Friday, March 18, 2005
8:10 p.m.
S
tacy stayed with Alice, and while the minutes ticked past, she did her best to reassure the girl. Reminded her that her father had done nothing wrong and that as an innocent man, he had nothing to fear.
After a while, it seemed the girl wasn’t even listening. It was as if she had drifted off to a place where she couldn’t be touched. If she had noticed that more than an hour had passed since the detectives had left with her father, she didn’t mention it.
Stacy fell silent as well. She made sure they ate the meal Mrs. Maitlin had left, then straightened the kitchen. All the while, she went over the facts as she knew them, conscious of the ticking clock.
The e-mail from the White Rabbit had come in at 3:00 p.m. Which meant they had until the same time tomorrow to catch him.
Why was Malone wasting time questioning Leo? Danson was behind this. Her gut told her he was.
Now she needed proof.
She glanced at her watch for what she knew was the dozenth time in the space of as many minutes. Why hadn’t Billie called? She had hoped her friend would unearth something quickly.
She called the other woman’s cell phone, left a message, then began to pace.
“I’ve figured it out,” Alice said suddenly.
Stacy stopped pacing and looked at her. Alice sat at the kitchen table, a pen in her hands, staring at what appeared to be doodles she’d made on her napkin. “Figured out what?”
“What the White Rabbit’s up to.” She motioned to the napkin. “Wonderland is a maze, fashioned in a sort of spiral.”
Stacy crossed to her and saw that her doodles were actually a sort of diagram. “Go on,” she said.
“I was playing the game, working my way through Wonderland. Each victim has been a step closer to the epicenter of Wonderland. The Queen and King of Hearts. “ She paused. “Mom and Dad. And me.”
Stacy was amazed at the girl’s calm. “But you’ve already gotten to the Queen. If she’s at the epicenter—”
“The Rabbit left me an opening. I jumped the gothic forest and got to her. I disabled her and vaulted back because the forest was a dead end. No road to the King.”
“What about the Cheshire Cat? The e-mail indicated she was making her move.”
“It makes perfect sense. The Cheshire Cat is a shape-shifter. And a ferocious fighter.”
“With long claws and sharp teeth.”
She nodded. “I put myself in Dad’s former partner’s head. If it’s him, he wants revenge. He wants to punish Dad. And Mom. And what better way to do so than by using the game Dad stole as a means to kill him?”
“Stole? That’s not the way I heard it went down.”
“I’m in his head. Trying to think like him. He’s angry. Resentful. His life went nowhere. Dad’s a huge success.”
“So he’s not crazy,” Stacy murmured. “Just wants to look like he is.”
“Not crazy,” Leo said from behind them. “He’s brilliant.”
“Dad!” Alice cried, running toward him. “Are you okay?”
He took her in his arms and hugged her tightly. “Fine, Pumpkin.”
But he wasn’t, Stacy thought. He looked as if he had aged ten years in the past ten hours. The lines around his eyes and mouth appeared more deeply etched than before, the light in his eyes seemed to have been extinguished.
The detectives had put him through his paces.
“How’d it go?” she asked quietly.
“I’m home.” His simple answer spoke volumes.
Alice curled her hand around his. “Are you hungry?”
When he shook his head, she pursed her lips. “I’m making you a sandwich. Or there’s some of Mrs. Maitlin’s chicken gumbo left.”
“Sandwich.”
She didn’t ask what kind. Stacy watched as she fixed her dad a big peanut butter, honey and banana sandwich. She also poured him a glass of milk.
Watching the two interact brought a lump to her throat. It was an oddly sweet dynamic, the child caring for the parent. For all her adolescent bluster, Alice adored her father.
Alice looked at Stacy. “Dad and I used to eat these every Saturday morning for breakfast.”
“While we watched cartoons.” He took a bite, then washed it down with milk.
“Roadrunner was his favorite.”
“Because of Wile E. Coyote,” he said.
“What was your favorite?” Stacy asked the teenager.
“I don’t remember. Maybe the same.” Her eyes became glassy with tears. “Any news about Mom?”
“Not that they told me.” He set the remainder of the sandwich on the plate. “I’m sure they’re looking, Alice.”
Bright color spotted her cheeks. “No, they’re not! They’re wasting time questioning you.”
Stacy had to agree. She kept her mouth shut.
