Authors: Stephanie Bond
know couldn’t have kil ed those women.”
“So help me.”
The waiter brought their drinks and set the platter of food
between them. Carlotta took a healthy swallow from her
glass and Rainie fol owed, then cradled the stem.
“What can I do?”
“Are there any details you can give me, any leads to
fol ow?”
“Why don’t you ask Detective Terry? I thought you two
were…friends.”
“The GBI booted him off the case. You probably know
more than he does.”
“Such as?”
Carlotta leaned forward. “Dr. Abrams told me the state
crime lab was supposed to return DNA from one of the
crime scenes. What was it?”
Rainie shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“Can you find out? And if it matched Coop?”
“I can’t make any promises.”
“And there’s one more thing.”
“What?”
“Last week my brother saw Coop at Piedmont Hospital,
and fol owed him to the office of a neurologist. When I
asked Coop about it, he went off and basically told me to
mind my own business. Can you look into it?”
“Sure. I’l poke around.”
“And one more thing…”
The redhead scoffed. “Just one?”
“Can you help me flush out Michael Lane?”
Rainie blinked. “How?”
“I don’t know. It would have to be something he’d find
irresistible.” Carlotta laughed. “Like a sale on Gucci.”
“That’s actually not a bad idea. Let me give it some
thought.”
“Oh, and all this needs to be on the Q.T.”
“Wil I get an exclusive if Lane shows?”
Carlotta lifted her glass. “Absolutely.”
Rainie clinked her glass to Carlotta’s. “Deal. You have a lot
riding on Michael Lane being The Charmed Kil er, don’t
you?”
“Why do you say that?”
The reporter gave her a pointed smile. “Because if Coop
didn’t kil those women, and if Michael Lane didn’t do it,
either, then that leaves your father as next best suspect,
right?”
Instead of answering, Carlotta picked up a loaded potato
skin and took a bite.
Rainie reached for a stuffed mushroom. “Girl, I thought I
had man problems. What’s up with you and that Ashford
guy I saw you with at the country club auction?”
“Peter and I go way back. I’m staying at his place until this
al blows over.”
“Didn’t he win one of the romantic getaway vacations?”
Carlotta nodded.
“I assume for the two of you?”
She nodded again. “He thinks it would be safer if I were
out of town.”
“Can’t say I blame him,” Rainie said. “Which means he’s
not hip to this little fact-finding mission of yours?”
“Right.”
“Carlotta, you’re a dog with three bones.”
She frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Remember Aesop’s fable? A dog with a nice meaty bone
is crossing a bridge and looks down to see another dog
holding a bone that’s even bigger. The dog drops his bone
to go after the bigger one and guess what?”
“The dog winds up losing the bone,” Carlotta finished.
“Righto.”
Carlotta bit her lip. “So who’s the nice meaty bone in my
mouth?”
Rainie laughed. “You’re going to have to figure that one
out for yourself.”
They finished lunch and Carlotta picked up the tab, then
they made their way back to the parking lot to Carlotta’s
car. She snagged Rainie’s arm to hold her back while she
unlocked the Civic with the keyless remote. When nothing
detonated, Carlotta exhaled and walked forward.
“Do the police think Michael Lane planted the explosive
device under your car?” Rainie asked.
“For lack of a better suspect. Detective Marquez said that
Michael wants to get rid of me because in his mind, he’l
be locked away if I testify against him for the identity-theft
murders.” Then she shook her head. “Although I can’t
imagine why Michael would’ve gone to the trouble of
planting a bomb when he could’ve easily kil ed me in my
bed when he was hiding in our house.”
“Maybe he couldn’t bring himself to do it up close.” Rainie
made a face. “But that doesn’t mesh with someone who
then goes on a kil ing spree.”
Carlotta swung her head to look at the reporter. “It’s been
suggested that Michael is doing this to avoid kil ing me.”
“You mean, an extreme form of projection?”
“Maybe.”
