The Night Before (31 page)

“Yes.”

She didn’t move. “I think they’ll have to wait. I don’t want to answer any unless I have a lawyer present. And he’s not here right now.”

Smart-assed bitch.
“It’s just about your phone records.”

She dropped the smile. “Didn’t you understand me? I’ve been advised not to speak to you without my attorney. So I don’t think we have anything to discuss tonight.” With that she slammed the door in his face. Through the window he watched her disappear into the back of the house.

He pressed the bell and waited. The dog went crazy again.

No one came.

Damn it all to hell.
He felt like a fool standing on the damn porch like an unwanted suitor. “Come on, come on,” he said under his breath. “I
know
you’re in there.” He glanced at his watch.
What the hell kind of game was she playing?

He jabbed hard on the bell again.

And waited. Checked his watch again. Three minutes passed, then five.

“For the love of St. Mary.” If only he had the damned search warrant, he’d break the door down. The dog was putting up enough of a ruckus to wake the dead in the next block. Christ, what a disaster. Another jab on the bell.

She suddenly reappeared, though as she opened the door, he noticed she’d changed her demeanor along with her clothes. She’d let her wet hair fall to her shoulders, and she looked at him as if she’d forgotten he was standing on her porch. She’d taken the time to change from jeans, sweatshirt and bad-ass attitude into a fluffy white robe cinched tight at her small waist. He caught a glimpse of cleavage, then kept his eyes on her face. “Oh, Detective,” she said, seeming confused, tucking the wet strands of her hair behind her ears. She didn’t bother trying to smile and looked as if she could sleep for a million years. “I’m sorry . . . I didn’t hear the bell. I—I was in the shower . . . I’d been caught in the rain earlier and . . .”

“Your dog was barking his head off.”

“He does that a lot. And the water was running. I was upstairs and . . .” She stopped short as if she realized she was rambling. “Was there something I could do for you?”

“I wanted to ask you questions. Remember?”

Her eyebrows drew together. “About Mother, I assume, but I already answered them at the hospital. Were there more?” With a shaking hand, she brushed a stray strand of hair from her eyes, and she looked suddenly vulnerable. Undone. As he would had expected a woman to appear if she’d just lost her mother.

“Not yet. I’m here about your husband’s death.”

“Oh.” One hand fluttered to her throat and she clutched the lapels of her robe, closing the gap.

“Your phone records,” he said, hoping to jog her memory, but she stared at him blankly and he wondered if she was stupid, confused, or acting. What better way to avoid a murder rap than to plead temporary insanity? With her history, the insanity defense was a given.

“What about my phone records?”

“They prove that you called your husband that night, talked for about seven minutes, then went to visit him.”

“No. Wait a minute. They prove someone used my phone—right, my phone? Not my cell?—and then
someone
visited him after that time. Not necessarily me.”

“I have an eyewitness who saw your car there.”

She stared at him hard. “Did you come here to arrest me?” she asked suddenly, and he noticed that she looked pale and drawn. Sick.

“No. I just wanted to talk to you.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. Until I speak with my lawyer. Or have him present. I could call him if you’d like to wait.”

“That would work.”

She opened the door and he followed her inside to the kitchen. “Could I get you some coffee . . . or . . .” She glanced at the counter, where a half-full bottle of gin, a smaller flask of vermouth and a jar of olives were gathered around two stemmed glasses. A drink had been poured, and, from the looks of the empty toothpick resting against the side of the glass, half consumed. “I’m expecting company,” she explained and frowned at the open back door. She pulled the door shut. “If you’d like a martini . . .”

“I’ll pass.”

“I figured.” She managed what was the ghost of a smile, then reached for the telephone with one hand and picked up a business card she’d laid on the windowsill over the sink. Growling and snorting his disgust, the dog settled in beneath the table, head resting on his paws, distrusting gaze ever vigilant, never once leaving Reed.

Caitlyn punched a series of numbers, then stood on the other side of a bank of cupboards, fingers tapping nervously on the counter as she waited. She glanced at Reed and shook her head, then said into the phone, “This is Caitlyn Bandeaux. I’m a client of Mr. Wilder’s. Would you please page him and have him return my call? I’m at home.” She added her phone number and hung up. Looking at Reed, she confided, “His office is closed for the day. I don’t know when he’ll phone. So let me answer your one question. If you’re asking me about calling Josh on the night of his death, I don’t remember it. I already told you everything I do recall about that night.”

“Did you visit your mother at the hospital last night?”

