Compulsion (Max Revere Novels Book 2)

by Brennan, Allison

  “You think so?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Um, Ms. Golden said I can talk to you now, if I want. Do you still want to or do you not care anymore since it’s all over?”

  “I care. Just because he’s dead doesn’t mean the victims or their families can forget what happened. I can find time to talk to you.” She stepped into her office and looked at her calendar. Nick was leaving in the morning. David had scheduled him a 6:00 A.M. flight back. She had a lot of work to do, but getting an interview with Ava Raines would be a coup. “How about nine tomorrow morning?”

  “Tomorrow?” Her voice squeaked. “I guess.”

  “Is there something else?”

  “No, not really. I’m just confused. There was a news story last night that the police found the building where he killed everyone. Do you know if it’s true?”

  “I saw the same report.”

  “Then you heard the same thing, that there was someone else there who might have killed people, and that the police rescued a woman and killed the guy. And all I could think about was, what if it had been me?”

  “It wasn’t you.”

  Ava sounded lost and alone. Max asked, “Where’s your father? Do you have anyone who can stay with you tonight?”

  “My dad’s working this week, a job in Jersey. He’s not going to be home until this weekend. I just wanted to talk to someone who knows what’s going on. I’m sorry to bother you.”

  Max looked at her watch. It was two. She had time, and sitting around here waiting for information was going to drive her crazy. “If you have time now, I can meet somewhere closer to you.”

  “I don’t want to trouble you.”

  “Really, it’s not. It might take me an hour or so to get out there, but I can do it.”

  “I’d like that—before we do a real interview or anything.”

  Max often met with her interviewees before the formal interview. It put them at ease in what could be an emotional situation. And what Ava Raines endured—being kidnapped, trapped, barely escaping, and now not getting justice because Adam Bachman took his own life—Max had more than sympathy for her. She knew exactly how she felt.

  They’d both escaped death.

  “Is there a coffee place you like near you?” Max asked.

  “Um, you can just come to my house. If that’s okay.”

  “Sure. Give me your address,” Max said. She wrote it down, then said, “It’ll be me and my assistant, but he’ll give us space to talk.”

  “Thank you. Thank you so much, I already feel better. Like someone cares about me.”

  “I do,” Max assured her and hung up.

  David was standing in her doorway. “I’m glad you acknowledged that you were bringing your assistant,” he said. “That would be me, correct?”

  She smiled. “I promised I wouldn’t leave without you. That was Ava Raines. She’s confused and sounds a bit lost. Charlene gave her the party line, but the girl’s been through the wringer of the trial and testifying and then the news reports about what the police uncovered at the warehouse.” She hesitated. “How did you keep my name out of it?”

  “That was all Sally. It may come out, but when it does, it shouldn’t have as big an impact after the fact.”

  “I appreciate it.” She hesitated. “It puts my job in a different perspective.”

  “Are you sure you’re up to driving out to Long Island?”

  She was tired. “I’m okay.”

  “After, straight back to your apartment.”

  “I won’t argue. Let’s leave as soon as I fill Ben in on the plan. I’m meeting Nick for dinner at seven, since it’s his last night here.”

  Ten minutes later, as David pulled out of the parking garage, Max’s cell phone beeped with incoming messages. “From C. J.,” she said and skimmed them. “Holy shit.”

  “He found something?”

  “Yeah … but I have no idea what it means.” Max stared at the document he’d scanned. It was Faith Duvall’s second marriage license. “Duvall’s mother married Victor Tracy.”

  David glanced at her. “The guy you thought was your father? When?”

  “Three years before I was born. Duvall would have been ten then, thirteen when I was born. Twenty-nine when I confronted Victor. But this has to be a coincidence. Victor isn’t my father.”

  “It’s the only connection we’ve found between you and Duvall.”

  “It’s thin. And why, dammit? Why does he hate me so much that he planned to torture and kill me? Because his mother married a guy I thought was my dad? Because my mother had an affair with his mother’s husband? That’s ridiculous.”

  “The guy’s a wack job, Max. I don’t know that you can make sense of his reasons.”

  “No…” If Duvall’s reasons had anything to do with Victor Tracy, it wasn’t because of an affair. It made no sense.

  “Talk it out,” David said.

  “I can’t wrap my head around it.” She thanked C. J. for the information and sent him a message asking for more information about Faith Duvall Tracy.

  “Did you meet her?” he asked.

  “Yes. She didn’t know about my mother.”

  “How certain are you about that?”

  “I didn’t tell her. She didn’t have any opinion about me, as far as I know.” She paused, putting herself back into the past. “I was sixteen when I met Victor. We didn’t hit it off, trust me on that. I manipulated him into the paternity test. But when I started classes at Columbia, I reached out to him again. I wanted to know more about my mother. I wasn’t ready to hear it when I was sixteen. He’s an interesting guy. I know all about his legal problems, and there’s no doubt that he’s a criminal, at least he had been. He ended up in prison for a short time—pled guilty on something and had his sentence reduced. It was a high-stakes game to him. Can people change? I don’t know. But going to prison and having to pay restitution definitely impacted him. He’s living a very quiet life now as a forensic accountant.”

