Notorious (12 page)

“Did someone in our family kill Lindy?”

Her grandmother gasped audibly. “Of course not!”

Brooks added, “This has nothing to do with murder. Leave this alone.”

It clicked. “You know about the parking ticket.”

Eleanor didn’t acknowledge her statement. “I said leave it, Maxine.”

“No.”

“It’s your immature, misplaced arrogance that brought you here,” Brooks said “You have a psychopathic need to scratch at old wounds. To prove you are better than others? To embarrass and mock your friends and family?”

“Brooks,” Eleanor began Kevin O’Neal?”ro>, but he was on a roll.

“You’re just like my sister,” he continued, “selfish to your core. You don’t care about the family name, who we are, what we stand for in this community!”

“The only thing I despise about my name,” Max said through clenched teeth, “is that I share it with you.”

“Enough,” Eleanor said. “Please.”

“I’m sorry, Grandmother,” she said.

“I can’t let you tear apart our family.”

“Clearly”—Max finished her wine—“I should leave.”

“Go back to New York,” Brooks said.

“Kevin O’Neal killed himself because his life was destroyed after being accused of murder. After thirteen years he still couldn’t exonerate himself. He didn’t kill Lindy. I’m not leaving until I find out who did.”

Eleanor’s hand was shaking. What did she know? Who was she protecting?

William?

Max’s chest tightened. Could she do this if her own cousin, her friend, was guilty? Could she put her faith in William that he hadn’t killed Lindy, the same faith she’d put in Kevin’s innocence?

Why was he at Lindy’s house the night she was killed?

Max put her wineglass on the bar and walked out. She heard the boys laughing down the hall and yearned to be that carefree again, to roll on the floor with puppies. She passed the kitchen, where William and Caitlin were talking quietly, their heads close together. Max glanced at them, wanted to force William to tell her the truth about that night. She wanted to believe anything he told her, but knew that she’d have to prove it. He’d been lying for too long.

She walked out of the house without saying anything.

“Maxine?”

She almost ran into Archer Sterling, her grandmother’s brother. “Uncle Archer!” She gave him a hug, surprised. “I didn’t expect you.”

“You’re not leaving so soon?”

“I—it’s not a good night,” she said lamely. Archer was eighty-one, and though like Eleanor he looked and acted younger, she didn’t want to trouble him with the drama with Brooks. “How’s Aunt Delia?”

“She wanted to come, but since her hip surgery, mobility is difficult. I hope you’ll come to the house and see us before you return to New York.”

“I’d like that. Thank you.” She squeezed his hands. “I heard about the Sterling Pierce Sports Center. It’s wonderful what you and Jasper Pierce put together.”

“I wish I could take credit, but it was Jasper’s idea. He and Jackson graduated together, I’ve known him since he was a boy. He had the vision for the project, he needed matching funds. I was glad to do it.”

“I’d like to talk to Jasper about the project. Do you have his contact information?”

Archer pulled out his BlackBerry and pressed a few buttons. “Hmm, my eyesight is fading. Can you read this?”

She took the phone and copied down Jasper’s private cell phone and address. “Thank you,” she said, and handed the phon a nine-thousand-square-foot .PMe back to Archer. “Give Delia my love, please.”

“You certain you can’t stay?”

She smiled but shook her head. She waved good-bye, and walked out to her car.

Max had just turned the ignition when William tapped on her window. She rolled it down.

“Uncle Archer wants me to convince you to stay. What did you say to him?”

“Nothing. He doesn’t need to know what an ass your father is.”

“Maxine.”

She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Jet lag.”

“Max, what’s going on?”

She looked up at him through the open window. “I want the truth. Now.”

He glanced at the house, then back at her. “Don’t do this.”

She didn’t say anything.

“Look, it was a long time ago.”

“Did you kill Lindy?”

He blanched. “No! God, no.”

There was something in his face that made Max believe him, but she didn’t know if she could trust her instincts when she had been so close to him growing up. She truly liked her cousin, warts and all, and maybe their history was clouding her judgment.

