Tell Me You're Sorry (39 page)

Mark stood at the bottom of the stairs. Alison disappeared down the hallway, and then he heard her bedroom door quietly closing.

He sighed, and turned away. Then something caught his eye.

He glanced down the steps to the lower level. He saw a shaft of light in the darkness. It was there for just a moment before a shadow swept over it. Then everything was dark again.

Downstairs, someone had just closed another door.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-SEVEN

 

O
n the laptop screen, Mr. Jayne was staring back at him. His dark eyes kept shifting from side to side under his heavy, wild-haired brows. He wore his denim work shirt, and Ryan had to wonder if it was the same one from the other night—and if it had been washed. It looked like Billy had set up the computer notebook on Mr. Jayne's kitchen table. Ryan could see the avocado-colored refrigerator behind Mr. Jayne, with cards and snapshots on it.

Ryan was sitting at the desk in his hotel room. Alison stood over to the side near the bed so she could see the computer screen without being seen. She had her hair in a ponytail today, and was wearing a black T-shirt, jeans, and sandals.

They were recording the Skype session so they could show it to Stephanie later.

“You didn't tell me this friend of yours was an Oriental,” Mr. Jayne grumbled.

Ryan was dumbfounded.

“Yes, I'm Oriental, just like the rugs,” Billy said. His face wasn't in the shot, but Ryan could only imagine his peeved expression. His hand came into the picture. “The microphone's right there, Mr. Jayne,” he said, pointing to the bottom of the screen. “Just talk normally.”

“Thank you for doing this, sir,” Ryan said.

“Well, it better not take long. I've got chores.”

He and Alison had gone to FedEx Kinko's this morning, and blown up the photo she'd taken of the fake Jenny. Ryan reached for it now. “I just need you to take a look at this picture, and tell me if you know this person. Her hair and makeup might be different than how you've known her. But anyway . . .”

He held the photo in front of the screen. “Can you see this?”

“It's coming in clear on this end,” he heard Billy say. “We can see it.”

Squinting at the screen, the old man remained silent.

“Mr. Jayne?” Ryan said. “Sir?”

“Am I supposed to know who this is?”

“Well, possibly,” Ryan said. “I was wondering if she's your daughter.”

The old man shook his head. “That's not Nicole. Nicole's got blond hair.”

“If you could just look past the hair for a minute,” Ryan said. “If it's not Nicole, could it possibly be Selena—or a friend of Selena's?”

“Selena's dead, for God's sake,” he snarled. “She was blond, too. Both my girls are blond. I don't know this woman at all.”

“Mr. Jayne, do you have any pictures of Nicole that you can show us?” Ryan asked. “Just to confirm . . .”

With an impatient sigh, he got to his feet and turned to the refrigerator in the background. He removed a photo, and Ryan heard one of the magnets fall to the floor. Mr. Jayne plopped back in the chair and held the photo in front of the screen. His hand was shaking. “That's her, that's Nicole—with her sister,” he said. “Are you satisfied?”

Ryan was staring at a blurry, washed-out color photo of a little girl—no more than five—with her adolescent sister. They were bundled in winter clothes, standing in front of a snowman. It wasn't any help at all.

“Mr. Jayne, I was talking about a more current picture. . .”

The old man shook his head. “I've had enough of this,” he growled. He turned to Billy, who stood at his side. “How do you shut this thing off?”

Mr. Jayne got up from the chair.

“Shut it off!” Ryan heard him yell.

“Sorry,” he heard Billy mutter. Then the screen went blank.

Ryan numbly stared at the monitor. A message was asking if he wanted to save or delete the file.

“Well, that was kind of a bust,” Alison sighed.

“He's lying,” Ryan said.

“What do you mean?”

He got up from the chair. “Can you retrieve it and play it back? I don't know how this works . . .”

Scooting in front of him, Alison worked the mouse and typed on the keyboard. “You haven't Skyped or recorded before?” she asked.

“No,” Ryan replied. “When you bring it up, fast-forward until near the very end . . .”

