by Lorena May
Grace sinks into a loveseat tastefully set in a bay window, looking out onto a profusion of flowers. Chloe follows her eye. “It’s a hobby for both Steve and I,” she says. “Flower gardening. Otherwise . . .” She frowns.
Grace sips her drink. “This is delicious! Otherwise?”
“Well, he’s old.” Chloe laughs, almost spitting up the mouthful she’s just sipped. “Old and staid and boring.”
“So not a marriage made in heaven, then?” Grace raises her eye-brows.
“Ha!” Chloe scoffs. “Is there such a thing? Especially when the guy is old enough to be your father. And when he has three obnoxious children that he dotes on . . .”
“His kids are brats?”
“Brats is kind. They’re over-indulged, egocentric terrors who he insists on leaving two-thirds of his estate to even though I’m the one who does all the work, and looks after him day after day. Or did . . .” She grins impishly.
“So you’re okay with him being in jail?” Grace speaks in a whisper. Slowly, it’s dawning on her. Chloe’s GLAD he’s in jail. Why am I here?
Chloe is laughing now. Grace watches her shoulders shaking lightly, a perverse cheerfulness filling her face. “If he dies I lose control. I only get a third. If he’s in jail for life it’s all mine.”
“Oh my God, Chloe! What did you do?” Grace is aghast.
Chapter 51
~ Darby
Brandon strides into Darby’s office looking like he’s won the lottery, brandishing a sheaf of papers. “Aha! Have you seen these?” He tosses the copies of the photos Jill has given him onto Darby’s desk.
“I have. Any ideas as to who they are?”
“Well, I know it’s one hot little tamale.. .” He stops to look at Darby, who’s sitting at her desk with her head in her hands.
“You okay?”
“Gabe was blackmailing Steve with them.” She looks up at her partner. “Another nail in Steve’s coffin? Do you think the guy in those pictures is Steve?”
Brandon takes another look at the pictures. “I hadn’t really looked at the guy.” He holds one up, and drops it on her desk. “No. Too young. Steve is fit for an old guy, but that’s not him.”
Darby places the pictures in front of them. “Why would Gabe be blackmailing Steve, then? The woman must be someone close. Or an employee. Chloe? Mona? Ana? His ex-wife? His daughters are too young.” She grimaces. “Thank God.”
Brandon points, excited. “Yeah! Look at the back-ground. These are taken in the staff-room at the Ritz. I recognize the bed. And there’s the ceiling lamp. Same one!”
Darby presses her hands to her cheeks. “I know you like Steve for the murder, but I met his mom last night. She insists he went to their cabin that weekend. She hasn’t much use for Chloe, it seems. AND she told me that Chloe was adopted. I went to see Chloe’s parents.”
“Chloe’s? Our little trophy wife.”
“Yeah. It turns out she’s an identical twin.”
“So?”
“I don’t know. The twin lives in Edmonton. Grace Hanson. She has a record and some soliciting, disturbing the peace-type convictions. Nothing for the past couple of years. It looks like she works in a restaurant now, but get this. She posted on Facebook a few years ago begging someone named Gabriel to get in touch with her. I know it’s a long-shot. . . do you think there’s a connection?”
Brandon strokes his chin. “I like long-shots,” he says thoughtfully.
“And that’s not all. I called Sue this morning – the owner of the restaurant Grace works at – and she told me that Grace wasn’t coming in for a few days. That she is visiting her sister in Rockydale.”
“Huzzah!” Brandon moves to high-five his partner. Darby grins.
“Wait till you see this!” Jill walks into Darby’s office, wielding a piece of paper. The winning ticket?
Darby and Brandon are all eyes and ears.
“I will meet you in the staff-room Saturday at midnight, “Jill reads triumphantly. “Dated May 10. A message retrieved from Gabe’s phone. Guess who it’s from?”
Chapter 52
~ Chloe
“Plan A. Shit. It’s not gonna work that way, is it? It would have been so perfect: Steve goes to jail, and I’m the bereaved but oh, so helpful wife running the business. How in the hell did they find out about you?” Chloe looks at her sister, dead to the world on the love-seat, legs and arms akimbo, barely breathing. Chloe puts a finger to Grace’s throat. She’s still alive. That nosy detective somehow found Grace and now the jig is up. It won’t be long before the police figure everything out.