“No, I—” She stopped. Her eyebrows knitted in confusion and color washed up her wan face. “Wait a minute. Are you asking me if I visited my mother in the hospital and then killed her? My God, that’s what you’re getting at, aren’t you?” She threw up her hands and sighed, looked as if she was fighting tears. Of anger? Regret? “Listen, Detective, I really think you’d better go. If you’re going to arrest me, just do it and charge me and get it over with, okay? Otherwise, please leave until I can get hold of my lawyer.” She was firm, her skin stretched tight across her face, her small fists clenched, but beneath her show of bravado, he sensed something else, something akin to desperation. This woman was definitely at the end of her rapidly unraveling rope.

From beneath the table her little dog growled.

“Oscar, hush!”

He knew when he’d pushed it as far as it could be pushed. For the moment it was game over. “I’ll be in touch,” he said as he walked to the front door and swung it open.

“I don’t doubt it, Detective.”

Reed stepped onto the porch, but turned to face her. Across the threshold she was standing ramrod stiff, her shoulders square, her gaze level. Hard again. He had the feeling he was in the company of a great actress; one who could not only make him question his own convictions, but one who would be able to play a jury any way she liked.

“I only wish I could say I was looking forward to it.” She slammed the door in his face.

Again.

But it was the last time.

It wouldn’t happen again.

He’d make certain of it.

Adam’s grandmother had always told him there was more than one way to skin a cat. He’d thought it an odd analogy for a woman who at any given time kept five or six strays on the back porch and even allowed them to stay in the kitchen around the stove in the cold Midwest winters. Nonetheless, with her cat-skinning example, she’d taught him to look at different ways to solve a problem.

Which he was now doing in his rented rooms, sitting at his computer, searching through the Internet for any mention of the Montgomery family of Savannah. But he’d been at it for hours, he’d finished a pot of coffee and the information on the screen was starting to blur. He was getting nowhere. Fast.

Sooner or later the police would figure out that Rebecca was missing.

And then they’d come knocking on his door instead of the other way around.

So he had to work quickly, to gather as much information as he could. Some of that important data only he could retrieve because he was Caitlyn Bandeaux’s psychologist of record. He was privy to information the cops weren’t.

Guilt wormed its way into his brain. He was using her. For his own purposes. No matter how altruistic they might be. On top of it all, he was falling for her. Or thought he was. This was one helluva time to play the role of the romantic. He couldn’t get involved with her, not even a quick dalliance. It wasn’t his style, nor, did he think, hers. She was his patient, for God’s sake, and he was having trouble keeping his hands off her. Which was just plain stupid. It served no purpose and yet he couldn’t seem to stop wanting.

And yet it was her face he’d seen as he’d woken up sweat-drenched, his groin aching, his cock rock-hard. Her body he’d been fantasizing about as he’d lain on his bed staring up at the ceiling. He’d wondered what it would be like to kiss her. Really kiss her and touch her intimately. In his mind’s eye he’d imagined parting her lips while running his palms down her spine, his fingers curling in her firm buttocks.

It had been torture.

He hadn’t dreamed of another woman in years. The last had been Rebecca, but her image was finally fading, had all but been erased by Caitlyn. What was it about her? Not just her beauty and certainly not the weak part of her. He’d never considered himself for the role of great protector; he certainly didn’t see himself as some kind of white knight, ready to ride his charger to her defense so that he could take care of her. Nope. It was more than sex and had little to do with a need to defend and protect.

He closed his eyes for a second. Damn it, he just liked being with her. Too much. It would have to stop. Along with his damnable fantasies. He felt as if he was walking a tightrope high over a dark abyss that seemed to have no bottom. One misstep and he’d fall, and if he wasn’t careful, he’d take Caitlyn down with him.

With difficulty, he turned his thoughts to the problem at hand, dismissing his lingering visions of Caitlyn, refusing to walk down that dangerous path. Even the slightest bit of sexual or romantic contact with her would spell disaster; potentially taint and ruin everything.

Jaw tight, he glared at the computer screen. Since he hadn’t yet been able to find any of Rebecca’s missing notes, he’d started surfing the Internet looking for articles on the Montgomery family. He’d read through all of Rebecca’s other patient files and found nothing in them worthy of her excitement and claim that this case was sure to make her a millionaire as well as gain her national recognition.

Which he didn’t care about. But he had to find out what it was about Caitlyn Bandeaux that had Rebecca dreaming fantastic dreams. Therein lay the key to her disappearance. He was certain of it.