“They asked lots of questions,” he murmured. “About my relationship with Kay. Our financial agreement, my recent licensing deals. What I did last night.”
“The search turn up anything?”
“Of course not.”
“Sometimes nothing looks like something. It happens, Leo.”
He shifted uncomfortably, his gaze moving to a point somewhere behind her.
She narrowed her eyes slightly.
Was there something he didn’t want to say?
He looked at her then, giving his head the smallest of shakes. As if to say “Not now, not here.”
She understood. Besides, he and his daughter needed some time alone.
And she needed to talk to Malone. She intended to convince him she was right.
She excused herself, grabbed her purse and car keys and headed outside. As she climbed into her car, she called Malone from her cell.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“Home.” He sounded as tired as Leo had looked.
“Where’s home?”
“Why?”
“We need to talk.”
For a long moment he was silent. “I’m talked out, Killian.”
“Alice told me more about the game.” A tiny exaggeration, but one she could live with. “And my short-term memory’s not so great.”
He rattled off his address and hung up.
Friday, March 18, 2005
10:30 p.m.
S
tacy made Malone’s Irish Channel address in no time at all. He lived in an in-the-process-of-being-renovated Creole cottage, which made her wonder if he was doing the work himself. And if he was, when he found the time.
The front door opened just before she knocked. Malone leaned against the doorjamb, arms folded across his chest. His soft, worn T-shirt pulled across his shoulders.
“Going to ask me in?”
“Do I have to?”
“Asshole.”
He laughed and stepped aside.
She entered his house and he shut the door behind her. He’d been eating a pizza, she saw. Out of the box. In front of the TV. ESPN.
Typical guy.
“Beer?” he asked.
“Thanks.”
He got one for both of them, handed her hers, then turned off the television. Facing her, he asked, “The kid had information?”
“Insight, really.”
He cocked an eyebrow; she suspected he was onto her already—that she was not here with information, but to plead her case. Again.
She set the stage, anyway, explaining how Alice had described Wonderland being a spiral and about the King and Queen being at its epicenter. “Each death brought the killer, through Alice, a step closer to them.”
“So?”
“So, it makes sense that Danson—”
“The ex-partner thing again?”
“What can I say, I’m a one-note song.”
“Right.” One corner of his mouth lifted in wry amusement. “Shoot.”
“Alice is playing the game, but none of the deaths has been by chance. The drawings you recovered from Pogo’s studio prove that all the deaths are predestined. The White Rabbit is executing his very well-thought-out plan in an effort to terrorize.”
“Or create a smoke screen.”
She ignored that. “Obviously, to be able to control the game the way he has required someone with superior knowledge of the game. A master player.”
He opened his mouth to comment; she stopped him. “He also has to be someone who had no hesitation about involving Alice in murder.”
“And her father wouldn’t?”
“Think about it, Spencer. A father involving his daughter in the murder not just of others, but of her mother, as well. That’d make him—”
“A monster?”
“Yes.”
“If not a monster, how do you describe someone who’s willing to kill for nothing more than financial gain? Where do you draw the line?”
“Hear me out. Danson’s the game’s co-inventor. He and Leo parted acrimoniously. Leo went on to wealth and celebrity and Danson—”
“Killed himself.”
“Or not. He’s brilliant. He concocts a plan to punish Leo—”
“You’re beautiful when you’re determined.”
“Don’t try to distract me.”
“Why not? It worked.”
She made a sound of frustration.
“You always have to be right, Killian? You always have to be in the driver’s seat?”
“Don’t make this personal.”
He set his beer bottle on the kitchen counter. “All right, the facts. Leo’s also co-inventor. He’s the one who received the first messages from the White Rabbit. He had personal knowledge of each of the victims. He’s the one with the most to gain from Kay’s death.”
“Says you.”
“Consider this, Stacy. The drawings we recovered from Pogo’s, there were drawings of all the major characters, except the King of Hearts. What do you think that means?”
That he was a better cop than she had given him credit for.
She decided to defy logic, anyway. “Perhaps the artist simply hadn’t started that drawing.”
“That’s bullshit. And you know it. No drawing means the King of Hearts’ death wasn’t predestined. Because he’s the killer.”
It all made sense. Perfect sense. Why couldn’t she buy into it?
“Leo’s on Gallery 124’s mailing list,” he added. “Put on about the time of Pogo’s show.”