And Plan B’s down the tubes too. Grace refuses to vanish into the woodwork. She wags her finger and shakes her head at her sleeping sister. “Bad mistake, Gracie. I didn’t want it to be this way.” So, it’s onto Plan C.
Her hand shakes as she writes the note. All the more realistic when they analyze it!
‘I’m sorry. I just couldn’t do it any more. Steve, I can’t live the lie. I’ve been giving my money to charity and people in need. I hope to leave this world a better place.’
That should account for the large cash withdrawals. Where does one put the note when they’re about to kill themselves? She plops it on the kitchen table.
Her suitcase is packed. She regrets having to leave most of her clothing and jewelry here. All her stuff. Ah, well. New life, new things. She sets what she’ll need by the front door. Her cab will arrive in half an hour. She hasn’t got much time.
Chloe grabs her sister under the arms and pulls. Wow! Rohypnol is da bomb! It worked wonders with both Grace and Steve. Grace’s body flops lifelessly, bumpity-bump along the floor. She’s no longer the scrawny bag of bones she was a month ago. There’s some substance to her now. Great! Sweat runs down Chloe’s forehead and back. She stops a moment to rest, puffing, staring into Grace’s face. “I’m sorry, Gracie. You left me no choice. I’d have gladly just let you disappear.” She watches Grace’s long, white legs bounce down the stairs as they head to the attached garage. “But yours was a pitiful little life anyway, right? Maybe I’m doing you a favor.”
Laying her sister on the cool garage floor, she takes a moment to decide. This was not the plan; not what she’d hoped for. But there’s no time to wallow in self-reproach now. They’ll have her by the short hairs. She must act quickly. Should it be Steve’s precious Maserati or his Lexus RX? The Maserati. It always sits there just looking pretty. She giggles a little hysterically, opening the driver’s door. Stuffing Grace behind the wheel takes all her strength, and she huffs and grunts unbecomingly by the time she gets it right. Shifting Grace’s feet onto the floor, she places the key in her hand – prints, you know –starts the car, and lets Grace’s hand flop onto the seat. There. They’ll find poor Chloe sitting in her running car. Suicide. She closes the door, quickly double-checks that the windows are closed, and races back into the house. Hurry!
Grabbing the open bag that sits by the door, she pulls out a pillow and ties it around her waist, throws on a long, thick denim skirt and flannel shirt. Next is a tube of dark make-up that she squirts onto her fingers and rubs on her face. Lastly, the stringy, dark wig and sun-glasses. Bracing herself, ( she can barely stand to look) Chloe glances in the full-length mirror. Ugh! How has she come to this? Ah, well. It’s temporary. And necessary. Grabbing Grace’s purse, overnight bag and her own suitcase she marches out to the cab that is waiting in front of the house. Her suitcase catches on the sidewalk frame, and she stumbles, almost falling into her own car, her beloved little silver BMW. I have to leave you too. My car. My baby. The cabbie jumps out to take her suitcase, plunking it in the trunk. Chloe climbs in. She doesn’t look back.
Chapter 53
~Darby
“Ana! Ana texted Gabe saying she’d meet him in the staff-room at the Ritz Saturday, the night he died.” Jill hands the report to Darby.
Both Darby and Brandon are gob smacked.
“Well, this is it, then. What more do we need?” Brandon pu
lls the paper from Darby’s hand, silently re-reading.
Darby is speechless.
“She stabbed her boyfriend in Vancouver. The lady’s a thugette.” Brandon shoves the paper at Darby, who absently grasps it, looking at her co-workers, frowning.
“She sure hides it well. But – yeah. Maybe she’d had enough of his bull-shit. Maybe she’s out to rid the world of creeps.” Suddenly it hits her. Darby guffaws. “You’d better watch it, Buddy!”
Brandon looks wounded.
Uncalled for, he’s right. “I’m sorry. That’s not funny. I went too far.”
A phone call confirms that Ana’s at work and they head to the Ritz. She looks appropriately startled when Brandon tells her, gruffly, that they need to speak to her in the staff-room.