He grabbed his keys and hurried down three flights of creaky stairs. Outside it was still overcast and gloomy, but he barely noticed. He drove to the offices of the
Savannah Sentinel,
where a bored-looking receptionist with nails polished in different colors, sleek glasses and a short-cropped, windblown head of hair asked to help him, then looked pointedly at the clock. It was after four.

When he asked to see the archives, she made a quick call, then led him to an area where all of their old editions were kept on compact disk. “The real old stuff is on microfiche,” she added, pointing to a viewer and giving him a long once-over before leaving him to his devices. “But we’re closing soon.”

“I’ll be quick,” he promised and settled into the musty room with its single broken-backed office chair. He started with the most recent articles and went back in time, using important dates as a reference. He read about Caitlyn’s daughter’s death, about her marriage, about a merger with a smaller institution and Montgomery Bank and Trust. There was information on Hannah Montgomery’s drug arrest and later acquittal, and Troy Montgomery’s short-lived marriage. There were also articles about Amanda’s marriage to Ian Drummond and, long ago, the death of Charles Montgomery. He printed all the articles, but the ones that held his interest, the information that caused him to sit up and take notice, were the line inches dedicated to the boating accident involving both of the Montgomery twins. It was a series of articles, starting with the date of the accident, complete with pictures of both girls, identical as far as he could see, and some of the boat wreckage.

Caitlyn’s recollection of the string of events was intact.

The two girls were going out to a party to celebrate their twenty-fifth birthday. They’d drunk and danced until after midnight, then headed back to the mainland. On their way home, there had been an explosion, the cause of which was under investigation. The boat sank.

That was where the story veered sharply from Caitlyn’s account.

One hundred and eighty damned degrees.

As Adam read the article, every muscle in his body tensed. His jaw was rock-hard, his stomach churning.

According to the front page of the
Sentinel,
some ten years earlier, Caitlyn Montgomery, injured and knocked unconscious, was found by a couple on a sailing boat who witnessed the expensive cruiser being blown to smithereens. But just Caitlyn. No Kelly. In fact, Kelly was never found. Not that night, not the next day, not in the next week.

Adam’s heart beat faster. Caitlyn had altered the truth. Bald-faced lied to him.

“Mr. Hunt?” The receptionist was poking her head through the doorway as he pressed the print key. “We’re locking up.”

“I’ll just be a second,” he promised and she, rolling her eyes, jangled her keys impatiently, but left him alone.

There was article after article about the search for Kelly Montgomery. Adam printed them all as he skimmed each page. He read where the Montgomery family had gone into seclusion, that the police feared the worst and hoped for the best.

After a week the search was called off, and the articles became fewer and far between.

Until the last newspaper mention of Kelly Griffin Montgomery.

Her obituary.

 

 

Her headache was immense. Clanging. Making it impossible for Atropos to concentrate. Even her quiet place with its cool white walls and sparkling clean floor didn’t help. She’d tripped over that awful white-trash girl in the other room and almost forgot to put on her surgical slippers. Almost. But before she made that mistake, she slid them on, then quickly walked to her desk and tried to think. She was Atropos, that was it . . . Atropos the inevitable.

She had Cricket held hostage for a reason. A reason.
Think!

Yes, that was it. Atropos. She cut the string of life that her sister, Klotho, the spinner, had spun for each person’s life and her other sister, Lachesis, the apportioner, had measured so carefully. The sisters . . . three strong, all of one mind . . . But that mind hurt right now, it hurt like hell.

She opened the drawer. The strings of life were waiting, red and black, symbolizing blood and death, braided and wound intricately together. Fate. Destiny. Kismet.

She found the two pictures of her latest victim, the mother . . . In the still frame, Berneda was young, a slim woman in a knee-length black dress. Her head was turned coquettishly to one side to show off her stunning profile, her red-brown hair piled on her head and pinned with a diamond tiara. Silk gloves hugged her slim arms, and a cigarette in a long-stemmed holder smoldered, sending a curl of smoke aloft. It was a posed picture, the backdrop solid white, and it was entirely unmotherly.

She who had borne seven children; she who had time and time again complained at her loss of figure, of the sacrifices she’d made for her brood. She, the once beautiful and often betrayed by a philandering husband, had lamented her loss of beauty, vitality and youth. She whose weak heart had been her downfall. She who had hated the bastards her husband and father-in-law had sired.

Poor long-suffering Berneda.