“Well, you're mighty big with the pleases and thank-yous, aren't you?”

“Please,” he said, hovering behind her. He watched the video in fast-forward. “Thanks. Now, could you freeze-frame it just when he gets up from the table at the end . . . please?”

Alison paused the video at the moment after Mr. Jayne left his chair. “Is that what you want?” she asked. “A shot of the refrigerator?”

Ryan was staring at the photos, postcards, holy cards, and a church bulletin on Mr. Jayne's refrigerator door. There were three greeting cards that had caught his eye. One had a photo of a baby's hand around a man's index finger; another showed a father and child on the beach at sunset; and another was a cartoon of a man's shirt and tie.

The image was slightly blurry, but he remembered those cards. He'd kept ones exactly like them in his desk drawer—after the first one, sent anonymously to his father, had caused an argument between his parents.

Ryan still remembered the line inside one of those unsigned cards:

Barton Jayne watched the tall Asian kid leaning over the kitchen table, closing up the thin little computer. Barton glanced over at the knives in the butcher-block holder on the counter. He inched over toward the counter. “This friend of yours, the one I was talking to, where is he right now?” he asked.

The boy shook his head. “I'm not really sure. I think he's supposed to be in Madison, Wisconsin—at the university. He called me yesterday and asked me to set this up. Sorry it didn't work out for you guys.”

“Did you fellas talk to anyone else about this?” he asked, reaching for one of the knives. He kept them sharp with the same file he used on the garden shears. “Does anyone else know you're here?”

The young man wasn't looking at him. He picked up a magnet from the floor and put it back on the refrigerator door. He frowned at him. “I'm not sure what you mean.”

“I'm just wondering if he's going to be sending someone else here tomorrow.”

“Beats me,” he replied. “I'm sure not volunteering.”

“Would you like a soft drink for the road?” he asked. He kept a hand behind him as he nodded to the refrigerator. “I've got some cold cans in there, on the bottom shelf. Help yourself.”

“No, thanks,” the kid said. “It's been a lot of fun, a regular laugh riot, but I think I'll just scram now.”

As the boy turned and started for the stairs down to the garage apartment's entrance, Mr. Jayne stepped up behind him.

Suddenly, he heard the door open down there.

“Barton?”

He recognized Father Stutesman's voice. “Barton, can you help us out over in the rectory? It's just going to take a minute . . .”

Mr. Jayne furtively set the knife down on the kitchen table, and moved to the top of the stairs. He watched the boy nod at Father Stutesman in the doorway, and then duck outside.

The snotty little son of a bitch had no idea how close he'd come to getting his throat slit.

 

 

 

“I just don't understand it,” said the manager of the Bay Vista Apartments. “She was an ideal tenant, never late with her rent, no complaints from the neighbors. In fact, they adored her. Bob Gold, next door in 837, he was just telling me that when his daughter, Dana, was visiting from Ohio, Jenny went out of her way to—”

“Do you know if Mr. Gold has heard from Jenny lately?” Stephanie interrupted.

He shook his head. “I don't think so,” he said. “No one here has heard from her since she took off and left this mess . . .”

He glanced around Jenny Ballatore's spacious eighth-floor apartment. It had a beautiful view of the Oakland Bridge. With pictures knocked askew on the walls, drawers left open, and trash scattered on the carpeted floor, the place looked ransacked.

Stephanie had risked getting nabbed by the police at Sea-Tac by booking a last-minute trip to Oakland this morning. She'd thought her “presumed dead” status might get her flagged in the ticketing agent's computer. To her relief, she made it past ticketing and the boarding gate without anyone stopping her.

Thanks in part to the detective she'd hired, she knew enough about these women whose identities had been stolen. She also knew something about the woman responsible for their murders. The impersonator couldn't resist taking as much as she could from her victims: stealing valuables, maxing out their credit cards, and draining their bank accounts. And she kept the victims' close friends and family members on tenterhooks with e-mails and texts—composed on her victims' computers and phones.

