Notorious (26 page)

He didn’t answer his cell phone.

“Dammit, Andy!”

She didn’t want to believe that Andy had made that anonymous call, but she knew in her heart it was true. Nick and Carson believed that whoever made the call was Lindy’s killer—which meant that Andy had killed her.

But why? There was no damn reason!

She slammed her fist on the steering wheel and called William.

“I need to see Andy; he’s avoiding me.”

“He’s just angry with you, but he’ll get over it. He always does.”

“William, I’m serious.”

“Why?”

She didn’t say anything. She didn’t know if she could trust her cousin.

William sighed. “Andy’s on his way to the airport. He has a business trip.”

“Going where?”

“China.”

“Kind of sudden, don’t you think?”

“I’m sure it’s been planned for a while, he doesn’t keep me apprised of all his business trips,” he said with thinly veiled sarcasm. “What’s going on, Maxine?”

She hung up and headed for San Francisco International Airport.

It was two in the afternoon, so rush hour hadn’t started yet, but Max was still frustrated that it took thirty minutes to get to the international terminal. S shook his head. “ aro>he’d used the time wisely, however, by conning Andy’s secretary into giving her the flight information. It was scheduled to leave in just under an hour; he’d probably already gone through security.

Max bought a ticket to get through security check, then she detoured to Andy’s gate.

He was sitting in an open bar, drinking Scotch, across from the boarding area. She stood in front of him and didn’t say a word.

He looked up and stared. He raised his glass to his lips, sipped, and put it down, never breaking eye contact.

She stepped forward and said quietly, “Do you remember when we were freshmen and Duncan was a junior? He wasn’t paying attention, arguing with his girlfriend or something, and backed his car into the willow tree? I said, now it’s a weeping willow tree. And you called it the weeping willow tree from then on. Maxine, meet me at the weeping willow tree, you’d tell me. Or, Maxine, I’m parked next to the weeping willow tree. I always thought it was cute, but you were the only one who called it that, other than me. You kissed me for the first time, up against the weeping willow tree.”

“Sit down and have a drink.”

She took his Scotch from his hand and drained it, then put it down on the table. “Kevin didn’t kill Lindy. His car was never parked next to the weeping willow tree the night she died. Why did you frame him?”

“You don’t want to do this.”

“Someone attacked me last night when I found Lindy’s diary. I thought it was Lindy’s killer, that her diary contained evidence against him. That means you attacked me.”

“I didn’t know you were attacked.” He briefly glanced down. Lying? Guilt?

She pointed to the scrape on the side of her face and the bruise on her nose. “I’m good with makeup, but even you can see the bruises.”

“I didn’t kill Lindy.” His voice was barely above a whisper.

“I don’t believe you. You made the call.”

“I had to.”

“Someone held a gun to your head?”

“I was protecting someone.”

She stared at him, her mouth open, feeling foolish for wanting to believe him. For wanting to believe she hadn’t been so horribly wrong about Andy Talbot for all these years. She’d slept with him—not only that, he’d been her first. Her first for everything. For sex, for love, for betrayal.

But he was willing to send an innocent man, their friend, to prison to protect someone else. That meant only one thing: family.

“I’ve known you since I was ten years old. I loved you once. Tell me who you’re protecting.”

“No.”

“Yes!”

She hadn’t meant to raise her voice, but the patrons around her glanced at them. She took one step closer and was only inches from Andy’s face. “If you don’t think I won’t call security and have you kept off that plane, you’re wrong. I will use every contact I have, every amount of charm and wits to make sure you are arrested.”

“You do that, you destroy your own family.”

Mixed emotions flooded through her. But she stood firm. “Tell me the truth, Andrew.”

His jaw was tight, trembling, and his eyes were glassy. Alcohol? Fear? Regret? Max didn’t care. She needed the truth.