“If that’s the case, Carlotta, this isn’t your fault. Michael
Lane is sick and needs to be stopped.”
“I know.”
“We’ll think of a way to draw him out,” Rainie promised.
“It’s Michael Lane who belongs behind bars, not Coop.”
Carlotta dropped off Rainie at the AJC office and waved
goodbye with a heaviness in her stomach that went
beyond a self-indulgent lunch. While she felt better
knowing that Rainie also believed in Coop’s innocence, she
wondered if the reporter would change her mind if
Carlotta told her about Coop’s bookstore connection with
the first victim and the sighting of the white van in Shawna
Whitt’s neighborhood.
Puzzled and apprehensive, Carlotta drove to the Perimeter
Mall and spent most of the afternoon flashing Michael
Lane’s photo to people who worked in shops sel ing
charms, but again with no results. She cruised by the
Betsey Johnson and Stuart Weitzman stores for a quick
looky-loo at the newest arrivals, and was able to get a
walk-in appointment at DASS salon to have her split ends
trimmed.
While she was sitting in a chair covered with a poncho and
reading People magazine, Carlotta felt a prickle of
awareness, as if she was being watched. With her senses
on alert, she slowly pivoted her head…and found herself in
the crosshairs of one Tracey Tul y Lowenstein.
Carlotta swallowed a groan. Tracey was the daughter of
Walt Tul y, her father’s former partner at the investment
firm. Walt was her and Wesley’s godfather, although the
man hadn’t checked on them a single time after Randolph
and Valerie had disappeared. And Tracey, who had gone to
the same private girls’ school as Carlotta, had done
everything in her power to ostracize Carlotta from their
social circle. Meanwhile, Tracey had snagged herself a
doctor—a creepy OB/GYN—and loved parading him
around while sabotaging Carlotta’s struggling relationship
with Peter because Tracey didn’t cotton to hobnobbing
with a lowly retail clerk.
Carlotta gave Tracey a tight little smile, then looked back
to her magazine and wil ed the hairdresser to hurry. But as
luck would have it, she and Tracey wound up at the
checkout counter together.
“Carlotta, I’ve never seen you in here before.”
“First time,” Carlotta offered cheerfully.
Tracey surveyed Carlotta’s hair. “Next time you should ask
for the deep-conditioning treatment. It would help with
the frizz.”
Carlotta stuck her tongue into her cheek. “Thanks.”
“Goodness, you must be so relieved that the police
arrested The Charmed Kil er.”
“I…yes.”
“It lets your dad off the hook, doesn’t it? Wel , at least for
this crime.”
“Yes,” Carlotta murmured, seething.
“I understand the psycho they arrested worked for the
morgue. Since you’ve been moonlighting as a body
mover—” she paused to shudder “—you must know him.”
“As a matter of fact, I do,” Carlotta said evenly.
Tracey tsk, tsked. “Honestly, Carlotta, the company you
keep. From that Goth-girl to serial kil ers. Peter must be
positively mortified.”
Carlotta gritted her teeth. “Peter lets me be my own
person.”
Tracey leaned in. “But doesn’t Peter deserve better?
You’ve really gone to the dogs, Carlotta. Even that red
dress you wore to the club auction the other night looked
off-the-rack.”
“Gee, your husband didn’t seem to mind. He practically
gave me a pelvic exam with his eyes.”
Tracey gasped and recoiled.
Carlotta took advantage of the pause to escape the vile
woman’s presence. True, Tracey had been friends with
Peter’s former wife, Angela, so maybe some of Tracey’s
reaction to Carlotta was out of loyalty to her dead friend.
But she didn’t have to go out of her way to be so nasty. At
the club auction, Tracey had made a big deal out of the
fact that her important husband, Dr. Frederick Lowenstein,
had to leave the event to deliver a baby. The woman used
her husband’s position as a social lever, and she wielded
her power maliciously. Carlotta wondered if Tracey
overcompensated because deep down, she knew her
husband was a lecherous cad. Or maybe she was just in
complete denial.