Stephanie wanted to talk with one of Jenny's friends, someone who had heard from the fake Jenny.

She imagined Halle's, Lacee's, and Vanessa's apartments all looking trashed and plundered like this one. She noticed cat food on the kitchen counter, but no bowl, litter box, or cat toys.

Alison Metcalf had said something about them bringing a cat along with Jenny. Dead or alive, they wanted Jenny's cat found with her when the police walked into the massacre scene at the Metcalf house.

The food in the refrigerator was rotting. The landlord said Jenny's mailbox had gotten too full, and the post office was holding her mail now. “I just called her emergency contact yesterday, and asked if Jenny had a forwarding address yet,” the landlord explained.

“Were they able to tell you anything?” Stephanie asked.

“Yeah, her friend said she didn't have an address, but Jenny was supposed to be somewhere in Seattle, staying with a new boyfriend—a widower with a couple of kids.”

“This emergency contact person,” Stephanie said. “Could you give me their phone number and address?”

 

 

“Her friend's name is Carroll Jordan, and she lives on Cole Street in San Francisco,” Stephanie said into her cell phone. She'd be eternally grateful to the taxi driver, Steve McKinney, for shipping the phone to her hotel overnight.

She stood in the parking lot of the Bay Vista Apartments. It was sunny, with a cool breeze coming off the water. She looked out at the Oakland Bridge. “I'm headed over there now,” she continued. “She and the real Jenny were—
are
good friends.”

She used the same cover story with Carroll that she'd used with the landlord. She'd lied and said Jenny had designed her Web site. Now she was in town for a meeting. She was trying to track down Jenny so she could take her out to lunch and give her a bonus check.

“So what are you seeing this Carroll lady about?” Ryan asked. “I mean, what do you think she'll be able to tell you?”

“It's complicated. I'm just here on a hunch and a lot of hope. I'll call you in a couple of hours and let you know more. How did the Skype session go?”

“The old man pretended he didn't know her, but he does,” Ryan replied. “He lied. In fact, I'm pretty certain he's in on this whole thing. I just checked with my friend, Billy, to make sure he got out of there okay.”

“Why do you think Mr. Jayne's involved?”

“He had Father's Day cards on his refrigerator door. I noticed them while we were talking.”

“I don't understand,” Stephanie said.

“These weren't just any Father's Day cards. My dad got the exact same ones for the last few years—all unsigned. . .”

“Father's Day,” Stephanie repeated. She remembered Scott talking to her on the phone about Rebecca's suicide. “Did she ever say anything to you about a Father's Day card?” he'd asked.

“Stephanie?”

“Listen,” she said. “I think it's possible the others got Father's Day cards, too.”

“Alison isn't sure if her dad got any. But here's what I was thinking. Maybe my dad, Alison's father, your brother-in-law, and Dick Ingalls all had sex with Selena that summer. Getting pregnant is a pretty good reason to run away, isn't it? I mean, especially when you have an old man like hers. Maybe Selena never knew who the baby's father was. I think that's why this fake Jenny woman looks like Selena Jayne, because that's her
mother
. . .”

“Ryan, honey, I—I think it's a good theory, but I studied the photo Alison took and watched that woman from my car, and I can tell you, she's not twenty-seven years old. She's closer to thirty-seven.”

“Damn, Alison said the same thing,” he admitted. “I just couldn't help thinking she was sending everyone—including her own father or
grand
father—the same cards every year.”

“Well, you might be on to something there,” Stephanie said, starting toward her rental car. “Listen, I've got to go. What are you and Alison doing? Is everyone okay?”

“We're just hanging out here at the hotel,” he answered. “She's going to the TV station to talk to her dad during his lunch break. Her brother Danny's all right. He's at a friend's house for most of the day.”

The rental car's lights flashed as Stephanie hit the unlock button on her key fob. “Stay put and don't take any chances,” she said, climbing into the car. “I'll talk to you in an hour or two.”

“Okay, so long—and good luck with whatever you're doing down there.”