No wonder they had been closing in on Leo, even before Kay disappeared.
“What about Cassie? What’s the connection there?”
“There’s not,” he said flatly. “We arrested Bobby Gautreaux this morning. We charged him with the three UNO rapes. And plan to charge him with Cassie Finch’s and Beth Wagner’s murders soon.”
She caught her breath. “On what evidence?”
“DNA. He left a hair at the scene. We swabbed him and got a match. I checked it against the blood your attacker left in the library—”
“And got a match,” she finished for him.
“Yup. From the blood left there…and the semen from the rapes.”
He took a swallow of his beer. “In addition, he left a print at the Finch and Wagner scene. He threatened and stalked Cassie. We found her hair on his clothing. And he warned you to keep your nose out of the investigation.”
She couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing. Bobby Gautreaux had been the one who attacked her. He was a serial rapist. And he’d left solid physical evidence tying himself to the murder scene. It was shaping up to be a strong case.
She was glad. Relieved.
Her goal had been to ensure Cassie’s killer would be caught.
But it didn’t feel right. Why?
“What’s he saying?” she asked.
“That he’s innocent. That he was there that night, but he didn’t kill her. What he whispered in your ear, you were correct about it. He was warning you to keep your nose out of the investigation. Because he’d been there. But he claims he didn’t kill either of the women.”
Same thing they all said.
“Why’d he go to Cassie’s that night?”
“Wanted to talk to her. About their relationship.”
“They had no relationship. They hadn’t in nearly a year.”
“Of course they didn’t. He’s lying. That’s what snakes like Bobby Gautreaux do. What was he supposed to tell me, he went there to murder her?”
“You think he went there intending to kill her?”
“I like it. With intent means the state can go for murder one.”
“Find the weapon?”
He frowned slightly. “No.”
She took a long drink of her warming beer. “Why didn’t you tell me before now?”
“I’ve been a little busy.”
“This doesn’t change my thoughts on Leo’s inno—”
“Maybe this will.” He took a step toward her. “Remember how I accused Leo of creating an elaborate smoke screen to get away with killing his wife? That after meeting you, he handpicked you to help him?”
“How could I forget?”
He took another step closer. “He’s writing a screenplay, Stacy. About a game inventor who receives threatening cards depicting the deaths of characters from his most famous creation.”
She felt as if Spencer had punched her.
“You’re in the story, Stacy,” he said softly, crossing to stand behind her. “The emotionally wounded ex-cop who’s running from her past.”
Leo had manipulated her from the get-go.
The past was repeating itself.
She turned away from him, crossed to the window, stared out at the darkness. What? Did she have a sign on her forehead proclaiming
Easy Mark. Stupid, Gullible Fool?
“And ultimately,” he continued, “she can’t resist the inventor’s charms and falls willingly into his arms—”
“Stop it, Spencer.” She whirled to face him. “Just shut up.”
She held his gaze, even as she struggled to keep what he was saying in perspective. To fit all the pieces of the puzzle together, including this one.
Struggling to separate herself from the feeling of betrayal threatening to strangle her.
Leo had been writing a screenplay. The whole time. He’d planned this, used her.
“You uncovered it in today’s search.”
It wasn’t a question; he answered, anyway. “Yes. Locked in his desk.”
“You questioned him about it?”
“Yes. Claimed he just started it. That he recognized its ‘narrative potential.’”
That’s what Leo’s guilty expression had been about tonight. The reason why he had avoided meeting her eyes and shifted uncomfortably.
“Narrative potential,” she repeated, hearing the bitter edge in her own voice. “People are dying.”
“For a brilliant man,” Spencer said softly, “he sure is stupid.”
“Leaving such potentially damning evidence hardly seems the work of a supergenius, does it?”
“Stupid to cross such a smart, beautiful woman,” he corrected.
She made a sound of pain. “I surely don’t feel either of those things right now. Try gullible idiot.”
Several moments passed. He swore, then cupped her face in his palms. “Strong. Smart. Determined.”
As she gazed at him, something inside her turned over. Or opened up. Without pausing to think it through, she kissed him. After a moment, she broke the contact. “I thought you wouldn’t make a pass at me because I’d kick your ass?”
“You made the pass. All ass-kicking is off.”
Stacy smiled. “I can live with that.”