“That night, when Lindy died, William came to my house after midnight and said he and Lindy had gotten into a huge fight. He admitted they’d been bed buddies for a year—even while he was dating Caitlin and Lindy was with Kevin. He said he’d been vicious with her, accusing her of all sorts of shenanigans, when she broke up with him. Said she didn’t want to go public, that she didn’t trust him, that she wanted a clean break. He left my house at one, and I went over to her house, just to talk to her. If William was that upset, she must be, too. I found her in the clubhouse. She was dead. I was … in shock. I stared at her body. Then I knew William was going to go to jail. I thought of you because—”

“Don’t. Don’t put me in this!” She pounded her fist on the bar. This wasn’t what she thought she’d hear. Why did she think that she would have accepted the truth better if Andy had killed Lindy?

Except, how could she even believe him? Maybe he was lying … again.

“William was like your brother. And I thought of me, because I’ve been his best friend our entire lives. I love him more than my own brothers, because he’s always been there for me. Always. So I was there for him. I picked her up and was going to put her in her pool knowing that would mess with any evidence, at least enough for reasonable doubt. But the pool house at the school was closer, and there was a car in her driveway, I didn’t know who might be home. And I thought the longer before she was found, the better chance that all the evidence would be gone.”

“If I believe you, that makes you an accessory after the fact.”

“I did it for you and William.”

“What did William say when you told him?”

“We never talked about it.”

“What?” She had to be hearing wrong. “You cleaned up after your best friend killed someone in anger and you never discussed it? Not even a wink, wink, nod, nod?”

Max shook her head. This just wasn’t happening.

“I think you killed her,” she said. Andy was capable of losing his temper. He was affable and charming most of the time, but as she’d seen the other night when he threatened her at the Menlo Grill, and then the attack on her to get the diary. William would never have wielded a hammer. It was laughable. And her attacker wasn’t as tall as William.

Her attacker wasn’t as tall as Andy either, she realized.

“I am telling you the truth.” He looked over her shoulder. “My flight is boarding.”

“No.”

“You can’t stop me, Max.”

“Why are you fleeing the country if you’re so innocent?”

“It’s a business trip. I’ll be back in ten days.”

“You’re not going. Do you realize Lindy might have been alive when you dropped her in the pool?”

“She was dead.”

“The coroner reported that there was water in her l shook his head. “ I can fd pungs. You’ll never know if you really did kill her. You might have been able to save her life.”

“You fucking bitch. That’s not true!”

Behind her, she heard, “Andrew Talbot, you’re under arrest.”

She turned and was stunned to see Nick with two Homeland Security guards and two Menlo Park police officers. She stared at him, not quite making the connection.

“Why are you here?”

“To arrest Mr. Talbot.”

She blinked, glanced from Nick to Andy. Andy looked as surprised as she felt. “How did you know?”

Nick tilted his head. “Know what?”

“Why are you arresting him?”

“We got the surveillance photos from outside your hotel. He was the person following you in the black sedan on Tuesday.”

Max whipped around and faced Andy again. “You followed me? Did you attack me too?”

“I would never hurt you!”

But he wasn’t looking at her. He was lying. She felt ill.

“He wouldn’t,” Nick said, “but he would hire someone. We found the guy, got his van on surveillance cameras outside the storage unit where you were attacked last night. He’s in holding. He’s already talked. He also admitted to breaking into Kevin O’Neal’s apartment when you were there last week.”

Max turned to Andy and said, “Where’s Lindy’s diary?” When Andy didn’t say anything, she said, “Where, dammit!”

Max reached back to hit him and Nick caught her wrist. “I would love to let you deck him. But I can’t, at least not in front of all these witnesses and security cameras that could very easily get leaked.”

She pulled away from Nick and walked down the terminal. She had to get away from Andy, from Nick, from everyone. She needed time to absorb the monumental screwup she was to have trusted people—again—that she should never have trusted.

William. She loved him like the brother she’d never had. She didn’t see him as a killer. She couldn’t.

But he’d lied. When she caught him in his lies, he could have easily made up another. Was she that easily fooled? Were her reporter instincts nonexistent when it came to her family?

Several minutes later, Nick caught up with her.

“Max, let’s sit down.”

“No.” She paced. She didn’t care that people were looking at them, or that she’d created a scene. “I she’s q

Chapter Twenty-two

The last people who Max wanted to see were the members of her family, but she had to tell her grandmother what Andy’s accusations against William were. True or not, they were serious and were going to be investigated.

