Authors: Hank Phillippi Ryan
“Brileen,” she said. “You said you and Greg were trying to protect me
and
Tenley, both of us.”
“Yeah. I—” Brileen put her face in both hands. When she took them down, three seconds later, her face was splotchy with tears. “—I
only
did what I thought was best for Lanna. That’s what Mr. Siskel was doing, too. We thought it was over. But two days ago, Hugh contacted me again. He told me to tell Greg he had pictures of Tenley.”
“What?” Tenley’s voice came out a strangled cry. Her hand went to her throat and her face went white. “That could not—I mean—there’s no way that—no!”
Catherine clamped her arm around her daughter, holding her tight, so tight that Tenley could never leave. She would never let go.
And now Tenley was sobbing.
“It can’t be.” Her daughter’s anguished words were muffled by Catherine’s chest. She could feel her daughter’s tears through her blouse, the wetness against her bare skin. “I
never—
”
Catherine steeled herself. If there were pictures of Tenley, how had they been taken? In the greenroom?
“Shhh.” She unclenched her daughter, sat her on the couch. Put one hand on Tenley’s thin back, trying to offer strength, then sat beside her, their shoulders touching. She reached for the words she knew were always welcome, though not always true. “Everything is going to be all right, honey,” she said.
She needed facts. She focused on Brileen.
“I see.” Catherine made her voice ice and fire. She forgot about everything but protecting the last living member of her family. “What did Hugh tell you to do?”
“It was like before,” Brileen said. “Like with Lanna. He had me tell Mr. Siskel to bring money, in a brown paper bag. But I wasn’t the conduit this time. Mr. Siskel was to meet a guy at noon in Curley Park.”
“
What?
You know this? And then what?”
“Just like before. Then Hugh or someone would get the money out of the Dumpster. But I was there, hiding. Afterward I even told a cop to look in the Dumpster. Guess they didn’t.”
“You
knew
this?” Catherine stood, heart pounding, head pounding, trying to understand. If she let it, this would destroy them. But she refused.
Refused.
She jabbed an accusing finger at Brileen. “Hugh killed my husband? You
saw
it?”
Catherine needed the phone. Forget strategy. This was no longer a negotiation, no longer politics. This was family. Their lives. “We have to tell the police. We have to—”
“Not Hugh,” Brileen said.
Catherine paused, one hand on the receiver of her black desk phone. She saw her daughter, now silent, face tearstained. Had Greg died protecting Tenley? He’d tried to protect Lanna. And Catherine herself. If only he’d told her, trusted her, confided in her. She wished he had shared this with her instead of taking it all on himself, destroying their marriage and sacrificing his life.
“Five seconds, Brileen,” Catherine said. “You have five seconds to explain. Then I’m calling the cops.”
“Not Hugh,” Brileen whispered, tears spilling down her cheeks. “Yes, I saw it. And I can’t stand to think of it. But it wasn’t Hugh who killed your husband. The person who did—I’ve never seen him before.”
Jake must have ordered a door-to-door search for Gracie. As Jane watched the hotel’s surveillance monitors, flickering and changing, they now showed police officers running through all five floors of hallways. Their uniforms turned from blue to black-and-white by the cameras, jump-cutting from monitor to monitor, as if they were electronically leaping through time and space. Even the surveillance guys were involved.
Officers approached door after door, pounding soundlessly. Sometimes they were opened by surprised or frightened hotel guests, panicky tourists who had probably been glued to breaking-news bulletins about the shooting and the missing child. Right in their very hotel. That’d be a story to take home.
A pang of news guilt washed over her. She closed her eyes for a second as it pulled her into its undertow. Should she have called Marsh Tyson about this? Probably. So much for her short-lived career at Channel 2. Without consciously making a decision about her loyalties, she’d chosen family. Good for karma, bad for per diems.
But on the screens, no Gracie appeared. No cop emerged carrying a little girl in his arms.
No.
Jane adjusted her imaginary dénouement. She’d walk out on her own. Gracie was fine. They’d find her.
Keeping her eyes on the screens, Jane dug for her cell phone and hit speed dial. One ring. Two.
“Melissa?” Jane began before her sister even said hello. “Any word from—”
“No,” Melissa said. Jane heard cars honking and the murmur of moving air and acceleration. “Any word
there
?”
