Mind Bender

by Linsey Lanier

  She asked about school and got shrugs and pat answers. She asked what the girls wanted for their birthdays and got more shrugs.

  She knew what they really wanted. Things you couldn’t buy in a store or online. They wanted stability. Friendship. Family. And the truth.

  Something she didn’t dare give them.

  ###

  It was past ten when Miranda and Parker got back to the penthouse.

  As they rode up the glitzy elevator to the top floor of the thirty-five-story high-rise, Miranda’s mind went back to Audrey Agnes Wilson and her accomplice. “I told Becker I’d meet him and Holloway at the office tomorrow morning to work on the ex-wife’s case. If you can call it that.”

  “Very well. I have some paperwork I can do while you handle that.”

  Tomorrow was Saturday, so there wouldn’t be too many people in the office. In particular, Gen wouldn’t be there.

  She let out a tired sigh. “Holloway’s still insisting Audrey wasn’t at fault.”

  Parker nodded. “He thinks the man with her was controlling her in some way.”

  “Right. He says she’s a rule-follower and would never rob a bank, let alone shoot people.”

  Parker frowned with skepticism. “An interesting theory.”

  “He wants to mount an all out search to go after her.”

  Parker was silent.

  “Do you think he’s right? I mean, can someone have that much influence over another person?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  The elevator doors opened. Feeling suddenly exhausted Miranda stepped out into the hall and stopped in her tracks.

  Gen stood at the door of Parker’s penthouse, still in the clothes she’d worn to the office. Her white-blond hair glistened under the lights, but her dark eyes brimmed with embarrassment.

  She had her cell in her hand. “I was just about to text you,” she said to Parker, shifting her weight, obviously uncomfortable. “Can I talk to you, Daddy?”

  Parker gave Miranda a meaningful look. She knew he could see the hurt on Gen’s face.

  Miranda nodded and opened the tall oak door with her keycard.

  “Nuestra casa es su casa,” she said as she strolled past Gen and through the entrance niche with its antique vases. Though she didn’t think of Parker’s fancy penthouse as her house quite yet.

  With a scowl Gen followed her inside while Parker locked the door behind them.

  Miranda turned and gave Parker a peck on the cheek. “I’m bushed. I’m going to go upstairs and get ready for bed. I’ll leave you two alone.”

  As Gen made her way past the blue marble column and into the airy open living room to settle in the corner of one of the ivory sofas, he pulled Miranda close and murmured in her ear. “Thank you for understanding.”

  “Sure.” She really did. Gen had to be as confused by Holloway’s actions today as she was.

  She gave his hand a squeeze, crossed the glistening mahogany floor, and quietly slipped up the chrome spiral staircase.

  As she started down the upstairs hall, she could hear Gen’s sharp voice from down below. “I thought I could trust him, Daddy. Why is he doing this?”

  Parker’s reply echoed up behind her. “It’s the business we’re in.”

  “It’s not just the investigative business. It’s a lot more personal than that.”

  “That’s why I suggested the dating policy.”

  Miranda came to a halt. Parker suggested the dating policy?

  Gen had mentioned she was thinking of a dating policy a few weeks ago, when they’d had their one-and-only training session in the company gym. That was when Miranda had discovered Gen and Holloway had been dating. They hadn’t been together long. Parker must have known about it from the beginning.

  And he hadn’t said a word to her.

  Here she’d been tiptoeing around, trying to keep Gen’s secret. So much for the leverage she thought she had.

  Feeling a little irritated at the revelation, Miranda marched into the bedroom.

  She undressed, brushed her teeth and took a quick rinse in the shower to get the restaurant smell off. She pulled on a robe and checked her phone again. Still nothing from Becker.

  Curiosity gnawing at her, she tiptoed down the hall and peeked over the banister.

  Gen sat in the same place next to her father on the sofa, her hands pressed against her face, tissues in her lap. The box was on the nearby coffee table.

  “Oh, Daddy. Why doesn’t he love me?” She threw herself against Parker’s shoulder and her sobs echoed up to Miranda.

