The Cinderella Murder (35 page)

“And I keep telling you he’s only a nine-year-old.”

“Speak of the devil,” Jerry said as Grace and Timmy rushed in. Jerry managed to hold up his wired fist to Timmy, who “bumped” it with a grin. “I’ve got a bigger crowd here than I get for some of my parties.”

“Yeah, right,” Grace said, leaning in for a gentle hug. “I’ve seen your parties, honey. You’d need a larger dance floor.”

“I have a feeling it will be a while before I’m doing any dancing.” His tone suddenly became more serious. “I can’t believe I was out for three whole days.”

“How much do you remember about what happened?” Alex asked.

“I left the house to pick up some lunch. When I came home, a man with a ski mask was in the den. I had this second where I thought there was some explanation, because his shirt said ‘Keepsafe’ on it. Then I thought, Why would a guy from a security company wear a mask? I remember trying to run, then blackness. You know the worst part of it? Now you guys know I sneak greasy fast food when no one’s looking.”

Laurie was pleased to see Jerry hadn’t lost his sense of humor in the assault.

Leo’s cell was buzzing now. He glanced at the screen and then slipped out to take the call while Jerry continued to talk.

Laurie and Alex were still filling Jerry in on everything they had learned from Nicole about Steve Roman and Martin Collins when Leo returned to the room and asked Grace if she could take Timmy downstairs for some frozen yogurt in the hospital cafeteria.

Laurie was worried. If her father didn’t want Timmy to hear, whatever he was about to say was going to be bad.

“But you said I was tough as nails,” Timmy complained. “Why can’t I listen?”

Grace responded matter-of-factly, “Because your grandpa said so.”

“That’s just what I was going to say,” Laurie told him.

“And I’m backing them all up,” Alex added.

“Hospital patients get to vote, too,” Jerry said.

“Not fair,” Timmy sighed. His feet dragging, he left the hospital room, shooed out by a determined Grace.

“What’s up, Dad?” Laurie asked once her son was out of earshot.

“Those calls were from Detective Reilly. There was a shooting at Martin Collins’s house. Steve Roman is dead—a self-inflicted gunshot. He left a note confessing to both the attack on Jerry and the murder of Lydia Levitt. As we thought, he was spying for Collins, starting first with Nicole and then moving out from there to see what she had said to others.”

“Was Collins there?” Laurie asked.

“Two gunshot wounds. Steve Roman was trying to kill him, but they think he’ll live. The police found a videotape collection in Collins’s bedroom. It looks like whatever child Nicole saw him with twenty years ago wasn’t his only victim. Collins may survive, but he’ll never get out of prison. And speaking of video, Reilly said to thank you, Laurie, for the tip about Dwight Cook’s boat. Turns out it was packed with surveillance equipment too, just like the house. Once again,
Under Suspicion
is bringing some much-deserved justice.”

“So does it show what happened the night Dwight died?”

“Not yet. It’s all digital, so they’ve got a computer tech trying to find where the video files may have been uploaded. If you don’t mind getting everyone back to the house in the SUV, I’ll take the rental car to meet Reilly. I want to make triple sure there’s no reason for us to fear some other crazy church member following in Steve Roman’s footsteps.”

Laurie assured him they’d be fine in one car. He hugged her good-bye, whispering, “I’m proud of you, baby girl.”

When she turned back to Jerry, his eyes were closed. It was time for them to go, too. She gave him a gentle kiss on the forehead before following Alex into the hall.

Laurie was quiet as they rode the hospital elevator to the lobby level. She was elated that they’d nailed Collins, a fraud and, worse, a pedophile. But when this all started, she had made a promise to Rosemary to do her best to find Susan’s killer.

Laurie couldn’t imagine losing a child. Twenty years later, and Rosemary still went to bed with haunting images of her only daughter running through a park with one bare foot, her necklace being torn from her throat in a violent struggle for her life.

The realization came with the
ding
that sounded as the elevator doors parted. “The necklace,” she said aloud.

72

“W
hat about a necklace?” Alex asked as they stepped out of the elevator.

“I don’t know. Not yet, anyway.”

“Come on, Laurie. I know you. I can tell when you’re working on a theory. It’s that kind of hunch that Leo calls your cop instinct. Is this about Susan’s necklace? The one found near her body?”

“Just give me two minutes to work it out in my head, okay?” She could barely hang on to the various threads of thought starting to knit together in her mind. She didn’t want to lose her momentum by trying to spell it all out prematurely. “Can you round up Grace and Timmy from the cafeteria? I’ll get the car from the garage and swing around front.”

“Aye-aye, Captain. But I’m dragging that hunch out of you once we hit the road. You know my interrogation skills,” he added with a smile.

As she walked to the parking garage, she pulled up Nicole’s number on her phone and dialed, holding her breath, hoping that she would answer.

She did. “Laurie, did you hear the news? Martin Collins was shot.”

“I know, but I need to talk to you about something else.” Laurie got right to the point. “You said that Susan was rummaging for her
lucky necklace when you argued about Keith and the church. Did she find it?”

There was a pause on the other end of the line. “I really don’t remember after all these years. So much else happened later that day.”

“Think, Nicole. It’s important.”

“Um, she was running around, opening drawers and searching in her bedsheets and behind the sofa cushions. That’s right: she was digging through the couch in our common area when I got so mad I threw my book at her. Then she stormed out. So I’m just about sure she didn’t find it.”