Finally she suffered no longer, Atropos thought as she pulled at the strands of the mother’s life, seeing where it had been measured. Unfolding her unique instruments from their soft sack, she found her cherished surgical scissors. With a clean snip of stainless steel, she clipped off the strands of Berneda Pomeroy Montgomery’s martyred life.

So how to mold the photograph to properly reflect the deed? Hmmm. It was her hourglass figure that Berneda had prized and later mourned in life, and so it would be robbed of her in death. Yes, that would do. Satisfied, Atropos went to work. With two clean snips Atropos clipped Berneda’s head from her body, then sliced off her legs. Yes, yes, perfect. The pieces drifted to the desktop.

Picking up the head and legs, Atropos held them together, then carefully pinned them where they belonged on the gnarly Montgomery family tree. And there was Berneda, just a small profile of a beautiful face and glittering tiara resting upon knees and calves supported by four-inch heels. The cigarette and arms were still intact, giving Berneda a skewed though elegant, eye-catching look. The kind she’d always wanted. Atropos smiled. The newly cut-and-pasted Berneda stood on the branch next to the husband, the Betrayer. He was dressed in hunting clothes for he had always been a hunter, though women were his usual prey. His body was intact, aside from a hole at the juncture of his legs, to one side, a small jagged perforation where his testicle had once been. She scanned the others who lived on the tree as well . . . Little Parker robbed of his stupid little pacifier and crying his lungs out, Alice Ann with her head cut off and placed at an impossible angle, just as it had been when she’d hit the bottom of the stairs at the upscale institution where she’d been hidden away.

If only she had more time to look at her artwork, to sit back and enjoy her work. But not yet. Atropos was running out of time.

Finding the picture of Amanda, the eldest, she snipped the car away from Amanda’s slim body. The eldest was still alive—an act of God—and would have to be dealt with later. That thought made her smile. Yes, yes . . . it all fit perfectly. For the moment, she placed the picture of the little crumpled sports car on Amanda’s branch. For now it would have to do, but Amanda’s life string could not yet be cut.

The sister of fate had decided.

Now it was time to choose again. She sat in the chair and began to shuffle the pictures. Quickly she flipped the old photos, and as she did she realized that some of the pictures were no longer flawless. Some had faded, others had yellowed, still others were bent and cracked from all the handling.

Too much time had passed. Too many years. She felt a new anxiety. Where once she’d been patient, she was now nervous. Edgy.

From the other room she heard her victim moving . . . God, was it not her time yet?

Time. Atropos was running out of it. She needed to finish this, and yet there was so much work to do. She didn’t even have the luxury of taking time to pick her victims at her leisure. Where once she could wait months or years, now she felt an impending sense of panic to get the job done. Faster . . . and faster.

She flipped a photograph over and saw Caitlyn’s face. Again. It seemed as if destiny was pointing in the weaker twin’s direction. But was it the right, precise moment in time? Atropos had planned for Caitlyn to be the last, to accept the blame for all of her doings, but perhaps that was a miscalculation.

Now where the hell was the wimp’s life cord?

Sorting through the strings in her drawer, the braided cords marked appropriately, by inches and in years, Atropos noted that Caitlyn’s time was just about due. There were others as well, and as she flipped up the next pictures, she felt a cooling sense of satisfaction. Her anxiety eased.

Two more victims . . . one looking sullen, the other trying to shy away from the camera, her image in the background.

Atropos smiled peacefully even though she heard Cricket thumping and pounding, trying to free herself. The girl was terrified. Sensed what was coming. Good. Maybe it was time for a little reminder. Yes, that was it. Atropos had never before taken a hostage; her victims knew they were dying at her hand, and she’d dragged it out beautifully with Josh Bandeaux, but now the slow mental torture of the captive was a new high, a rush, one she couldn’t indulge in too often for fear of being caught. But . . . while she had Cricket as her guest, she might as well enjoy it.

And she knew just how. She heard the girl kicking and attempting to scream, so maybe it was time to give her something to think about. She unwrapped her packet of surgical instruments and found the forceps. They should do. She donned a pair of gloves, then quickly left her slippers at the door and found her flashlight. Her gloved fingers curled around the flashlight’s handle, and she felt the thrill of anticipation run through her body. This basement was so foul, so perfect. Cautiously, in case Cricket was able to throw her body or kick out, she walked toward her, clicking on the flashlight and training it on the girl. She looked bad. Dirty. Wan. Probably from lack of nutrition and water . . . it had been several days. Cricket showed some spunk. It was time to drug her again, but first . . . yes, first it was important for her hostage to understand.