  Her heart went out to her. Gen had been kidnapped not so long ago. Gen and Holloway had started dating just after the Tannenburg case. Had Gen turned to Holloway to get over her trauma? She’d been so dismissive about the ordeal whenever Miranda had tried to talk to her.

  But one thing Miranda knew. You couldn’t get over an experience like that by pretending it didn’t happen. She’d tried that tactic too many times herself. And throwing yourself into a love affair to escape the bad feelings didn’t help much, either.

  There was nothing she could do for the girl. Gen wasn’t in the habit of taking her advice. Parker was her best bet now. His soothing arms could do wonders.

  She tiptoed back into the bedroom. She eyed the huge bed with its blue satin duvet, its pale blue tufted leather headboard, the nightstands and dresser in matching blue marble accented with chrome.

  She crossed the room and peeked through the blinds on the tall window at the heart-stopping view of Atlanta at night and wondered if Holloway’s ex-wife was out there somewhere.

  She pulled back the silky duvet and plugged in her phone. Just as she was about to snuggle into the luxurious sheets, the phone hummed.

  She picked it up. Becker. Her heart nearly stopped when she read the two texts he’d just sent.

  Got something. Not good news. Found an obit in a small Texas newspaper.

  Audrey Agnes Wilson died five days ago.

  Chapter Eleven

  “How can she be dead? I saw her with my own eyes yesterday.” Waving his long arms over his head in exasperation, Holloway marched over to the testing room door.

  Miranda stood at the counter in the lab and poured coffee into the biggest cup she could find. As Holloway paced back and forth, she reached for one of the bagels Becker had brought and smeared cream cheese over it.

  “She can’t be dead. She isn’t dead.” Holloway took several long pounding strides back to the corner near the cubes.

  As nice as breakfast was, she wished Becker would have waited for her to get here before telling Holloway what he’d learned about Audrey last night.

  “It could be a mistake,” Becker suggested, his mouth full of bagel.

  “What kind of paper prints a mistake like that?” Again Holloway waved his arms over his head, his suit coat flapping like wings.

  Though he wore the same bland brown colors to the office every day, he was usually the neat and tidy type. Today he looked rumpled and there were dark circles under his eyes. He hadn’t slept much. Gen hadn’t either. It had been after three when she left the penthouse.

  Miranda took a big gulp of coffee and let it burn down her throat before she turned around. “It could be someone with the same name.”

  Holloway glared at her like she had grown another head. “In the same town?”

  Ignoring his tone, she moved to Becker’s chair. “Let me see the obituary again.”

  Becker stuffed the last bite of bagel into his mouth, scrolled to the site, and angled his tablet so she could see it.

  Miranda leaned over his shoulder.

  Audrey Agnes Wilson passed away October 16 in Georgetown, Texas. Funeral services are pending.

  “Georgetown? I thought she was from Austin.”

  “Austin’s about thirty miles south of Georgetown,” Holloway explained.

  Miranda sipped her coffee and studied the simple statement on the screen. “Not much informat
ion. There’s no picture.”

  Becker cocked his head. “Steele’s right. It could be some other Audrey Agnes Wilson.”

  “In Georgetown, Texas?” Holloway said with derision. “Its population is just over sixty thousand.”

  Miranda thought about her last case and how one person can pass for another. But Audrey Wilson had recognized Holloway yesterday. She responded to him like they’d had a history. Maybe Audrey wanted everyone to think she was dead. Maybe she’d suddenly decided she wanted a life of crime. Put your own obituary in the paper, take up with some wild guy, and go play Bonnie and Clyde with him. But why call Holloway? Maybe she got cold feet and wanted to be rescued? Why did she shoot at him then? Was the woman that fickle? Or did that guy have something on her?

  Miranda wasn’t about to share those thoughts with her cohorts.

  An alert buzzed on Becker’s tablet. His fingers moved over the surface. “There’s an update in the AJC,” he said. “Police found the white van this morning west of Avondale Estates. Abandoned. No plates. No registration. VIN number scratched out.”