Ana sits meekly at the table, her lip quivering, saying nothing.
Brandon sits across from her. “Ana, where were you the night of May 11? The night Gabe Harrington was killed?”
She answers so softly they can hardly hear. “I worked that night, and left here about 11:00. I went home.”
“Can anyone verify that?” Brandon asks.
“No.” She looks down at the table, traces a motif with her finger.
“What was your relationship with Gabe other than working for him?”
“I – I didn’t have one.”
“Did you like it when he paid attention to you?”
She shakes her head vigorously, tears filling her eyes. ‘No!’
Darby moves in, her voice soothing, sympathetic. “If you decided to do something about that it would be understandable, Ana.”
Ana’s face flares with horror. “Like what?”
“Maybe you met him here that night and had an argument?”
“He didn’t work that night. I didn’t see him.”
Darby pushes the messages retrieved from Gabe’s phone in front of the girl. “Ana, we have evidence that you did. This message was on Gabe’s phone. It’s a message from you.”
Ana jerks backward as if a rush of cold water has been thrown in her face. She gasps. Her eyes bug. “I didn’t send that!”
Brandon clears his throat. “It came from your phone.”
She stares straight ahead.
“Ana? Ana, talk to us.”
“We need to take your phone,” Brandon tells her.
Ana stares into space.
“Your choice, Ana,” Brandon’s voice is harsh. “Either we arrest you and take you in or we take your phone.”
Ana stands, walks to a cupboard under the counter, opens it, retrieves a little black purse and takes out her cell phone, handing it to the officer. She moves like an automaton.
BRANDON DRIVES WHILE Darby looks through Chloe’s Facebook page, scrutinizing the posts made May 10th – 12th, the weekend spent at the conference in Banff. “She has a knack for photography - just like her sister.”
“Identical twins raised apart,” Brandon muses. “Must be a genetic thing.”
“Interesting! A biological gift.”
“And the sister – Grace, you said? Her boss says she’s in Rockydale?”
Darby enlarges a photo, staring with narrowed eyes. “It looks like she has a tattoo on her wrist. Home-job. Not professional, for sure. Did you ever notice it?”
Brandon frowns. “No. Doesn’t sound like Chloe. But it could be really old.”
“Do you think . . . ?” Darby clamps her mouth shut. Don’t count your chickens . . . “Let’s go see if we can meet the sister.”
CHLOE’S SILVER BMW is parked on the street in front of the house. “It looks like Chloe’s home. Maybe we’re in luck and the sister is with her,” Darby remarks.
Construction workers building a public sidewalk wave as they exit the squad-car. “Nice day now it’s stopped raining,” one says.
“Clean and crisp,” Brandon replies as they tip-toe across sand and rebar to reach the Williams’s sidewalk. Muddy foot-prints lead to the front door where they are discarded by a welcome mat.
“Chloe’s got company it looks like. Wanna bet these trendy Nike shoes are hers and the boots belong to her sister?” Darby says as she rings the bell.
Brandon steps off the porch to peer into the front window when there is no answer. “It looks like no one’s home,” he says.
Together they walk around the house, unlatch the gate and continue into the back yard. Darby breathes in the smell of wet grass and soil. The afternoon sun pokes through clouds making the leaves on trees glisten with the recent rain. They ring the back door-bell and wait.
Through the windows the house is dim and still, in sharp contrast to the life and activity outside it.
Brandon walks around the house knocking on windows while Darby hails the construction workers out front. “Do you know if anyone’s home?” she asks.
One, a leathery-faced, kindly-looking fellow, carefully lays his drill on the ground and turns to Darby. The other looks up, then reluctantly goes back to work. “Couple of young gals went in about an hour ago,” he says. “Then just before you drove up an older woman left with a suitcase. Took a cab.”
“Can you describe the two women that went in earlier?” Darby asks.
“We were sitting in our truck so I didn’t see their faces up close,” he says, rubbing his chin, “but they looked to be in their twenties or so. Both classy, red hair, slim.”
“And the woman who left?”
He puffs out his cheeks, exhales. “She was in a hurry. Heavier set, dark, sunglasses. Walked right past us like we weren’t here, banged our form up with her suitcase and kept on going. Cabbie got out and helped her, and they took off.”