“No,” Jane said. “They’re—we’re—everyone is looking.”
“We’re on the way to you, Janey. Daniel and I. I don’t understand it—I’d taken a shower, you know? Then Daniel arrived. I went upstairs to get Robyn, to tell her, that’s when I discovered she was gone. No note, no nothing. No car in the garage.”
Jane kept her eyes on the surveillance monitors. “Are you okay? Daniel? How long until you get to the hotel?” Cameras were everywhere, like electronic windows in this otherwise windowless room. Gracie had to appear.
“It’s as okay as it can be. I’m trying to explain it all, to him, and—” Melissa paused. “Fifteen minutes. How can there be rush hour on a Tuesday at three twenty-two?”
“Boston,” Jane said. “Hurry.”
“Love you,” Melissa said. And hung up.
“Love you, too,” Jane said. Even though the line was dead.
Okay, she told herself. Start again at screen one. But there was no Gracie. The shots flashed, changed, brought in a new view. No Gracie. No Gracie.
Who knew how many other views there were, maybe cameras she couldn’t access. The blueprint was a technomap of squiggly lines and engineering symbols. But there was no symbol for where a little girl might be hiding.
The doorknob rattled. The surveillance guys? If she could talk fast, explain, maybe they’d be convinced she was on the right track. Maybe help her look.
“Jane,” Jake said, closing the door behind him.
“How’d you know I’d be here?” It was a relief to see him, okay and safe. Much better than Tall and Beefy. At least Jake wouldn’t arrest her. Oh, wait. Maybe he would. He’d ordered her not to move from the fake palm tree. Well, whatever. She wasn’t the problem.
“You told me about this room, remember?” Jake smiled, just for an instant. “And I know you never listen to me.”
She opened her mouth to make a crack, but no. “Did you find her? I’ve been looking and looking but didn’t see—”
“Jane.”
Jake’s face had hardened. She knew him well enough to know something bad was coming. She put one hand on the video console, grounding herself.
It isn’t Gracie,
her mind reassured her. Lights from the flickering monitors danced in Jane’s peripheral vision as she focused on Jake.
“We have the shooter. And I’m so sorry.”
“
Sorry?
Who is it?” Jane grabbed his arm. Then the look on Jake’s face stopped her.
One shooter. One victim. Domestic. Not Gracie. If she was missing, she wasn’t shot, because the medics had said the victim was being transported. If Jake was “sorry,” there was only one name to say. The lying, identity-stealing, child-abducting nutcase who’d caused so much misery for his wife and her sister and,
yes
, for herself.
Creep,
she thought.
“Lewis,” Jane said.
“No.” Jake shook his head. “Robyn.”
* * *
“Robyn? Is the
shooter
? Of who? Lewis? That’s
horr
—”
“Yeah,” Jake said
.
It was breaking protocol to tell Jane like this, but what the hell.
“
He’ll live, though, so—”
She took a step toward him, interrupting. “Does he know where Gracie is? Was she—
there
?”
“Nope. Long story.” Jake opened the surveillance room door, checked the lobby, made sure police sentries still kept people out. He knew the cops on the upper floors were keeping people in. The danger had been contained and extinguished. Except for the missing Gracie.
“Short version,” Jake continued. “DeLuca found Robyn. Says she was wild, weeping one minute, bitching the next. Self-defense, she swears. Says Lewis had threatened to take Gracie, then he threatened Robyn with a twenty-two. Just how she managed to wrestle a gun from her ‘crazed’ husband isn’t yet clear, but we’ll get to that.”
Jane had perched on the white counter under the monitors, the shifting video dancing shadows and light around her. “What if it
was
self-defense?”
“Then Lewis will be adding a set of handcuffs to his hospital attire. So look, Jane, Robyn says you’ll corroborate her story. She says she doesn’t want a lawyer. Just you.”
“
Me?
”
Jake watched her trying to process this. “And if she talks to us in front of you, it’s admissible.”
“What. About. Gracie?”
“She says she has no idea where Gracie is,” Jake said. “We’re still searching. But there are a hundred seventy-three rooms in this place.”
He saw the scenes on the security monitors shift and change as new digital images were transmitted from cameras placed throughout the hotel. Might he see the girl on these cameras? Was Jane right? Jake knew surveillance video was often sent to off-site security companies for archiving and storage.