  Miranda went to the counter to set down her coffee. “Fingerprints?”

  “They’re processing the vehicle.”

  Holloway strode back to Becker and read the report. Slowly he shook his head. “They’re gone. Audrey and that guy are gone. I bet they went back to Texas. We should go there and find them.”

  He wanted to go to Texas? “We don’t know where she is, Holloway.”

  “The police have road blocks,” Becker added.

  “And a warrant for her arrest. Once she’s found they’ll charge her with all kinds of things. Aggravated robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, terroristic threats, fleeing a police officer while driving recklessly, and who knows how many traffic violations.”

  Eyes wide with exasperation, Holloway spread his hands. “All the more reason she’d flee the state.”

  “She’s a fugitive. Especially if she left the state.” Her neck muscles getting tight, Miranda pulled out a chair and sat down.

  Holloway took the chair next to Becker. “I talked to Audrey’s best friend last night.”

  “Her best friend?”

  Holloway nodded. “I call every so often, just to see how Audrey’s doing. I didn’t tell her about the bank robbery.”

  Miranda stared at her co-worker. He’d been checking up on his ex? She recalled a skip tracing exercise they’d done when they were IITs. Holloway had checked on someone he thought Audrey had been dating. Sounded a lot like he still had feelings for her.

  “She said Audrey spoke to her on the phone last week,” Holloway continued. “She’s been on the outs with her parents for years, but now she wanted to make up with them. She even made a shopping date with her mother next week. She wouldn’t miss that. She never missed appointments. She must have gone back to Austin.”

  “You just said you saw her here yesterday.”

  “But she went back there,” he repeated. “She had to. It’s what she would do.”

  He was grasping at straws.

  Becker held up a hand. “I just found her website. She’s got a nice headshot.”

  Together Miranda and Holloway moved to peer over Becker’s shoulder.

  There she was in a low-cut robin’s egg blue top before a hazy white backdrop. Dazzling white smile. The same Jennifer Aniston haircut as yesterday. Girl next door look.

  Holloway pointed at the screen. “There’s a PO box for an address. In Austin.”

  Becker frowned. “Looks like the site hasn’t been updated in a while.”

  So she meets a guy, drives several hundred miles to Atlanta to pull off a bank robbery with him, then drives back to Texas and goes to make up with her parents? Right.

  She pointed a boss finger at Holloway. “You need to go home and sleep. Take a pill if you have to.”

  His bloodshot eyes grew wide with irritation. “How can I sleep when Audrey’s out there?”

  “That would be what the pill is for.”

  “She needs me, Steele. She could be in trouble.”

  Returning to her seat, Miranda forced air into her lungs. “Okay, let’s take this one step at a time. Georgetown. Is that where you’re from?”

  Holloway nodded as he moved back to his chair and sat down. “I grew up there. I served as a Marine recruiter in the office there. Audrey and I had an apartment in Georgetown. She was working as a waitress—that’s how we met. But she wasn’t happy. She wanted to act.”

  “So she went to Austin?”

  “She was always going into town and trying out for acting jobs. They have a lot of theaters there. She’d always get rejected though, and boy, that would put her in a bad mood. When we split up, she moved to Austin.”

  “Do you have her current address?”

  “No.”

  “How about where she lived right after you split up?”

  He shook his head. “We weren’t speaking.”

  “No alimony or anything?”

  “It was uncontested. There was nothing like that. Neither of us had much of anything. That was when I put in my application for the Parker Agency. I waited a year and was accepted.”

  Just before Miranda started working here. She turned to Becker. “How are you coming on those movie production companies?”

  “There are over fifty legit companies in Atlanta and a handful of ‘adult’ ones. I sent an email blast to all of them. I’ve heard back from five. No Audrey Agnes Wilson or Audrey Holloway working for them.”

  “We should start calling them.”

  Holloway scowled. “That’s a waste of time.”

  “Why? It’s the best lead we have. If she got a movie deal here, she’d be living here. The movie company would have her address.”

