opened the door to TJ. They entered a foyer large enough to display a tall, narrow tree decorated with red and gold bows and ornaments. Jake took her coat, hung it in the closet, and then vanished when Rina appeared.
“We’ll be meeting in the living room,” she said. Rina led TJ to the right off the foyer and they passed through a pair of glass-paneled wooden doors into a holiday wonderland.
The interior of the house had been turned into a display of Christmas splendor that TJ had only seen in magazines while she waited in the dentist’s office. Garlands sparkling with tiny white lights were hung everywhere, an especially festive one hung above the mantel over a large stone fireplace. Intertwined with the garland on the mantel were crystal candlesticks in all shapes and sizes, filled with red, gold, and dark-green candles. Even the fire in the fireplace had been doctored to glow with bright colors. The room, warm and filled with the scent of pine and cinnamon, held a Christmas tree that rose nearly to the top of the cathedral ceiling.
Lisa and Kelsey sat stiffly across from each other on twin, cream-colored sofas positioned at right angles to the fireplace. The mammoth coffee table between the sofas they sat on held a lovely arrangement of gold candles, bows and ornaments. Amazingly, the decorations managed not to look overdone.
TJ accepted Rina’s offer of mulled wine and took a seat next to Kelsey, thinking that it would be hard to have a serious conversation amidst the splendor of Christmas cheer in the room. A dingy, stale-aired interrogation room would have been more fitting for what was coming.
Kelsey sighed loudly and broke the silence. “This isn’t a Christmas party, so, what is it, some kind of intervention?”
TJ waited for Lisa or Rina to answer.
Lisa said, “Kelsey, Rina hired TJ and to find out what happened to you. She’s done that and we’ve learned who is responsible. The why has yet to be discovered, however, and, while you may prefer to just forget about it, a crime has been committed. And there could be a woman out there somewhere who is carrying your child.”
“Dr. Butler told us the chance of that in vitro thing developing into a pregnancy,” Kelsey said, “especially on the first try, isn’t very likely. And if some woman is knocked up because of this, she’s welcome to it—it’s his kid.”
TJ had to wonder at how often this girl changed directions. The last time she’d talked to her, Kelsey had been acting like she still had feelings for the guy in spite of her words to the contrary.
“Kelsey,” Rina cried, “you don’t mean that.”
“My niece and I will discuss the baby later,” Rina said.
“I don’t want anything to do with him or his baby.” Kelsey looked at Lisa. “I told you who he is and now everyone knows,” she accused.
“I didn’t break your confidence, Kelsey. TJ had her suspicions already, and the guard who was following you when you went to Dr. Felhaber’s office, alerted her. It was your own actions that brought everything out into the open.”
TJ hadn’t wanted to discuss the possibility of a baby, but she couldn’t avoid it now that it had been brought up. “He used you to give another woman your kid, but you don’t believe he could have murdered your roommate. Think about it—if he’d get rid of your roommate—either kill her or pay her to leave town to protect his sorry ass, what makes you think you won’t be next? That’s what we’re doin’ here, tryin’ to make you understand that you could be the next body endin’ up in Bart Kosik’s backyard, and your kid, God only knows where.”
Kelsey met TJ’s stern gaze. “I’ve told you everything. What more do you want from me?”
“Don’t think you have. You gotta tell us all of it so we can nail him. Guys like him are users—and murderers.”
Kelsey crossed her arms.
“We all make bad choices in men at times, but you hafta put on your big-girl panties now and get over it. Show him what you’re made of, girl.”
Rina sat quietly opposite her niece, a hard expression on her face. TJ figured the woman couldn’t wait to get Kelsey alone.
Lisa said softly, “TJ’s right, Kelsey. I made bad choices myself for more than twenty years until I finally realized there was more to a relationship than excitement and drama. You will too someday, believe me.”
Kelsey rose from the sofa and faced them.
"You don’t understand. None of you do.” She rushed out of the room. TJ was impressed that Rina didn’t run after her.
Rina said, “She does not understand that we were all young once, made mistakes, loved the wrong men.” She looked at TJ and added, “We cannot let my niece pay for her mistake with her life.”
36
RayAnn tapped the buttons on the keypad of Bart’s security system and let herself into the house, resetting it before she closed the door. Passing from the small entryway into the living room, she thought Bart Kosik was probably gay. He didn’t appear to be all that cozy with the girl who spent the night, and she knew gay men liked being around women. His house looked nothing like the places of the guys she’d dated.
Bart’s immaculate living room was carefully done in pearl gray, with black and bright maroon for contrast. Even the accent pieces were carefully chosen to coordinate with the rest of the room. After checking out the kitchen for snacks and settling for a soda and a bag of Sun Chips, RayAnn headed back to the living room. She turned on the TV, ripped open the bag of chips, and was about to settle on the sofa when she noticed the ledge in a high window of the room. It no longer held black pots filled with those fancy flower plants as it had the night before. Her snack forgotten, she walked to the window and examined the ledge. On a shelf without a trace of dust—Bart was a neat freak and a clean freak—two leaves were the only thing that remained of the plants.
Stupid and careless, that’s what she was. She should have done a careful walkthrough before she thought about stuffing food in her mouth, but she hadn’t eaten all day, not that hunger was any excuse. RayAnn walked from room to room, not finding anything else unusual until she got to Bart’s office. He had told her about the missing plants, and that he’d reshuffled the others to fill in the spot where they’d been on the shelf. She headed toward the wall that held the plants, hoping to see the ones missing from the living room spaced between the others, but what she saw made her forget all about her empty stomach. The shelves were bare.
Girl Undone (TJ Peacock & Lisa Rayburn Mysteries Book 3) Page 11