Carlotta pursed her mouth. Not that she herself was such a
great judge of character—hadn’t Michael’s gruesome
betrayal taught her that? Jack had once told her that
everyone was capable of murder, given the right
circumstances. Which meant that anyone walking around
this mall, the people she came into casual contact with
every day, could be harboring horrible, secret
compulsions.
She slowed and hugged herself as people passed by her on
all sides. Irrational fear seized her. She glanced at their
faces, wondering which ones contemplated horrible acts
at this very moment, and which ones harbored dark
fantasies that might erupt as a result of some random
emotional trigger.
And conceding that, according to Jack, there was the
tiniest possibility that after years of working with the dead
and avoiding the living, Coop’s random emotional trigger
had somehow been tripped.
11
Wesley parked his bike next to Liz Fischer’s garage and
slowly walked toward her guest house, where they always
met to screw. His balls had their own memory because
they tingled with anticipation, but his stomach was tied in
knots.
Sure, having sex with Liz guaranteed fifteen minutes of
pure physical pleasure. But he kept thinking about Meg
and the way she’d fussed over the raggedy flowers he’d
bought her and the daisy she’d put in her hair, and it left
him feeling…torn. Like he shouldn’t sleep with Liz, that he
should—he grimaced—save himself or something.
Christ, he was turning into a wuss over a girl who probably
just felt sorry for him after he’d unloaded his whole sad
family saga on her.
It was stil early, around seven, but the low-hanging clouds
made it seem later. Shadows encroached as he walked up
to the French doors of the guest house and knocked.
When Liz didn’t answer, he peered through the door, but it
was dark inside. Then he noticed a note taped to the glass.
Come to the back door of the house.
He frowned, then peeled off the note and headed across
the manicured grass in the direction of the main house.
He’d never been inside Liz’s home, and he wondered why
tonight was any different.
Liz’s brown brick house was tucked into an older,
expensive community. The dwel ings weren’t huge, but
they were al well-appointed with guest houses and pools,
and situated for maximum privacy. Thick trees shielded
him—and Liz’s other lovers, he presumed—from prying
eyes. A curving concrete walk led up to the back door,
flanked by tiered planting beds and pots of geraniums. He
had trouble picturing Liz getting her hands dirty, but he
supposed the woman had a life outside of her job, and
gardening was tres chic these days.
He stopped at the back door and pressed a button that
sent a little buzzing sensation through his finger. The half
caplet of Oxy he’d just chewed made everything vivid and
experiential—the weight of humid night air on his neck,
the shriek of horny crickets in his ears, the sharp scent of
evergreen bushes in his nostrils.
The door swung open and Liz stood in the threshold
wearing chinos and an untucked button-up white blouse,
holding a drink. A pang of disappointment stabbed him
that she was dressed at all, but compared to what she
typically wore, her outfit was a little dowdy. Her blond
hair, commonly coiffed into a French twist, was loose
around her shoulders. Her face was free of makeup,
making her look softer…and a little old.
Suddenly he relaxed—it was a ploy. Underneath the floppy
white shirt, she was probably wearing a latex corset. Or an
edible bra.
“Hi, Wes. Come on in.”
Her smile was friendly instead of flirtatious, throwing him
off a little. Stepping inside, he scanned the room while he
closed the door. The kitchen was straight out of Southern
Living, with white painted cabinetry, black granite
countertops, and wood floors. Two lidded pans emitting
nice smells sat on top of the commercial-grade stainless
steel stove. Through a doorway leading deeper into the
house, he saw pale, overstuffed furniture and thick rugs.
Elvis Costello’s “Al ison” sounded from the next room.
Wesley frowned. The setting seemed…cozy.
“Would you like a drink?” she asked.
Conscious of Chance’s stern warning not to drink alcohol
with the Oxy, he swallowed past a dry throat. “Water
would be great.”