  “Audrey was always saying she got a part in the movies. She wanted it so bad, she’d lie about it. Lie to herself, really. ‘If you say it, it will happen,’ she’d tell me. Yesterday at the bank, I was just playing along.”

  Miranda tapped her fingers on the countertop. Nice time to tell her that. “I still think we should check out film companies. She might have gotten a job. Who knows?”

  “We need to go to Austin.”

  “Not until we finish here.”

  He shot to his feet. “You can stay here and twiddle your thumbs if you want to. I’m going. I’ve already booked a flight.”

  Rising as well, Miranda gritted her teeth. Holloway was making her temples pound. “Let me talk to Parker before you do anything. And while I do, get started on those phone calls.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Miranda took the turn down the hall and headed for Parker’s corner office.

  She found him on the phone. He’d been dealing with mechanics and insurance adjusters, who probably didn’t like their weekend disturbed.

  As she waited, she ran her hand over the glass surface of his desk, eyed the blue-and-gray satiny tones of the décor, and the view of neighboring buildings through the floor-to-ceiling windows that spanned two walls of the office. Even after all this time, Parker’s office was still awe-inspiring.

  And he was as well.

  Even though it was Saturday, he wore a dark gray-blue suit with an expensive sheen, and a matching pinstripe tie with a similar luster. But his handsome face was lined with frustration.

  He hung up looking dejected. “The vehicle is definitely totaled.”

  She settled into one of the guest chairs. “Won’t the insurance cover it?”

  “Some of it. I’ll be lucky if I recoup half the cost.”

  That would make a down payment on a new Lambo, she thought. But that wasn’t much comfort, and it wasn’t what she was here to talk about.

  “Holloway’s in a tizzy.”

  Parker’s brow rose. “Is he now?”

  She could see he was struggling with his role as a boss and his role as a father.

  “He thinks Audrey went back to Austin.”

  Parker scowled. “And what does he base this on?”


  “He talked to Audrey’s best friend last night. Audrey hasn’t gotten along with her parents for a long time and now she wants to make up with them, so the friend said. She made a shopping date with her mother and Holloway thinks she’d go back to Austin to keep it.”

  “After attempting to rob a bank?”

  “That’s what I said, but Holloway insists she’s there. He’s going to Austin himself to check it out.”

  Parker let out an audible breath.

  She sat back in her chair. “There’s something I didn’t tell you about.”

  “Oh?”

  She had wanted to check it out further before she told him. He’d had a late night with Gen, and she knew his conversation with her troubled him. “Becker found an obituary for Audrey.”

  He sat up. “A what?”

  “Here.” She took out her cell and scrolled to the link Becker had given her. She held it out to him.

  He read the entry and handed the phone back to her. “Very odd. But it could be someone else with Audrey’s name.”

  “That’s what I said. Holloway didn’t think so.”

  Parker leaned back and steepled his hands. “What is his explanation for the notice, then?”

  “He didn’t have one.”

  “He saw her here yesterday. The woman said she got a job in a movie being filmed in Atlanta.”

  “Holloway doesn’t believe that. Says she always told lies about having a role in a movie.”

  Parker stared out the window a moment and Miranda could tell the same thoughts she’d had about their last case were running through his mind.

  He tapped a finger against his lip. “The police have a warrant out for her. She’s probably in hiding somewhere with her accomplice.”

  That was the logical thing to do. But that woman at the bank was anything but logical. “I don’t know, Parker. What if the two of them did go back to Austin? What if they’re about to go on a bank robbing spree there? You know, a la Bonnie and Clyde?”

  “You think she’s playing an imaginary movie role in her head?”

  “I don’t know. She sure seemed pretty delusional yesterday. Anyway, Holloway is set on going to Austin to try to find her. He’s already bought a ticket. I’m thinking it might not be a bad idea. I don’t know if we’ll find her and that guy there, but we can probably find out more about her. And that obituary.” Not that she wanted to go to Texas. It wasn’t her favorite place. “Can we afford the trip?”