Little did the hotel guests know. Except when a career-ruining transgression appeared, taped and undeniable, on a trashy news show: celebrities fighting in elevators, coked-up film stars trashing hotel rooms. So much for “security.” Those videos, once they went viral—who makes that stuff public, anyway?—could wreck a career.
“You up for it?” Jake asked. “It’s unorthodox for you to talk to a suspect. But it wasn’t our idea.”
“
Robyn?
” Jane said again. He heard the incredulity in her voice. “Is the
shooter
?”
“Yeah. Robyn,” Jake said. “I’m all for letting her stew up there for a bit. Let her wonder what’s going on, you know? But she claims you’ll back her up about Lewis. His problems. His volatility. His threats. Jane? Is that true? Did he threaten her? Or Gracie?”
Jane didn’t answer.
“Jane?” It must be tough for her to get dragged into the middle of a family squabble. Hell, more than squabble, this was attempted murder, potentially, and child abduction. Jane was not used to being part of the story, so he’d tread lightly. But he needed to tread semi-fast. Robyn could wait, but not for too long. And Gracie was still missing.
Now Jane’s eyes were on the monitors over his shoulder. Not looking at him.
“Jake,” Jane said. Still not looking at him.
“I know. It’s difficult.” Jake tried to sound reassuring and supportive. This would be an emotional tightrope for her. “But is it true?”
“Gracie,” Jane said.
“What? Right,” Jake said. “Gracie. Or Robyn.”
“No, Jake.” This time Jane pointed. “Gracie.”
It’s all my fault.
It’s all my fault.
The words spun through Tenley’s brain, an endless loop of guilt. Finally, she blurted the words out loud, she couldn’t help it, and Brileen and her mom turned to her, each face mirroring the other’s surprise. The computer on her mom’s desk still showed the green square on the black screen, the white triangle protecting the hideous Lanna video. Now Brileen was saying there was also a video of
her,
Tenley, somewhere? And her father had been killed trying to get it?
That couldn’t be.
It couldn’t. Tenley had never, ever, ever—so why was the Hugh guy saying there was video? Why did her father have to die? There was nothing to protect her from!
“Honey? Honey? I’m right here.” Her mom grabbed her by both arms. Her forehead creased, eyebrows pushed together. “Why is it your fault, honey?”
“Because…” Tears streamed down her face, her own failure mocking her again. “Because if I had pushed Save on the surveillance computer sooner, like I wanted to, we might have seen this whole thing. On video.” The last words came out a wail. That stupid Ward Dahlstrom, if he hadn’t hovered, he’d never have known, never have pushed Cancel, and maybe, maybe, maybe they’d be able to see who killed her father.
They’d catch him, and kill him back.
She tried to explain all of this to her mother, who should have understood. And to Brileen, who was clueless about the video save, and the cache, and the twenty seconds, even though Bri had her laptop with her all the time and knew about computer stuff. It didn’t matter. It was gone, all of the evidence was gone.
She made it through the whole explanation, finally, her throat clogging. Even though Mom had said she loved her, she wouldn’t anymore, not after this. Tenley hadn’t told about Lanna’s boyfriend. And now her father was dead and they’d never be able to find out who did it.
“Now we’ll never know.” Tenley’s words caught in her sobs. “And I never got to say good-bye. He thought I was mad at him. And I was, because he was always upset, or mad, or gone. And then it turns out he was upset because—”
“He loved you, Tenner,” Mom said. “The last thing he told me was how much he did. He knew you loved him, too.”
The room went quiet. Mom clicked her computer to solid black, took out the stupid thumb drive, put it in her skirt pocket. Brileen moved to sit in Mom’s guest chair, her hands covering her face, only the top of her hair showing.
“Hey, Brileen?” Tenley mentally replayed what happened,
yet again. “
You
knew
me yesterday, out there. In Curley Park. You pretended you didn’t, but you did. The whole last night, you were pretending.”
Mom looked at her, then Brileen, then her. “What are you talking about? Pretending? Last night?”
Tenley took a deep breath. She talked to the floor, to the familiar tan carpeting, so she wouldn’t lose her nerve. “I went to Brileen’s last night, Mom. I kind of sneaked out, after you were gone, and Brileen picked me up. I was gonna leave. Because Dad was hating me and you hated me and always blamed me for Lanna.”