The Cinderella Murder (12 page)

“Are you sure this is a good idea? They’ll be asking about the work in the lab. You know I don’t like anything that calls attention to how this company got launched.”

It had been nearly twenty years since they started REACH. Sometimes Dwight actually forgot how the idea had originated, but Hathaway never did.

“It won’t be like that,” Dwight insisted. “Shows don’t get ratings by delving into the details of web-search optimization. They just want to hear about Susan.”

“Very well, then. If you’re in, I’m in.”

As Dwight returned to REACH’s colorful labyrinth, he felt completely alone. He couldn’t remember any time when he’d kept information from Hathaway. But he realized the real reason he had not shared his activities with his professor. He didn’t want Hathaway to be disappointed in him.

He had to find out more, though. The reason I want to do the show, he thought, is because once I have physical proximity to the others, I can clone their phones and finally prove who killed Susan. But, no, he couldn’t say any of that.

He had to do this. For Susan.

22

W
ithout the rearview camera on the dash of her Volvo, Rosemary Dempsey might have clipped the edge of the newspaper recycling bin that had been thrown a bit too haphazardly to her curb after weekly pickup.

She loved the new technology that surrounded her every day, but it always made her wonder what Susan and Jack would have said about it.

As she shifted out of reverse, she caught sight of Lydia in her peripheral vision, watering her hydrangeas with a gardening hose. She wore bright orange rubber shoes and matching gloves, one of which waved in Susan’s direction. Rosemary returned the wave and added a friendly beep of the car horn. She made it a point to watch her speedometer as she rolled down the street. Knowing Lydia, any excessive speed could threaten their budding friendship.

Rosemary smiled as she navigated the turns through Castle Crossings, trying to imagine Lydia Levitt forty years ago, with bell-bottoms and platform shoes instead of gardening gear.

She was still smiling when the GPS told her that her destination was on the right. The navigation system’s estimate of the drive time had been nearly perfect: forty-two minutes to San Anselmo.

As Rosemary passed driveways filled with Porsches, Mercedes, even a Bentley, she started to wonder if her Volvo would be the worst car on the block. She saw one cream-colored pickup truck two
houses down from Nicole’s, in front of a McMansion that overfilled its lot, but that car obviously belonged to a landscaper.

“
You have arrived at your destination
,” her car announced.

•  •  •

Rosemary had been to Nicole’s home before but still took a moment to register its beauty. A perfectly restored five-bedroom Tudor in San Anselmo with sweeping views of Ross Valley, it was, in Rosemary’s view, far too large for a couple with no children. But as Rosemary understood it, Nicole’s husband, Gavin, could afford it, plus he frequently worked at home rather than commute to San Francisco’s financial district.

The forty-minute drive was a small price to pay to deliver this news in person.

Nicole greeted her at the door before she had a chance to ring the bell. She gave Rosemary a quick hug before saying, “Is everything okay? You were so secretive on the phone.”

“Everything is just fine. I didn’t mean to alarm you.” Rosemary was so aware of her own loss as a mother, sometimes she forgot how Susan’s death must have affected others. When one of your best friends dies when you are only a teenager, do you spend the rest of your life on high alert?

“Oh, thank goodness,” Nicole said. “Come on in. Can I get you anything?”

The house was silent.

“Is Gavin home?” Rosemary asked.

“No, he has a dinner meeting with clients tonight, so he’s working at the office today.”

Rosemary had grown up one of five children and had always wanted to have a large family. But it was more than ten years before joyfully, happily, Susan had come along.

She was a social bee, always attracting the neighbor kids and then her schoolmates. Even when she’d gone to college, the house wasn’t
silent. It still somehow buzzed from her energy—her phone calls, miscellaneous pieces of laundry left strewn around the house, her CDs blasting from the stereo when Rosemary flipped the switch.

Rosemary had never asked Nicole why she and Gavin had opted for a silent house, but she couldn’t help but feel sorry for them over the choice.

She followed Nicole into a den lined floor-to-ceiling with books. One wall was dominated by business books and historical nonfiction. The other wall popped with every kind of novel—romance, suspense, sci-fi, what some people called more “literary” fare. She felt a pang as she remembered Susan’s calling her from UCLA two days after the big move: “You’d love my roommate. She has amazing taste in books.” The novels had to be Nicole’s.

Once they were seated, Nicole looked at her expectantly.

“So you haven’t heard yet?” Rosemary asked.

“No,” Nicole said. “At least, I don’t think so. I have no idea what you’re talking about, and the anticipation is going to give me a premature heart attack.”

“It’s really happening. Laurie Moran called me. The head of the studio approved Susan’s case as
Under Suspicion
’s next feature. And everyone has signed on: me, you, Madison, Frank Parker, and—color me shocked—Keith Ratner. She even got people who knew Susan from the computer lab.”

“That is wonderful news,” Nicole said, reaching over and briefly clasping Rosemary’s hands in hers.

“Yes, I think so, too. I feel like I pressured you into it, so I wanted to thank you personally.”

“No, no pressure at all. I couldn’t be happier.”

Rosemary had been on an emotional roller coaster ever since she opened Laurie Moran’s letter, but she still felt like Nicole was responding strangely.

