When All The Girls Have Gone(39)

 

She was doing her best to look like she had every right in the world to be there with a man who was performing a small act of breaking and entering. But she worried that she was not much of an actress.

Fortunately, none of the other residents had paid any attention to them thus far. The security in the building was standard. There was no manager or doorman on duty in the evenings. It had been unnervingly easy to follow one of the tenants into the lobby. The techy young man leading the way hadn't even bothered to look up from his cell phone. Charlotte didn't think he was aware of them.

"There's always a lot of turnover in a big apartment complex," Max had explained on the way over, to alleviate her worries. "People are used to seeing strangers in the hallways. And in this case, you're a legitimate acquaintance of one of the tenants. The plant-watering story is just backup in case someone does stop us."

They had headed downstairs to the parking garage first. Victoria's car was not in the slot marked with her apartment number, more proof that she had fled. Now they were about to enter the apartment. Charlotte was so tense she was shivering. She hoped Max didn't notice.

There was a small, muffled click from the lock and then Max was opening the door. Charlotte hurried inside. Max followed and closed the door. She noticed that he took the precaution of locking it. If someone did knock, they would have a little time to make the plant-watering story look good.

Max switched on a lamp.

"Makes our visit look more legit," he said. "A couple of people moving around in here in the dark with a penlight might arouse curiosity."

"No kidding." Charlotte looked at the three potted plants on the window bench. The leaves were drooping. "Looks like the plant-watering story is going to be accurate. I'll give those poor things a drink before we leave. Meanwhile, what are we looking for?"

"Anything that might tell us where Mathis went."

"That kind of travel info would probably be stored on her phone or laptop," Charlotte said. "I don't see either one."

"She may have taken the hardware with her and is keeping the devices turned off. Or maybe she left her phone and computer behind altogether."

Charlotte surveyed the apartment. "Should we try to find them?"

"No, we can't risk tearing the place apart. For all we know she stashed the tech in an off-site location."

"How are we going to find her?"

"I think there's a good chance she drove to her destination," Max said.

"She might have just driven to the airport and left her car in the garage," Charlotte said.

"Maybe. But leaving a car in an airport garage for an extended period of time is very expensive. Most people who intend to be gone for a while would take a cab. And there's something else-Jocelyn aside, Mathis was the member of the club who got out of town the quickest. But you said she's the one with the fewest financial resources."

"I think so."

"Sounds like she had an exit strategy planned for a while. If she didn't have a lot of money to finance an expensive getaway, maybe she went to stay with a friend or a relative."

Charlotte looked at a photo on the wall. It showed a gray-haired woman dressed in baggy jeans and a faded shirt. She had a gardening trowel in one hand. Behind her was an old trailer.

A memory pinged.

"I don't know anything about Victoria's friends outside the investment club, but there was a relative-an aunt," she said. "Jocelyn mentioned that Victoria was very close to her. The aunt died a few months ago."

"Where did the aunt live?"

"She had a place over on the coast. Jocelyn said that Victoria used to spend weekends there, but then the aunt developed some serious health problems. She moved into an assisted living community here in Seattle for the last few months of her life."

Max looked up from the file drawer. "Did she leave her estate to Victoria? That could explain how Victoria got the money to disappear."

"Jocelyn told me that the aunt left everything to Victoria but that it didn't amount to much. The care she needed toward the end ate up most of her savings. I think there was some property over on the coast. Jocelyn said it wasn't worth much. She said Victoria intended to sell it eventually when the market improved."

Max plucked a file out of the drawer. "Looks like Victoria boxed up her aunt's financial files and brought them here to store. Lucky for us, the aunt was old-school. She kept paper files."

It didn't take long to find the tax records that related to the property on the coast.   





 

"That picture on the wall was probably taken there," Max said. "I think there's a very real possibility that Victoria went there to hide."

"She's not answering her phone, so there's no way to find out if she's at her aunt's old place unless we drive to the coast. That's a hundred miles from here."

"No point heading out there this evening," Max said. "It would probably scare her to death if a strange car pulled into her driveway in the middle of the night."

"You're right. Not a good idea. Jocelyn says that Victoria has owned a gun since she graduated from high school."

Max whistled softly. "This is one well-armed investment club we're dealing with."

"A gun didn't do Louise any good," Charlotte pointed out.

"No, it didn't. We'll drive out to the coast first thing in the morning."





CHAPTER 45




Charlotte awoke to the steady patter of rain and the knowledge that she was alone in the bed. She opened her eyes and saw Max silhouetted against the window, steeped in shadows. He was in his briefs and the black crew-neck T-shirt that he had worn to bed earlier. He seemed to be contemplating the night.

She knew that he was once again in that other dimension.

It was maddening, she thought; rather like reeling in a big fish that is fighting the line. That, of course, led to another question-why was she struggling so hard to land her catch?

"Hey," she said softly. "Everything okay?"

He turned his head to look at her. "Yes. Sorry. Didn't mean to wake you."

"It's all right. I wasn't sleeping well, anyway. Just sort of drifting in and out."

"Same here. I keep thinking that I'm missing something important in this case."

She sat up and wrapped her arms around her knees. "I'd say we're both missing something important. We're in this together, remember?"

"Yes, but this is my job. I'm supposed to be the one who can see the pattern."

"Is there any one particular element that is worrying you more than the others?"

"The road maps."

"The ones we found in that suitcase in Louise Flint's storage locker and in Jocelyn's safe-deposit box?"

"Right. Louise and Jocelyn both circled the locations where the three rapes took place and the two towns where the women supposedly died of overdoses. What was so important about those five cases?"

"Maybe Jocelyn and Louise were tracking one of their targets for the investment club."

"Maybe," Max said. "But Madison Benson and Emily Kelly both confirmed that the club selected their targets from the files at the women's shelter where Louise volunteered. There's nothing to indicate that the three rape victims or the two women who died were connected to the shelter. And then there's that note that Louise wrote to Jocelyn confirming that those five files were in hard copy only."

"Maybe Victoria will be able to give us some answers." Charlotte glanced at the clock. "It's four thirty. No point trying to go back to sleep. We might as well get ready for the drive to the coast."

Max turned away from the window. "Yeah."

She tossed the covers aside and slipped out of bed. "I'll shower first and fix us some breakfast while you shower and shave. Oh, by the way-"

"What?"

She paused in the doorway and looked back over her shoulder. "I had a thought about your family problem."

"I don't have a family problem. I've got a business issue involving some biological relatives."

"Call it what you want, I've got a suggestion."

He eyed her with unwilling curiosity. "What?"

"You said Decatur will not accept any contact from you; that he would be suspicious of anything you told him. But he's a successful businessman, right?"

"So?"

"He probably has a lawyer on retainer."

"Probably an entire firm. What about it?"

"Businessmen listen to their lawyers. Do you know any lawyers?"

"I do some work for a couple here in town. One of them has become a friend. Why?"

"Why not take your file on Gatley to him? Ask him to contact Decatur's lawyers and show them the file. If they see the same red flags that you noticed, they'll talk to their client."

"Huh."

"That way you remain one step removed from the situation."

"Once he finds out that the file came from me, Decatur will probably decide I'm the scam artist and ignore the information."   





 

"Yes, but at least you'd know that he saw the file. I think it's far more likely that if Decatur's lawyers take the file seriously, Decatur will, too. He'd be a fool to ignore the data right in front of his eyes. After all, the information can be verified, right?"

"Yes."

She waited for him to say something else, but he didn't. He just stood there, looking at her.