She turned off the car. “Why did you lie about being at Lindy’s the night she was killed?”

“I didn’t lie. I was never asked.”

“Excuse me?”

“Until you brought it up today, I didn’t think anyone knew I was there. The police didn’t ask me, no one did.”

“But you talked to them.”

“I didn’t kill her. Why would I tell them about seeing her that night and put myself on the hot seat?”

“Because it’s evidence. Maybe you saw or heard something—”

“I’ll tell you the truth, but it has to remain between us.”

Max didn’t want to agree, but the reporter in her couldn’t help it—she had to know the truth.

“Agreed, unless you lie to me.”

He shifted uncomfortably, then squatted next to her car so he could lower his voice. “Lindy and I were sleeping together.”

Suddenly, everything made sense. Lindy being so secretive. Picking fights. Not wanting to spend time with her. Lindy knew Max would have been furious, at both of them. Not because she would have cared that they were dating, but because they’d both publicly been dating other people. The dishonesty of the situation would have angered Max more than anything, and she’d have had a hard time keeping her mouth shut.

“How long?”

“On and off—about a year.”

1D;

Chapter Ten

Max parked her rental across the street from Atherton Prep because it was technically in the city of Menlo Park and not Atherton. There was no street parking allowed in Atherton except in rare, designated areas. After her run-in with Grant and Sherman she didn’t want to tempt fate. And parking in the construction area after seeing the security in place, no way. She wasn’t even certain she wouldn’t be caught on camera along the west fence, except that she hadn’t seen any outside of the construction zone.

She took off her colorful scarf and slipped on the black blazer she’d worn to Kevin’s funeral. No reason she needed to stand out, considering that now she truly intended to trespass.

One of the benefits of having gone to school at ACP was that Max knew all the secret pathways. The school itself was a sprawling campus with six separate, architecturally attractive buildings. The two original buildings, which had been built more than a hundred years ago and renovated to maintain their old, early twentieth-century appearance, housed the administration offices and the English classes. The other four buildings, built over time from the late 1940s until the most recent state-of-the-art math and science lab that had been built during Max’s first year at ACP, highlighted the contemporary style of the decade in which they were built, while keeping details of the past.

The sports complex was on the opposite end of the campus, and that’s where Max was headed, but she hadn’t wanted to park near the construction entrance because of the security cameras she’d noted when she spoke with the project manager earlier. Instead, she walked al preliminary f alcoholong the bike path that wove around the perimeter. Max stayed on the side, among the elm and birch trees, until she reached the backside of the old gym.

She surveyed the buildings looking for security and found it—every door to the old gym was secured with a keypad. Definitely new since she’d graduated.

Max walked around the back of the gym to where a door led to a corridor connecting the other athletic buildings, including the locker rooms and the indoor swimming pool, where Lindy’s body had been found.

Max had come for one reason—she wanted to see how close Lindy’s backyard and clubhouse was to the pool. She walked from the pool house to the back fence. It was thick with trees, even though the grounds and foliage were well groomed. Fifty feet to the fence.

Max took out her cell phone and retrieved a map of the area. She pinpointed the Ames house and the school. A blue dot showed Max where she was standing, the wonders of GPS. It wasn’t accurate to the foot, but it was close.

The Ames property shared a rear property line with the school. The Ames’s vast backyard was on the other side of this stone fence.

Max walked along the ten-foot-tall fence. It would be difficult to scale and impossible to see through. Plus, she didn’t know if the Ames family had security on the fence, but she had to assume that they did.

She stopped walking and pictured Lindy’s clubhouse, her sanctuary, and where it was located in relation to the yard. She looked again at her map and walked back toward the pool house, then stepped away from the fence and looked up.

It was dark, the security lighting from the school building shining down, not up at the trees. But there was a structure there, surrounded by a dense group of redwood trees. The trees were so familiar, Max was certain she was right, but she needed to confirm her memories. It had been a long time since she’d been a regular visitor to Lindy’s clubhouse.