“Thanks, Nicole. That’s a big help.”

Susan had fled her dorm room without her necklace but had been wearing it by the time she was killed.
Where would she have gone?
That had been the question that Alex had pressed with Keith, Nicole, and Madison. And that had been the question that Dwight Cook kept replaying on the surveillance video before his death.

Laurie thought about her own habit of taking off her jewelry when she was busy at her desk. She believed she knew where Susan had found her lucky necklace.

She pulled up another name on her phone and hit
ENTER
.

Alex answered after two rings. “Hey, I just found Grace and Timmy. We’ll meet you out front.”

“Okay, I’m walking into the garage and am about to lose my signal. Can you do me a favor and call Madison? Remember how she said she sent a sexy note to some love interest to pick her up at the dorm but he never showed? Can you ask her who the guy was?”

“This is for your theory, right? Just tell me, Laurie.”

“Call Madison first. It’s the last piece of the puzzle, I promise. See you in a jiff.”

As she beeped the Land Cruiser’s locks open, she already knew in her gut what name Madison would give Alex.

Richard Hathaway.

73

R
ichard Hathaway stepped out of his SUV. He could not believe his good luck.

He had dashed from the restaurant after Madison mentioned the hidden cameras at the Bel Air house. Two years ago, Dwight had installed the same technology at the REACH offices and his Palo Alto home. Now it turned out that he’d also wired his parents’ house in L.A. Had he gone so far as to wire his boats?

Yes, Hathaway thought, it would be exactly like Dwight to order the job for all his property at once, and he cared about his boats at least as much as that empty house in Bel Air.

And if the boat Dwight had used last night was equipped with hidden cameras, had they been on when Hathaway stepped onto the cruiser for his scheduled dive with Dwight? Had the cameras recorded Dwight as he angrily accused Hathaway of killing Susan, insisting nonsensically that he’d figured it out by watching “the video”? Had they filmed Hathaway as he smothered Dwight with a life vest and then staged his body to appear in the water as a scuba accident? Had the police found the footage yet?

These were the questions that had swirled through his head as he drove from the restaurant, circling aimlessly through Hollywood, too panicked to go home or even to REACH’s jet in case the police were waiting for him.

Instead, he’d gone to the storage unit he’d been renting for two decades to grab his “go bag,” containing false identification, fifty thousand dollars, and a gun. He had identical bags in separate storage facilities in five different California cities, waiting in the event this day ever came.

But now that the moment he had been dreading was actually here, he realized he did not want to run. He had enjoyed the success of the last twenty years, and it was all about to improve further, as he was poised to become the new CEO of REACH. If he had even a shred of a chance to stay in this life, he was going to seize it.

At least he now understood Dwight’s reference to a video. Something Dwight saw on the surveillance footage of that stupid TV production had alerted him to Hathaway’s role in Susan’s death.

He had to figure out what Laurie Moran knew and then silence her—and anyone else necessary—for good.

Parked on the street outside the Bel Air house, he saw an older man, a little boy, and the woman named Grace pile into a car. It was simple enough to follow them.

Once in the parking garage outside the hospital, Hathaway watched as Laurie and Alex pulled in a few minutes later in a black Land Cruiser. Since then, he’d been waiting, planning his next move.

Now Hathaway had caught two lucky breaks. The first was when Laurie’s father, an ex-cop who was probably armed, had driven away from the hospital alone. At the sight of his leaving, Hathaway had experienced the same sense of relief he’d felt the moment Susan strapped on her seat belt on the night she died.

•  •  •

It had been May 7, a Saturday. Hathaway had asked Dwight to meet him in the lab because no one else would be there that night.

He wanted to talk to Dwight alone about REACH. Hathaway had
created a search technology with the potential to revolutionize the way people found information on the Internet. It was worth thirty times more than a professor could make in a lifetime of teaching. But technically, even though Hathaway had invented REACH, the idea didn’t belong to him. He was owned by UCLA, which in turn owned anything he created during his employment there.

But students were in a different position. Students, unlike faculty who were paid a salary, owned their own intellectual property. And given Dwight Cook’s invaluable assistance with the code, who was to say that REACH wasn’t the sole invention of the young genius?

Hathaway had been so focused on making his pitch to Dwight—convincing him that this technology could change the world and that it would be wasted in the hands of UCLA—that he almost didn’t notice Susan watching them in his peripheral vision. But then he turned to see her standing by her desk near the door, looking as he’d never seen her before—her hair and makeup perfect, in a yellow halter dress. He had known immediately from the way she was rushing out of the lab that she had overheard their conversation.

Why had she been there on a Saturday? Why did she have to walk in unexpectedly at that very moment?

Hathaway knew he needed to stop her. He needed to provide a context for what she’d overheard. He said, “Dwight, stay here where it’s quiet and think about it. I’ll call you later.” Hathaway then ran after Susan, catching up to her as she was walking toward Bruin Plaza.

“Susan, can I have a word with you?”

When she turned, she had a necklace in her hand. “I have an audition. I have to go.”

“Please, I just want to explain. You don’t understand.”

“Of course I do. Everyone I know is disappointing me today. It’s like I don’t really know anyone. I can’t deal with this now. I have to be in the Hollywood Hills in an hour. And my jinx of a car is back at the dorm and probably won’t even start.”