Authors: Allison Brennan
“You’re insane.”
“I’ve been called worse.” Max sipped her mimosa. She’d only put a dollop of champagne in the glass, needing her full wits about her, but she wanted Caitlin to feel like she had the upper hand. That Max was sitting here drinking as she often did, casually. Chitchat. The Taser was accessible, but that was only if absolutely necessary. She needed Caitlin to confess. She wanted to believe in the system, that there wasn’t enough evidence to convict William, but sometimes the system failed. And sometimes the system hiccupped. And there were some people, like Kevin, who would die in limbo, neither guilty nor innocent.
Max didn’t want William to live in limbo. She had to settle this no shook his head. “AC f alcoholw.
“You broke into my house, you’re drinking my champagne, and you’re making awful accusations.”
Max tilted the flute in Caitlin’s direction. “Thank you for your hospitality. As for the accusations, they are truly awful. Awful crimes committed by an awful person.”
Tears welled in Caitlin’s eyes. “How can you say that about William?”
William? What the hell was she thinking? Max began to see that Caitlin had not only been rewriting history for the past thirteen years, she was rewriting the history of the last thirteen minutes, as if Max hadn’t already accused her of murder.
Caitlin said, “Do you know how many times he’s told me you’re like a sister to him? How often he’s defended you to the family when you go off and do embarrassing things?”
“William is flawed, like most of us, but he’s not a killer.”
“Get out of my house!”
Max didn’t budge. She took another sip, to steady her nerves. She hadn’t realized how difficult this was going to be. If she blew it, she wouldn’t blame Nick Santini for being angry with her for destroying his case. She’d never forgive herself, either.
“I have a theory about what happened the night Lindy was killed. I’m a little sketchy on the details, but it’s the only thing that makes sense. You followed William over to Lindy’s. Or you saw him leave. Whatever reason, you were so mad because you didn’t know that your best friend was sleeping with your boyfriend. At the time, your ex-boyfriend, but you and I both know you’d been obsessed with William for years. And honestly, I don’t blame you for being mad. William couldn’t keep it in his pants. He was rich, he was good-looking, he was charming. And a horny eighteen-year-old boy. And it’s not like he had a good role model. We all knew Brooks was cheating on Aunt Joanne long before I exposed him. Or, maybe, like you, she knew, but chose to look the other way.”
“William has always been faithful to me.”
“No.” Max stretched and put down the champagne flute. She rested her arms casually in her lap. “So you went over to confront Lindy. You could easily walk from your house. I don’t know what she said to you that set you off, or maybe it was nothing, because she was strangled from behind. Maybe you planned it all, heard William and Lindy fighting, and intentionally killed her hoping William would go to jail for it.
“Then, this is where I’m not sure, but the time line works. Carrie had lunch with Lindy earlier in the week. I’m thinking it was after Carrie’s appointment with the baby doctor. Carrie told Lindy she was pregnant and William was the father. She asked her for advice, why Lindy I don’t know except they’d been on the swim team together, so maybe they were sort of friends. Carrie didn’t know Lindy and William were screwing around behind your back.
“At some point, Carrie went home and fought with her mother, then said she was leaving for Europe. That bugged me because why would she say that if she didn’t have any money? Either she thought William would pay her off, or maybe Lindy said she’d give her money to leave. Because Lindy, for all her flaws and all her secrets, cared about you, she cared about me, she cared about William. And she knew William would marry Carrie because it would be the right thing to do. If not marry her, then he would support the baby. I know that in my heart because that is the person#
Caitlin laughed. “God, you should write fiction, you’re so good at it. Or maybe you’re projecting on William what you wish your own father would have done. Oh, wait, you don’t even know who your father is.”
Max let it go. This wasn’t about her.
“For some reason—maybe for money or just a place to stay—Carrie goes to Lindy’s house. And she sees you standing over Lindy’s body. She runs and you kill her too. Maybe it’s an accident, maybe she hits her head, I don’t know because the police only found parts of her body.”
“What? What body?”
The fear was palpable in the room. Good. Caitlin was getting scared.
“You left Lindy because chances were, the police would think William killed her and you could have your revenge on the man who betrayed you. At least ruin his life—the same way that Kevin’s ended up ruined.
