A minute passed, the door opened, and standing in the foyer was a thirty-plus-year-old man with tattoos, slicked-back hair, with undeniable charm and magnetism.
“Hey, baby,” he said.
Kelly felt a rush of warm blood to her cheeks.
“You made it. It’s almost time to leave.”
Kelly slipped inside the doorway and melted into his arms. The man with the tattoos pulled her in close and kissed her on the forehead, overpowering her with a sense of masculinity that Kelly didn’t know what but it drew her to him.
“It’s all done, baby,” Kelly said. “The cops are at the airport. They don’t know a thing.”
The man with the tattoos embraced his girl with a tight grip on her arms. “Good job. You did everything just like I told you.”
“I knew I could do it. You were right. My family was stunting my growth and halting my progress. I’m a woman and my parents; they failed to see that.”
“Like I told you; life would be a lot better with me sweetheart. I just gave you a much-needed push.”
Kelly grinned with anticipation. “I can’t believe this is happening! I can’t believe we’re really doing this!”
“It’s just like we planned, baby,” the man with the tattoos said. “It’s just like I said it would be to a T.”
He kissed her again, this time on the mouth, hard and passionately, before peeling her off him, gesturing toward the stairs to his right, and saying, “Get your stuff. We gotta go.”
Minutes later, they were gone, out in a stolen car, and on their way to a buddy who had a van and a plan to take them to their destination in Miami, where Kelly and her man would use the money that they swindled to live out a new life, free from suspicion. Free from Vincent.
14
Four Months Later
The trail and the case had gone completely cold after the misdirection Kelly pulled on them at the airport.
Vincent realized right away that Kelly had gotten one over on him but based on her track record of semi-sloppy moves, he was shocked to find that she had duped not only himself but several members of different law enforcement agencies.
Three weeks after her departure—and with a significant amount, of hustle from the Clarendon forensics teams—Kelly Moretti’s DNA had been found on the bodies of Ben and Aiden Stonebrook as well as her father Tony Moretti.
“Kelly committed the crimes,” Grimes said to Vincent over the phone. “That much is clear.”
“She’s lost in the abyss, though,” Vincent said. “Girl got away. I still can’t believe it.”
“Think she had help?”
“Oh yeah,” Vincent said. “She got away a little too quick and undetected. She might have had help. Hell, that person might even be the second suspect I had theorized about.”
After broadcasting Kelly’s story as well as her photo across every major news outlet for weeks, eventually, like all news stories, Kelly’s crimes and her subsequent disappearance became front-page news, and though warrants and pictures were distributed to several law enforcement officials throughout the nation, the trail on Kelly Moretti had, inevitably, grown cold.
Vincent found himself back in Hollow Green, involved in a collection of minor cases and one dead body that ended up being a suicide. For Detective Vincent, the workflow in Hollow Green was more than scarce. Being that there was only so much to do, he spent his downtime looking for Kelly Moretti.
A steaming cup of coffee was placed next to him as he searched hotel records throughout the nation, charting possible routes and places Kelly could be hiding and doing his best deduction on what areas and places that might look like.
“Black,” Brandt said, “no sugar.”
Vincent raised his cup of coffee and toasted with his eyes still glued to his monitor. “Appreciated.”
She pointed to his screen. “Any luck?”
Vincent huffed. “No. I don’t get the sense that Kelly would have gone to any of the places I’ve covered. I’ve tried charting different routes she could have taken, possible plans she could have made. Hell, I even got this mathematician to come up with this algorithm to see if it came up with a hit.”
He kept clicking.
“I’m inclined to believe,” Brandt said, “that what’s missing from this search is a crucial yet simple element that we haven’t taken into account.”
Vincent pushed back his chair and swiveled to face her. “And what element would that be?”
Brandt winked and took a sip of her coffee. “A woman’s perspective.”
Vincent laughed. “I’m open to that,” he said. “But you’re going to have to be more specific.”
“I was sixteen once too you know?”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“I was smartass, no doubt about it. And the fact that I was a Midwest teenager once lends, what I think, is relevant insight to the case.”
“Point being?”
“Point being: I know what it was like to be her age. Wealthy? No. But a similar mindset? Most definitely.”
“Okay,” Vincent said, leaning back in his chair. “So what does your insight tell you?”
Brandt leaned against Vincent’s desk, her gaze wandering. “Growing up,” she said, “especially in the Midwest, especially in small towns, most people have one of two goals they make by the time they get through the early-to-mid-years of their teens.”
Vincent arched his eyebrow.
Brandt held up one finger. “Moving to the city,” she said before holding up a second finger, “or moving to the coast.”
Vincent pointed. “You went to California.”
“I wanted oceans as opposed to the city.”
“And you’re saying that you think it’s possible that Kelly Moretti went to a major metropolis or somewhere near the coast.”
“I’d bet the bank on it.” She smiled.
Vincent turned back to his monitor. “So the question is,” he said, “which one of the two did she pick?”