“Laurie said they’ll do pre-production interviews with all of us. No
cameras, for the most part. Just hearing our side of things so they know what to ask us once they yell ‘action.’ ”

“Sure, no problem.”

Did Rosemary imagine it, or had Nicole’s eyes just moved toward the staircase of her empty house? “You’re happy about this, aren’t you, Nicole? I mean, you and Madison were the only people my daughter ever lived with besides her parents. And, well, Madison was always sort of the add-on. Whether you wanted to be or not, you were the closest thing to a sister that Susan ever knew.”

Whatever distance Rosemary sensed in Nicole immediately vanished as her eyes began to water. “And for me, too. She was my friend, and she was . . . amazing. I promise you, Rosemary. I will help. Me, you, this show. If there’s any way to find out what happened to Susan, we’re going to do it.”

Now Rosemary was crying, too, but she smiled through the tears. “We’ll show Frank Parker and Keith Ratner what a couple of determined women can do. It has to be one of them, right?”

When Rosemary was ready to leave, Nicole led the way to the front door, and then wrapped her arm around Rosemary’s shoulder as she escorted her down the steep walkway from her front porch to the street.

Rosemary paused to take in the breathtaking view of the valley, all green trees backed by blue hills. “I don’t know whether I’ve ever told you this, Nicole, but I was so worried about you when you decided to leave school. I wondered whether you were, in some way, another victim of what happened to Susan. I’m so happy that things have worked out well for you.”

Nicole gave her a big hug and then patted her on the back. “You drive safe, okay? We have big things to look forward to.”

As Rosemary climbed into the driver’s seat, strapped on her seat belt, and pulled away from the curb, neither woman noticed the person watching them from the cream-colored pickup truck, two houses down.

The truck pulled away from the curb and followed Rosemary south.

23

M
artin Collins worked his way down the aisles of his megachurch, conveniently located right off I-110 in the heart of South Los Angeles, shaking hands and offering quick hellos and blessings. He had delivered a rousing sermon to a packed house of four thousand, on their feet, their hands raised to God—and to him. Most could barely make rent or put food on the table, but he saw bills flying when the baskets were passed.

The early days of recruiting new members in tattoo parlors, bike shops, and sketchy bars and painstakingly converting them, reinventing them, were long over.

To see thousands of worshippers enthralled by his every word was exhilarating, but he enjoyed this moment—after the sermons, after the crowd dwindled—even more. This was his chance to speak in person to the church members who were so devoted to him personally that they would wait, sometimes hours, to shake his hand.

He circled back around to the front of the church, saving for last a woman who waited in the front pew. Her name was Shelly. She had first arrived here eighteen months ago, a walk-in who had found a flyer for Advocates for God in the bus station. She was a single mother. Her daughter, Amanda, sat next to her, twelve years old with milky skin and light brown eyes fit for an angel.

Martin reached out to hug Shelly. She rose from the pew and
clung to him. “Thank you so much for your words of worship,” she said. “And for the apartment,” she whispered. “We finally have a home of our own.”

Martin barely listened to Shelly’s words. Sweet little Amanda was looking up at him in awe.

Martin had found a way to bring substantial funds into Advocates for God. Because they were now a government-recognized religion, donations were tax-free. And the dollar bills thrown from wallets in a post-sermon fervor were nothing compared to the big money. Martin had mastered a feel-good blend of religious and charitable language that was like a magic recipe for scoring high-dollar philanthropic contributions. He’d found a way to make religion cool, even in Hollywood. Not to mention the huge federal grants he landed with the help of a few like-minded congressmen.

The money allowed the group to back its mission of advocating God’s goodness by helping the poor, including supporting members who needed a safety net. Shelly had whispered her gratitude for a reason. Martin could not provide a roof for every struggling follower—just the special ones, like Shelly and Amanda.

“Still no contact with your sister?” Martin confirmed.

“Absolutely none.”

It had been two months since Martin had convinced Shelly that her sister—the last member of her biological family with whom she had contact, the one who told her she was spending too much time at this new church—was preventing her from having a personal relationship with God.

“And how about you?” he asked little Amanda. “Are you are enjoying the toys we sent over?”

The child nodded shyly, then smiled. Oh, how he loved that expression—filled with trust and joy. “Can I get a hug from you, too?” Another nod, followed by a hug. She was still nervous with him. That was okay. These things took time. Now that she and her
mother were in an apartment that he paid for, he would increase the amount of time he spent with both mother and daughter.

Martin knew how to lure people in. He had been a psychology major in college. One course had an entire section of the syllabus devoted to battered woman syndrome: the isolation, the power and control, the belief that the batterer is all-powerful and all-knowing.

Martin had earned an A+ on that part of the course. He didn’t need the textbooks and expert explanations. He had seen those characteristics in his own mother, so incapable of stopping his father from hurting her . . . and young Martin. He had understood the connection between fear and dependency so well that at the age of ten, he had vowed that when he was older, he would be the controller. He would never
be
controlled.

And then one day he was flipping channels in the middle of the night and saw a minister of a megachurch on television, a 900 number scrolling at the bottom of the screen for donations. He made everything sound so black-and-white. Ignore the word of the Lord and burn, or listen—and donate money—to the nice-looking man on the television and earn a place with God. Talk about power.