“You didn’t count on Andy listening to William pour his guts out about the fight, deciding to go over to the house to console a distraught Lindy. Except, she was dead. Based on the time line, Andy was there ninety minutes after William left. He moved her body, put it in the pool to destroy any evidence, and then two days later, called in an anonymous tip to the police identifying Kevin’s car as being at the school that night. Brilliantly stupid on his part.”
Caitlin gave out a dramatic sigh and half collapsed on the couch. “They did it together, I knew it, I can’t believe it—I’m sure it was an accident, William shouldn’t go to jail over an accident, should he?”
“You were never in the drama club, were you? Now I know why.” Max crossed her legs, as if she were having a chat with a friend. “See, Lindy kept a diary. A secret diary, in code. She wrote in her last entry that Hester had returned.”
“Lindy didn’t keep a diary after her mother burned it when we were freshmen.”
“You’re wrong,” Max said bluntly. “Andy hired someone to steal it from me when I found it, because he thought it implicated William. It’s only a matter of time before the police find it. Hopefully when Andy starts talking. He’s stubborn that way, but he’ll talk if it keeps him out of jail. You know,” she added conversationally, her eyes never leaving Caitlin’s, “sometimes I wondered if they’re the ones having an affair because what Andy is willing to do for his best friend is over and beyond what most of us would do. William never told him he killed Lindy. Andy simply made the assumption. But it was you. You did it.”
“Get out!” Caitlin jumped up.
Max stayed her ground. “Carrie was Hester, sleeping with another girl’s boyfriend. Lindy was furious at first, but I think because Carrie was pregnant, she wanted to help her. And that’s why she picked the fight with William.
“He told me yesterday, before he was arrested, that Lindy was angry about a girl he’d dated over spring break. I checked with Carrie’s sister—she’d come home from college for spring break. Ten weeks later, she’s back and pregnant. Easy for me to put two and two together; easy for Lindy.”
“Lindy’s one to talk,” Caitlin said.
“She had an ultrasound taken when she was ten weeks pregnant, a little peanut of a baby, but obvious, dated May thirty-first shook his head. “s death fd p.” As Max spoke, Caitlin’s eyes looked toward the left—the direction of her study.
Caitlin was too stunned to talk, so Max kept going. “What I don’t know is if you knew Carrie was pregnant when you killed her. I don’t think so. I think you killed her because she saw you kill Lindy, and when you were cleaning up your mess, you went through her car and found the ultrasound picture. Maybe you didn’t even know it was William’s baby.”
“She was a slut. If she was pregnant, it could have been anyone’s baby.”
“When Andy arrived at Lindy’s, he saw a car he didn’t recognize. That’s why he moved Lindy’s body to the pool house and not her own pool. But when the police arrived the next day, the car was gone. It was Carrie’s car. And you moved it. I called Faith and asked her about the car. She said it had been left at the train station, and they got a call from the police a few days later about an abandoned vehicle. They weren’t worried initially that she was missing because she’d told them she was leaving town. You killed her, left her car at the train station, and waited.”
“I didn’t kill anyone.”
Her eyes, again, darted toward her study.
“Then, when the sports complex was approved, you panicked. What if someone found the bones? What if they were traced back to you? Which made me think you killed her with something you owned and buried it with her in her grave. So you went back to find it. And Jason Hoffman wondered what all those holes were, because you couldn’t remember exactly where you’d buried her. He surprised you that Saturday night, you shot him, and used William’s car to move Carrie’s remains.”
“No.”
“Do you know how long I’ve been here this morning? Nearly an hour. That’s a long time. Do you think the police will find the gun that killed Jason in William’s study … or in yours?”
Her eyes widened. “You bitch! You planted evidence! You moved the gun! You—” Then she realized what she’d said. Caitlin forced herself to calm down. “Nice theory, but William is going to pay for his crimes.”
“His crime of cheating on you?”
“All his crimes.”
“The thing is, I can prove he didn’t kill Jason Hoffman.”
“No, you can’t.”