“I have a gut feeling.”
“Really, now?”
“Yup. You’re not the only one who has them.”
“True. So tell me.”
Brandt stood up from the desk, slipped a hand in her pocket, and stepped back. “The coast. One of the sunny ones.”
Vincent absorbed the suggestion, let his gut digest it, and found that Brandt might have a point.
“In that case,” he said, motioning to his keyboard, “do you think you could help me recalibrate my search?”
Brandt placed down her coffee and cracked her knuckles. “Step aside, former chief Vincent.”
“Ouch.”
They went about narrowing the search and checking out the east and west coasts, playing out scenarios of where and what Kelly Moretti could be up to.
Kelly had stepped out the door of her apartment near Little Havana with a gun tucked in her purse, sunglasses covering her eyes, as she went to withdraw her monthly funds.
Kelly’s boyfriend, Devon, had everything set up so she just needed to do the occasional meetup with a man without a name in town to withdraw the funds that she had stolen from her father’s account over four months ago.
They were living a simple life, lying low while Devon went about hatching a scheme that would take them to their destination in Cuba.
She wandered down the street and approached a café painted pastel pink, Kelly taking the table closest to the street before ordering a Cuban-style coffee and waiting with the beat of music over the dingy speakers of the restaurant to keep her company.
Seconds later, he arrived.
He was wearing in cream pants and a white cotton dress shirt—the same outfit he wore every time. He walked up to the table, set down a thick envelope next to Kelly’s coffee, and left. Per usual, he never made eye contact.
Kelly snatched up the envelope, stuffed it in the purse next to her gun, stood up, and made a beeline for her apartment.
She was growing weary of the hiding.
V
ery, very, weary.
15
Brandt sat up in her chair; a thought popped in her mind as she and Vincent worked to come up with a reasonable scenario.
“We checked Kelly’s social media accounts,” she said. “Right?”
“Yep,” Vincent said. “The news must have shown every one of her damn photos at least a hundred times.”
Brandt opened all of Kelly’s social media pages. “Right,” she said. Brandt opened Kelly’s Instagram page and scrolled. “Vacation photos. There was a handful of ones I saw with her at the beach.”
Brandt scrolled.
And scrolled.
And scrolled.
“You notice that by the way?” she said, pointing to the date on the photos.
“Yeah,” Vincent said. “She posted pretty frequently on Instagram.”
“Exactly,” Brandt said. “But she started tapering off a couple months before the murders took place.”
“We checked her accounts. We couldn’t find any messages that seemed suspicious.”
“You’re thinking about the second-suspect theory?”
“There has to be. Kelly didn’t organize this on her own.”
“So who did?”
“I keep working it, but I haven’t investigated a single person in her life that would make any sense.”
“But someone contacted her. Someone was keeping in touch with her.”
Yeah, Vincent thought. And I’m having a hard time coming up with a name.
He pointed to the computer, “Show me the photos first. We’ll get back to the second-suspect theory in a minute.”
Brandt scrolled through the photos with a pen in hand as she made a note of the one showing Kelly and her family posing near a shoreline. “Okay, here’s what we’ve got: Los Angeles, Miami, San Francisco, and New York.”
Vincent looked at the photos matching Brandt’s summary. “She looks miserable in New York. San Francisco, too.”
“You don’t think she went there?” Brandt asked.
“Not necessarily. Anything could have been happening when these photos were taken. Plus, the hunch that Kelly went somewhere she wanted to go might not necessarily be true. She could be somewhere out of necessity.”
“True. But a girl her age? Running off like this? She’s scared. And trust me—being a teenage girl is way worse of predicament to deal with.”
Vincent smiled—his daughter would say the same thing.
And then he realized something, and his eyes grew wide.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” Brandt said.
Vincent scooted forward in his chair. “Who do kids look to for the final say-so? For guidance? For someone to make the ultimate decision?”
Brandt shrugged. “Adults, whether they agree with it or not.”
“And we both can agree that teenagers are somewhat…malleable?”
“Impressionable, sure.”
“Exactly.”
“So…you think someone may have convinced Kelly Moretti to kill her parents?”
Vincent sat back. “It would make sense, being that the family lawyer said a significant chunk of cash is unaccounted for. Money was her motive, sure. But she had help, and I think that help persuaded her to do what she did and might have even taken part in it.”
The old second-suspect now making much more sense.
“This guy,” Vincent said, “or woman, whoever it is, is older, smarter, and a lot more tactful. He, or she, seduced Kelly, convinced her to kill her parents, and then uses her and Aiden to carry them out.”
“Why Aiden?” Brandt asked.
“Because we found his DNA all over the damn place. That’s why. It had us looking at one person, not two.”
“Why not just use Kelly and Aiden to carry out the murders?”
Vincent thought about it. “No,” he said. “He needed a victim to walk out of the house, someone to help reinforce a cover story. A victim sells the story. Well, most of the time. The orchestrator could have helped commit the murders and planted Aiden’s DNA.”