Darby eyes the damaged form, thanks him and strides back to the house. “Something’s funny here,” she tells her partner. “I think we should go in.”
“Sufficient reason, Miss Follow-the-Rules?” He cocks an eye-brow, grinning.
“Fuck the rules. Something’s wrong,” she says dashing to the door, giving it a strong boot. It vibrates but doesn’t open.
“Wait a minute,” Brandon says as he runs out to where the construction workers are busily laboring. In no time he’s back, brandishing a sledge hammer. “Here let me. I love this stuff!” Brandon bashes the door open with one hard hit.
“Police!” Darby calls. “Is anyone here? We’re coming in.”
The house is shadowy and quiet. Where could the Chloe and her sister have gone? Propped on a bowl of plums and peaches is a piece of paper, neatly folded. Darby opens it and reads aloud. ‘I’m sorry. I just couldn’t do it any more. Steve, I can’t live the lie. I’ve been giving money to charity and people in need. I hope to leave this world a better place.’
“It must be Chloe’s. A suicide note?”
Brandon leads the way, gun ready, through the immaculate kitchen into the hallway. Darby follows, her heart hammering against her chest. They check the bedrooms, the study, the bathrooms. No one is there. Nothing.
They enter the back entrance. Gardening jackets hang from hooks. Shoes and boots are neatly placed on a rack. Darby opens a door to the garage. She jolts, gasping, turning away, slapping her hand over her mouth. They are assaulted by the smell of gas fumes.
“Open the garage door!” she screams. Brandon pushes her out of the way and jams his finger against the button on the wall. Slowly, the big door slides upward. Coughing and gasping, Darby grabs jackets, shoving one at her partner, covering her mouth and nose.
A cherry-red Maserati sits beside a white Lexus. They can hear the red car running quietly. Brandon races past the Lexus to the Maserati, throwing open the car door. There sits a woman – Chloe? – slumped against the driver’s seat, passed out.
Darby calls 9-1-1. “Carbon monoxide poisoning at 37 Esplanade. Police on site.”
Brandon pulls the limp body from the car, and together they carry her outside to the grass where Darby begins CPR.
Brandon takes her arm and feels for a pulse.
“Is she alive?”
Chapter 54
&n
bsp; ~ Chloe
It's hard tolerating the indifference of other passengers as she steps onto the bus. Looking like this is humiliating; fat, frumpy with dark, stringy hair. Oh, what one must go through! Chloe realizes how accustomed she is to the admiration she normally gets. Luckily, there’s a seat in the back of the bus where she can be alone to ponder and think. She settles in, Grace’s purse on her lap, closing her eyes.
Life was brilliant for a while. Her body tingles at the memory. He was young and fit, cocky and confidant. Ohmygod, did he know how to please a woman. His touch, his tongue . . . licking and teasing in all the right places. The danger of it, titillating risk; in closets, the staff-room, the bathroom, out behind the patio in the dark as the last of the patrons left. . . And then they’d discovered their mutual fetish. Dirty talk, shocking whispered insults, whips, hand-cuffs, chains, the barrel of a gun her caressing her legs, torso, breasts. . . For the first time in her life she’d felt fully alive.
Except for Mona’s suspicions they’d managed to keep their sordid little affair secret. And Mona would never talk. She was loyal.
Then, suddenly, Gabe decided to become a responsible husband and father. To go back to his mousy little wife. Had he tired of her? Had she come on too strong? Wanted too much? Part of her still craved him. Needed him. She’d managed to give him the cold shoulder, though. Could have gotten over him. But the way he pawed and fawned over Ana . . . And blackmailed Steve, ready to show anyone who paid him enough those once-treasured photos. Fucking, no-good scum.
She laughs giddily when she thinks of the night he died. Is anyone looking? She glances around the bus. No. No one. They are all immersed in their phones or books or thoughts.
She drove from the cabin to the restaurant that night, hopeful that everything she’d read about the drug, rohypnol, was true. (As little as one mg could impair a person for eight to twelve hours! And the victim often would not remember a thing. La Rocha! ) She’d given Steve a good dose of it with his wine. He would not wake up for a while.