  “Did he ever talk to you about his wife?”

  “Not much. He said she was fragile. Delicate. He never talked about having two stepkids. But by the time I met Victor, Duvall would have been nearly thirty.”

  “It seems that if Duvall was this obsessed, it didn’t come out of left field. He probably had issues growing up.”

  “Most killers do,” Max said.

  “Can you call Victor?”

  “And say what?”

  “That’s up to you.”

  It was a good idea. They’d kept in touch, but nothing regular, and she hadn’t spoken to him in more than a year. Nearly two years. He’d moved to Boston after serving his time in federal prison. She’d had dinner with him the night before he surrendered, and she’d visited him once in prison. That was the last time she’d seen him.

  Before she could talk herself out of it, she looked up his number and pressed send.

  He answered on the third ring. “Hello. Maxine?”

  “Hello, Victor. How are you?”

  “Surprised to hear from you. Is everything okay?”

  “I’m fine. It’s been a while, I know. I have a specific reason to call. Do you have a minute?”

  “Of course.”

  “It’s about Carter Duvall.”

  Silence.

  “Victor?”

  “I don’t know what to tell you. I haven’t seen him in years. What is this about?”

  “He’s your wife’s son, from her first marriage, correct?”

  “Yes. Is this official, Maxine?” He’d gone from friendly to confused to belligerent.

  “Yes and no.” What did she tell him? Vague was best. “Carter is the subject of a police investigation. He threatened me, the police are taking it seriously.”

  “What kind of threat?”

  “He tried to kill me.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “I didn’t know he was related to you until now, as we’re going over his background. The police didn’t know my
connection to you, so they didn’t even think to follow up.”

  “Did you tell them?”

  “I just found out. What do you know? Victor, this is important.”

  “Faith is so delicate…”

  “So you have said for years. Victor, do you know why Carter Duvall hates me so much that he wants me dead? He said I took from him and he’ll take from me. What does that mean?”

  “Are you positive it was Carter?”

  “Yes. Why are you being evasive?”

  “Faith has been in an assisted living facility for the past ten years.”

  “You never told me that.”

  “I don’t tell many people. She had a nervous breakdown. She’s never recovered.”

  “Over what?”

  “It’s a mental illness. I don’t think there was any one thing, it was a buildup. I care for her, but we never had a real marriage. I didn’t realize, until later, that she knew about my affairs. She was so fragile, so sweet, but I didn’t realize until we were married that there was something off about her. And I blame myself for making it worse.

  “Remember the dinner we had before I went to prison?” he asked.

  “Of course.”

  “I wasn’t planning on surrendering. I knew the FBI had a fairly good case, and my lawyer had arranged a terrific plea agreement. But I wanted to run. My freedom meant something to me. But when I told you about the agreement, you were proud of me, and I felt ashamed. For what I’d done to strangers, for what I’d said to you, for what I’d done to my family. I didn’t want to lie anymore. So I agreed to the plea deal and went to prison for four years.

  “But I lost everything. Including the trust I’d set up to take care of Faith. Carter blamed me, and he took over paying for her care. It’s expensive, especially in the place I had her. Now that I’m making a steady income, I offered to help, but he won’t talk to me and won’t take the money. He tried to stop me from seeing her, but I fought him on that. A few years ago he tried to legally end my marriage, but because I didn’t want to and I wasn’t receiving a financial benefit from being married to Faith, the judge denied him.”

  “I had no idea.”

  “I didn’t talk about it. You were only interested in finding out what happened to your mother. I didn’t want to trouble you with my worries.”

  “I was selfish.”

  “You were young.”

  That didn’t discount that she’d used Victor’s knowledge and information without thinking to ask how he was doing.

  “I’m sorry.” And she meant it.

  “Maxine, you were practically a child when you first came to me. I appreciate that you sent me letters while I was in prison, and that you were honest with me from the beginning. I wasn’t as kind to you then, and I’m sorry about that.”

  “All this—it’s about you and Carter. If he hurts me, he doesn’t directly hurt you. We don’t have that kind of relationship.” Max’s head was beginning to hurt trying to piece it together.

  “I really don’t—” he stopped.

  “What do you remember?”

  “There’s one thing. When you moved to New York, when you were still in college, do you remember that we met once at the café near the Museum of Natural History? It was three months before I was arrested.”

  “I remember.” Her great-grandmother had just died and left her one-fifth of her estate that would have gone to her mother. If Martha didn’t show up within a year, the money went to Maxine. Max had been grieving and overwhelmed and Victor had given her a crash course on financial planning and trust management, starting at that lunch. “You saved my ass.”

  “I knew it was only a matter of time before the FBI finally gathered enough evidence against me, and I wanted to help while I could. And I felt bad for how I treated you when you first came to me. After that, Carter confronted me. He thought I was cheating on Faith again. I was angry, and told him to grow up. That you were far too young for me and we were just friends. He didn’t believe me. And when the FBI came knocking, they said someone I was close to had turned state’s evidence.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t then, and the FBI never revealed the name of their informant when I pled. I suspect it was a bluff. But Carter thought it was you, that you’d seduced me to gain information to turn over to the feds.”