Max pocketed her phone and surveyed the area around her. No bright lights, no sign that anyone was around. There were several magnolia trees to the left, not directly behind what Max believed was the clubhouse, but close enough that if she got high enough, she’d be able to confirm she was right.

Climbing trees was like riding a bike, but unwise to do in heels. She slid out of her two-inch pumps and pulled herself up to the first thick branch. Her heart raced, exhilarated, reminding her of when she first became an investigative reporter. When she didn’t have the obligation of the cable show, when she didn’t have staff who depended on her, when she didn’t have any responsibilities to anyone, only to herself and her drive to learn the truth. She’d been reckless, brash, and free.

She missed it.

She climbed higher than she needed to, mostly because she could and the sensation of height was freeing. The headache that had plagued her since she’d left the Ames house had disappeared and in a moment of clarity, Max saw what she might have been doing had she said no to Ben two years ago. More undercover work. Fewer responsibilities. More freedom.

Max didn’t like supernatural anything, from movies to television to the plethora of ghost hunters and paranormal activities people claimed to have witnessed. But she’d been drawn to the television show The X-Files because of Fox Mulder’s tagline: “The truth is out there.” She didn’t believe the truth was in outer space or in some military complex doing experiments on aliens, but she did believe that the truth was know reasonable doubt. fable, that it would set those trapped by lies free.

And from her vantage point halfway up the magnolia tree, Max saw the truth.

Lindy’s clubhouse was directly behind ACP’s pool house. Behind the clubhouse, Max could see the lights from the Ames’s sprawling home. Ground lighting, lights in the trees, lights from the deck, lights from the windows.

And behind the house, a well-lit, black-bottomed swimming pool.

What if Lindy had died in her own pool and someone moved her body to the pool house? Why? Forensic tests could have proven which pool she’d drowned in. But because her death had been ruled strangulation, had either pool been tested? Television shows showed the cops and CSIs going through every possible permutation of the crime, leaving no stone unturned, but reality was much, much different.

Kevin’s attorney had said the Atherton Police Department had bungled the case and not turned it over to Menlo Park for twelve hours after the body was discovered. If there had been evidence in Lindy’s clubhouse, had it been removed or contaminated? Not by the cops specifically, but perhaps by someone who shouldn’t have had access. There was no way of knowing, short of tracking down the responding officers and asking them. And that would hardly work, considering Max’s accusations of incompetence wouldn’t make them willing to talk.

Max’s instincts twitched again. If William was telling the truth and he’d left Lindy alive at twelve fifteen the night she died, there was no reason for her to go to the high school pool. She had her own swimming pool. Her parents hadn’t been home. Her older brother was in college on the East Coast. So why would she leave her property to meet someone?

Yet, if someone had strangled Lindy to the point of unconsciousness on her own property, how would they get her body to the high school? If the killer was trying to destroy evidence, why not dump the body in her own pool? Had he or she intended to make it look like an accident?

What had seemed so clear a moment before was now murky.

Max’s vibrating phone startled her. She balanced her body against the trunk and pulled it out.

“Hello,” she answered, her voice low and quiet.

“Um, is this Maxine Revere?”

“Yes.”

“This is Dru Parker, we met this morning at Evergreen? Why did you call the police?”

Max had pegged the situation from the minute she talked to Nick Santini. She would have patted herself on the back if she wasn’t up a tree.

“I’m a reporter. I talk to a lot of people.”

“That detective was waiting at my house when I got off of work! Do you know what this means?” She sounded both angry and scared. “You’re messing with my life. I’m freaked. I told him I didn’t know what you wanted, but that you scared me because you were following me.”

“I didn’t follow you.”

“You know what I mean. If they find out the police are talking to me—oh, God, I don’t know what to do!”

twelve. We&#x

Chapter Eleven

It took Max thirty-five minutes to get out of the tree, walk to her car, and drive to the Starbucks across from the Caltrain bus terminal in nearby Redwood City. She didn’t see Dru when she entered. She waited a few moments in case the girl was watching from outside, then Max walked to the counter and ordered a half-caff latte.