“I called his secretary, Minnie—nice girl, very pretty, very smart, but no common sense, a lot like William—and asked about his car. She said that your Range Rover had been in the shop after a fender bender the day before Thanksgiving, so you were driving William’s BMW for the week. Why? Because he flew to New York Sunday for a business trip.”
“That’s the day after that man was killed.”
“His name was Jason,” Max snapped. “Jason Hoffman. He was twenty-three and had a great life and a family who loved him.” She paused, got herself back on track. “Minnie also had a hotel receipt for Saturday night because William was flying out early Sunday morning and stayed near the airport. Why? Because he wanted one last night with Minnie before he left.”
“You’re lying.”
“It’s ironic, isn’t it, that William’s mistress is going to be#
She was watching Caitlin closely. Because Max had made all that up. Not the business trip—that was true—but the hotel. According to Minnie, William had taken the 6:00 A.M. flight out of SFO, which meant he likely left his house at four in the morning.
Max was counting on Caitlin not having seen William that morning and there was a chance he could have left earlier than he needed to.
“Then she’s lying,” Caitlin said. “Now, I’m calling the police.”
She strode down the hall toward her study.
Max grabbed her purse and followed.
Caitlin burst into her study and went right for her wedding picture. Instead she stared at a blank wall.
She turned around and shouted, “Where is it? Where’s my picture?”
“Why?”
“You bitch! You don’t know anything!”
Caitlin lunged for her, but Max sidestepped away.
“What don’t I know?” Max said. “Did I get something wrong?”
“Do you know what it’s like loving someone who doesn’t love you? I’ve done everything for William. Everything. I love him so much and he hurts me again and again. Why am I not enough for him?”
Max wanted to say something cutting, but she needed Caitlin to go on. Because Max knew she had a lot of holes in her theory, and hoped Caitlin would fill them in. She needed Caitlin to confess. Right now it was all circumstantial.
“Lindy called me Saturday morning and told me that William got that slut Carrie Voss pregnant. She said to forget William, Carrie was going to tell him about the baby and William was going to be paying for the rest of his life. Lindy said I could do better. I didn’t want better! I wanted William! And then—I saw William’s car talk to Willi
Chapter Twenty-seven
Max sat in her grandmother’s library drinking scotch. She shouldn’t imbibe alcohol right now, but her nerves were still raw and she thought of all the things that could have gone wrong. What had gone right? She hadn’t gotten a full confession out of Caitlin, William’s boys had been scared to death, and she’d pretty much torn her entire family apart with very little effort. They’d been coming through all day, looking at her as if she were a wild, exotic animal, then leaving without saying a word.
The boys were in the playroom with Eleanor’s dogs, hopefully sleeping.
But Max knew the truth. And she would prove it, somehow. Nick had the partial confession, he had the gun from William’s office, and the ultrasound that Max was certain would have Caitlin’s prints on it. If she had been right in that bluff, then maybe Caitlin would spill everything. Max could only hope.
David walked in to the library. He took one look at her and said, “I should throttle you.”
“You look tan.”
“I just got off the phone with Santini. He told me what you did.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“But you’re okay.”
She nodded. But she couldn’t muster up a smile. What would Tyler and Talbot remember about today? What would they know about their mother? How would they grow up, knowing what their mother had done?
She couldn’t protect them from the truth, but they still had their father. And they had Eleanor. Max had to believe they would survive and be stronger for it. They were Reveres, after all.
Eleanor came in a moment later. “Hello, Mr. Kane. Good to finally meet you.”
“Mrs. Revere.” He took her hand.
She smiled at his manners, and that made Max feel like maybe things would go back to normal. “Maxine, come, join us for an early dinner. William’s attorney is bringing him home. Just wrapping up the paperwork.”
She shook her head. “I can’t. I just want to explain to William.”
“He might not understand now, but he will, later.” She looked at David. “Would you please give us a moment?”
“Of course.” He said to Max, “I’ll take you to the hotel when you’re ready.”
He left, and Max asked Eleanor, “What did the attorney say?”
“The dirt in William’s car was from the grave site where Carrie Voss’s body had been buried. That’s why they arrested him yesterday. But the police said there’s enough evidence against Caitlin that they’re releasing William, thank God.”