  “That’s insane.”

  “I said as much. But Carter was angry. I knew Faith had married me for my money, and when things were going well, she was well. But when things got rough, that’s when she fell apart. It wasn’t normal, I see that now, but I blamed myself for her troubles. I didn’t see that she had problems from the beginning. Well, maybe I did, and that’s why I justified the affairs I had. I don’t know. I’ve spent so much time trying to make things right, I’ve only made them worse. But I still don’t see why Carter would try to kill you.”

  You took from me; I’ll take from you.

  It was about money.

  “I think I’m beginning to understand,” she said. “Did he have any troubles as a child?”

  “Like what? He didn’t kill animals or wet his bed, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

  Maybe she was, but she said, “No. Just—did he seem off to you?”

  “He was distant. He didn’t have close friends. He saw a therapist most of his childhood. Faith insisted on it, to help him deal with the divorce and her remarriage. I was stunned when he went into medicine and became a psychiatrist. He’d always been smart, but considering he spent half his childhood in therapy for no discernible reason I could see, I wondered why he chose that field.”

  “What about his sister, Diana?”

  “Sweet kid, but she cut ties when I was first investigated. She’d always been closer to her father than her mother. She’s married and living in Virginia, I think. I haven’t been in contact with her in years, and she never visits her mother.”

  “I appreciate this, Victor.”

  “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

  “When it’s over. Know that Carter is dangerous. You might want to avoid him for a while.”

  “Honestly? I haven’t seen or heard from him since he tried to dissolve my marriage to his mother.”

  She thanked Victor and hung up. “Did you hear that?” she asked David.

  “Most of it. Duvall is a nut job. Targeting you because he thought you had something to do with the stepfather he didn’t like going to jail?”

  “That’s not it,” she said. “It’s not about Victor. It’s about the perception that I took him down. And now it makes sense. He didn’t know who I was, but he remembered me. So when he saw me on Maximum Exposure he made the connection. I was a reporter, I must have been involved in Victor’s takedown which, by extension, hurt his mother who was dependent on Victor’s money for her medical care. Carter had to take it over, which would be a huge drain on his finances.”

  “According to Marco, nothing jumped out as unusual on his finances.”

  “Maybe they weren’t looking at the right place. Carter was raised by an expert in financial fraud. He probably learned a few tricks. Someone was paying for Baker’s apartment in Queens, and I don’t buy him getting by solely on odd jobs.”

  “Call Marco.”

  “We’re nearly to Ava’s. I’ll send him a message and have him dig around more.”

  She typed fast, and hit send as soon as David pulled up in front of the Raines property. It was an older house and had once been a charming Victorian, but had fallen into disrepair. But the bones of the house were solid.

  It was nearly four. “One hour, tops,” she said, “so I can get back to the city and say good-bye to Nick.”

  * * *

  Marco walked into the conference room and was surprised to see Nick Santini standing there, reading the corkboards that Ben and his staff had erected.

  “I thought you flew back to California,” he said.

  “Tomorrow morning.” Nick turned around and faced him. Mar
co didn’t want to like the detective, but he couldn’t find fault with him. That made Marco grumpier, especially after his most recent conversation with Max.

  “Max isn’t here. She and David went to talk to one of Bachman’s victims out in Long Island.”

  “I was getting restless in the apartment and took a walk here.”

  “Long walk.”

  “I had time to kill. Any news?”

  “A loose connection to the criminal Maxine thought was her father. Duvall was his stepson and according to Victor Tracy, Duvall thought Tracy was having an affair with her when Max was in college. Three months later, Tracy goes to prison. He makes a plea deal that includes restitution and Duvall’s mother loses everything.”

  “This is an elaborate plan for revenge of something that never happened.”

  “Duvall thinks Max turned Tracy into the feds and cost Tracy his fortune.”

  “Did she?”

  “No. She wasn’t even a reporter then. She was still in college. Says Tracy taught her to manage the money she’d inherited from her great-grandmother.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Hell if I know. Unless he really is her father and somehow faked the paternity test.”

  “Do you really think that?”

  Marco shook his head. “I have two agents going to the facility where Duvall’s mother is.”

  “Back up—what facility?”

  “She had a nervous breakdown when Tracy went to prison—” He stopped talking when he saw the expression of interest on Nick’s face. “Shit, that would be a pretty good motivation, wouldn’t it?”

  Nick nodded. “If he thinks that Max had anything to do with his mother’s nervous breakdown that might give him motivation to go after her. Though this plan of his is psychotic.”

  “The Farmington office in Connecticut interviewed Nanette Jackson about Duvall, and she’s been cooperating,” Marco said. “Once we waived the warrants around, she was more than happy to help. She doesn’t have much to add, except we learned that the security at Greenhaven is lacking. Though all the doors are accessed by card code, it doesn’t track who enters a building. Plus, there’s external cameras, but no internal cameras. We ran through their security logs and tracked Riley Butler’s whereabouts as best we could. We have her on camera crossing the courtyard and accessing the main building. That corresponds to a card key log. Another card key log enters her building about twenty minutes later.”