Eleanor wasn’t surprised to see her.

“Chief Clarkson told me that Andrew Talbot was arrested for assaulting you. I see that it’s true.” She reached up and touched Max’s face. Her caress was almost gentle. “What happened?”

“He hired someone, Grandmother. He didn’t do it himself.”

“Is this all about that girl’s murder?”

“Lindy. Her name is Lindy.”

“Lindy has cut into our family, even in death.”

“That’s not fair.” She hesitated. “May I come in?”

“Of course.” Eleanor seemed surprised that she’d asked. “Maxine, this is your home.”

She walked in and told her grandmother to sit. “I have something to tell you.”

Eleanor didn’t argue. She sat. “What’s happening, Maxine?”

“Andy accused William of murdering Lindy. He claims he found Lindy dead in her clubhouse and put the body in the pool to get rid of any physical evidence that may have implicated William, to protect him.”

Eleanor didn’t speak. Like Max, she always had something to say; but like Max, this was throwing her.

“You don’t believe that.”

“I don’t know.”

“Maxine! This is your family.”

“I don’t want to believe, but William lied to everyone, including the police when they questioned him about the last time he saw Lindy. It’s out of my hands.”

“Is this—because of you and what you do?” The disdain in her voice was evident.

“Grandmother, I don’t know where to begin. Andy has been acting suspicious from the minute I saw him. He’s been following me, and then he was about to board a plane to China after he hired a thug to steal Lindy’s diary. But that’s not all. Detective Santini got a copy of the anonymous 911 call that implicated Kevin. It was Andy. He made the call.”

“Nonsense. Someone would have recognized his voice.”

“It was muffled, he deliberately disguised his voice. It’s what he said, and I knew it was him. I asked him; he didn’t deny it. He intentionally framed Kevin for Lindy’s murder. Probably so the police wouldn’t dig into Lindy’s life, so they wouldn’t look harder at who she was sleeping with.”

“What? Who?”

“William! He#, 3, includ admitted it to me when I confronted him about the ticket. It’s a mess, Grandmother.”

“Andy told you this, not the police.”

“That’s right.”

“He won’t accuse William.”

She sounded so positive.

“Get William the best lawyer you can.”

“Of course.” She said it as if it didn’t need to be said. “You shouldn’t have come back, Maxine. It seems you make a point of hurting the people you love.”

Max didn’t want to be upset about what her grandmother said, but that hit her particularly hard. She straightened her spine and said, “I’m not sorry I did.”

She didn’t know if she meant that. This truth, about her family, was hard to swallow.

“Do you know what this is going to do to the family?”

“You always said that Reveres are survivors with class. Grandad Sterling had nothing when he built his company, which he lost, and then he built another one. And Grandma and Grandpa Revere were among the wealthiest families on the East Coast and then lost everything in the Great Depression and had to start over with nothing. And Grandfather’s brother, Timothy?”

Eleanor tightened her lips. “We don’t speak of him, God rest his soul.”

“But we survived. And we survived my mother leaving me here when you certainly didn’t need to raise another child.”

“Maxine—I’m glad she did. The way she was living, it was no life for my granddaughter.”

Maybe, but that wasn’t a point she was going to argue. Not now. “Whatever happens with William, the one thing you taught me is that you stick by family. If what Andy says is true, William needs to be punished—but not disowned. I love him, you know that.”

“I know,” she said quietly. “Which makes this all the more difficult to understand why you would do this.”

“Do what? Find answers? Give Mr. and Mrs. Ames peace of mind?”

“Will they have peace? Lindy will still be dead.”

Maybe she’d never get through to her grandmother. How Eleanor thought this way, Max didn’t understand. Max understood loyalty, but not to the point of letting a killer walk free.

There was a pounding on the door that made Eleanor jump. Max said, “I’ll get it.” She walked across the foyer and looked through the side window.

Detective Harry Beck, with two uniformed officers.

She opened the door. “Detective.”

“I thought you might be here, running to your well-to-do family.”