"Looks like it. If she wants to get in touch with you without using her phone, there are ways. Burner phones. Public library computers. But she hasn't done that." Max paused very deliberately. "Right?"
The realization that he didn't entirely trust her hit her like a small electrical shock. Then she got mad.
"No, Jocelyn hasn't gotten in touch," she snapped. She paused. "Do you think she knows that Louise Flint is dead?"
"If she disappeared because she's running scared, it's logical that she would keep track of what's happening back here in Seattle. I think it's safe to say she is aware of Louise's death, yes. Whether or not Jocelyn suspects that her friend was murdered, I can't say."
"Trust me, Jocelyn will assume that Louise was murdered. She certainly won't believe that her best friend OD'd." Charlotte shot to her feet again, her hand clamped around the phone. "Oh, God, do you think that Jocelyn is . . ."
She couldn't bring herself to say the word, but Max evidently had no problem with harsh realities.
"It's possible she's dead," he said. "But I think it's unlikely. Dead bodies have a way of surfacing."
She flinched and then told herself that was probably Max's way of trying to sound reassuring.
"The way Louise's body showed up, you mean?"
"Yes." Max paused briefly. "At this point it looks like Jocelyn has gone into hiding. The fact that I haven't been able to find her yet is a good indication that she knows what she's doing."
"She's very tech savvy."
"That's obvious. What about the other members of her family? Is there anyone else she might have contacted?"
"There is no one else," Charlotte said. "Her father died years ago. She has no brothers or sisters. Her father married my mother when Jocelyn and I were in our teens. The question is, who is she hiding from?"
"Maybe from the person who murdered Louise Flint," Max said.
"I was afraid you were going to say that."
Charlotte gazed blankly out the window.
"Are you still there?" Max asked after a while.
She swallowed hard. "Yes. Yes, I'm here. I'm just having trouble trying to process all this. If you're right, it means Jocelyn was keeping some huge secrets from me."
"Yes."
"She was trying to protect me."
"Think so?"
"She's always been that way. Almost from the start."
"I don't want to be the one to spoil your image of your stepsister," Max said, "but there are other reasons why she might have kept you in the dark. It might be herself she's protecting."
"No," Charlotte said. "If she's keeping secrets, it's because she doesn't want to drag me into whatever is going on."
"I'll find out what happened to your sister," Max said. "It's what I do."
"Well, you're not doing it alone, remember? I'm part of this thing."
"Got some idea of where you want to start?" Max asked.
He didn't sound sarcastic or arrogant. He sounded curious and interested, as if he was paying close attention.
"During the night I suddenly remembered that note that Louise put into the envelope with the keys that she mailed to Jocelyn."
"What about it?"
"Louise said that her hard copy of the file was in the storage locker and that it wasn't online."
"Which implies that your stepsister has a hard copy, as well," Max concluded. "Is that what you're saying?"
"Exactly."
Max was quiet for a few seconds. "Any idea where she might have stashed it?"
"Jocelyn keeps most of her important records and files online. But she also maintains one very old-fashioned storage system-a safe-deposit box."
There was a short silence from Max's end of the connection.
"We'd need a key," he said finally.
"I've got one," Charlotte said. "I'm the only person she trusted completely." She realized with a shock of horror that she had used the past tense. "I mean, I'm the only one she trusts. Okay, she obviously doesn't tell me everything, but she trusts me."
"I understand," Max said. "We'll find her."
She was surprised by the oddly gentle current in the dark tide of his voice. He made the statement sound like a vow. But she also noticed that he didn't go beyond that. He didn't offer hope that Jocelyn was alive. He just promised to find her.
Max Cutler was not the type to make a promise he was not sure he could keep, she decided. On the other hand, something told her that if he did make a promise, you could depend upon him to walk into hell to fulfill it.
Then again, she had been wrong about men before. Brian Conroy was Exhibit A.
"I'll call my boss and tell her that I'll be late getting in to the office," she said.
CHAPTER 13
Charlotte emptied the contents of the grocery sack on top of the dining bar that divided the kitchen and living room areas of her apartment. Together she and Max studied the items-a road map of the state of Washington, three legal-sized envelopes marked with initials and a larger envelope that appeared to be stuffed with papers or documents.
The contents of Jocelyn's safe-deposit box.
Neither of them had wanted to go through the box in the vault room at the bank, so they had dumped the items into the grocery sack. Charlotte had clutched the sack with both hands during the short drive across town to her apartment. She had felt as if she was holding a bag of snakes-afraid to open it and at the same time knowing she could not throw it away.
Max flattened both palms on the table and studied the materials scattered across the surface.
"Another road map of Washington," he said. "Let's start with that."
He unfolded the map. Charlotte looked at the red and yellow circles.
"Same towns," she said. "Including the two towns in which the two women supposedly OD'd."
Max picked up the envelopes and opened them.
"Same data that we found in the envelopes in Louise's carry-on," he said. "Duplicates of the obituary notices and the rape reports. Also some handwritten notes indicating that drugs were involved in all five cases."
Charlotte studied the notes. "These were written by Jocelyn, not Louise."
"So they were keeping duplicate files, just as Louise indicated."
Charlotte looked up. "They obviously did some of the research online, but when it came to creating a file that included their notes, they kept everything in hard copy. Why?"
"In the modern age, the only safe way to hide something is to do it the old-fashioned way-keep the data in hard copy only. The three rapes occurred over the course of several months within the past year. The two drug-related deaths are more recent. One was mid-August. The other was late September."
He picked up the large envelope and let the contents spill out onto the table. A number of newspaper clippings, documents and notes landed in a pile.
Charlotte selected one of the clippings and picked it up. For a split second the significance of the headline did not register. When it did, she sank down on the nearest chair.
"I knew Jocelyn had kept the important documents, but I hadn't realized she kept so much material."
She handed the clipping to Max. He read it quickly, frowning in concentration.
"Local college student reports assault,'" he read. "Unidentified assailant escapes.'" He set the clipping aside and picked up one of the documents. "It's a copy of a police report of your stepsister's rape. It says that she could not provide a description because the assailant blindfolded her and held a knife to her throat."
"Yes." Charlotte picked up another sheaf of papers. "It's a list of names. There must be two or three hundred of them."
Max took the pages from her. "These are all male names. A few have been crossed out. Some look like they were added to the list at different times."
"I think it must be Jocelyn's list of all the possible suspects," Charlotte said. "I wonder how she compiled it."
"The rape occurred on the Loring College campus. Maybe she used the college yearbooks to assemble a list of suspects."
"Yes, of course. I never thought about that. She was convinced from the start that her attacker was a student. It's a small college and it was even smaller at the time." Charlotte contemplated the contents of the envelope. "All these years we thought Jocelyn had moved on. And she let us believe it."
Max's eyes tightened a little. "We?"
"Our family. Me. She let us think that she had put it all behind her because she knew we were worried about how the attack had affected her emotionally. But all this time she was keeping the horrible newspaper clippings and that list of names in her safe-deposit box. It wasn't like any of those things would ever do her any good."
"Why do you say that?"
She looked up at him, fighting tears. "Because those assholes in the Loring Police Department lost the evidence box, that's why. We don't even know when it disappeared from the locker. No one took responsibility. But when it vanished, any hope of identifying the attacker vanished with it."
"I see."
Max sat down and considered the items scattered across the table. He pulled a couple of computer printouts from the pile.
"Evidently she was trying to collect reports of rapes with similar MOs," he said. "At least back at the start. These two are dated that same year. Both victims said that their attacker blindfolded them using a cloth sack and threatened them with a knife."