Brandt thought about all that Vincent had said. “So? How do we find this guy or gal?”
Vincent pointed. “Where’s the one place that most flirting in high school happens?”
Brandt frowned—it was such an obvious answer.
Hollow Green High School was in the middle of its third period when Vincent and Brandt showed up to investigate. They met with the vice principal, an older woman, short silver-grey hair, wearing a tweed skirt suit and tortoise horn eyeglasses.
“Ms. Moretti,” the matronly and sweet-faced woman said. “I remember her time here well.”
“Was she disruptive?” Brandt asked.
The vice principal waved her off. “No. Not at all. She was just very…flirtatious you might say though. Got her in some trouble occasionally.”
Brandt and Vincent exchanged a look. “Did you disclose this information to Clarendon Sheriff’s Department during their investigation?” Vincent asked.
The vice principal shook her head. “It never came up.”
Brandt and Vincent exchanged looks again.
Oh boy.
The arrived at the vice principal’s office and sat across from her as she looked through a filing cabinet behind her. “I handle all the truancies and disciplinary issues at the school,” she said. “Principal Phelps handles the budgetary and district issues.”
She reached for a file and handed it to Brandt and Vincent. “Kelly was a good student. She had a 3.5 GPA. Her grades weren’t the problem. It was her boyfriend and that flirting she had going on in the gym that was the only real problem.”
Vincent looked up from the file. “Flirting in the gym? What do you mean?”
The vice principal sat back down at her desk. “Well,” she said, “a few months ago, Kelly got in a bit of hot water because of an exchange she had with one of the construction workers when the gym was under renovation. One of the girl’s in Kelly’s physical education class came forward with a claim that Kelly had been caught kissing one of the construction workers.”
“Did you talk to Kelly about this?” Brandt asked.
“I did,” the vice principal said. “And Kelly said it was true.”
“Did you talk to this construction worker?”
The vice principal looked sheepish. “I thought about it. But I decided not to.”
Brandt sat on the edge of her chair. “Why would you do that?” she asked. “If you knew about a man and an underaged student—”
The vice principal held up her hands. “Believe me, I regret it. But Kelly had pleaded with me not to say anything. She was so utterly embarrassed by the whole ordeal. She was crying, begging me not to tell her parents or anyone else. She assured me it was a one-time thing. I should have known better.”
“Do you have the information or work orders for the construction company?” Vincent asked.
The vice principal opened her filing cabinet.
Five minutes later, Brandt and Vincent were on their way to Grady’s Construction.
“Devon Palmer,” the guy in the office at Grady’s Construction said, his hands leathered and red, a bushy beard pointing down from a burly chin. “I think that might be who you’re looking for.”
“You seem certain,” Vincent said, taking back the work order he had shown the man.
“He was bragging about some girl right before he left town. A younger girl, he said. Claimed he met her on one of our jobs. Can’t remember which.”
“Left town?” Brandt asked.
“Yeah,” the guy said. “He told me he was freelance. Moved around a lot. Think he came from Dallas or El Paso before he ended up here. He only stayed on for about a month before he ditched out.”
“So he was a drifter.”
“Seemed on the level, though. Charming as hell. I wasn’t surprised to hear the guy bragging about flirting with high school girls.”
“Where was he living?”
“Motel, I think.”
“Do
you have any idea where he could have gone?” Vincent asked. “After he was done working for you?”
“Nope. The guy just didn’t show up for work one day. To his credit, he did say that was a possibility. I just put another guy on. Didn’t think anything more of it.”
Brandt jotted down notes. “Don’t suppose you got any solid info on his background?”
“Na,” the guy said, shaking his head. “I paid the guy in cash. He wasn’t working enough hours to be officially on the payroll. He was just under the minimum hours required. But I did draft up a contract with him for his work regardless.”
The guy fished around and fetched the old paperwork, handing it to Vincent, who looked at the address Palmer had left and noticed that it was for a motel somewhere on the outskirts of Hollow Green.
“We can still run the name,” Brandt said.
The guy leaned in. “Between you and me, and I don’t want to get in trouble for this…”
Vincent gave the guy a look.
That answer depends on your answer.
“I think he used a fake ID on me,” the guy said. “I just had a feeling.”
Vincent jotted another note.
“You never overheard him say anything?” Brandt asked. “Something about himself, where he was from? Anything that might help?”
The guy thought. “Miami,” he said with a finger in the air. “He said he had a brother in Miami. Ran an auto shop somewhere near South Beach.”
Brandt and Vincent exchanged a look.
Vincent said, “Do you happen to know when Mr. Palmer started working here?”
“The day I drafted up his contract,” the guy said. “August first. He said he had just come into town. He was tan as hell, too.”
Brandt looked at the note in her pad with the dates of Kelly Moretti’s social media posts—and found that the one on the beach was dated July twenty-ninth.
16
“So, you think she met with the second suspect in Miami?” Brandt asked Vincent.
Hollow Ground Page 6