Queen of Lies (Empire of Lies Book 2)

by Whitney G.

  My “little nightclub” brings in millions of dollars every weekend. I resist the urge to roll my eyes. “I’d like you to stop listing her last name as Thatchwood when it’s Anderson. That’s what you can do for me.”

  “The press responds better when it’s a known name.” He looks genuine. “I mean, everyone in New York has run across something I own or branded at some point in their lifetime. You only own one club, you know?”

  I almost tell him that half of the businesses that he thinks he owns are indirectly tied to me and my brother, but I hold back and say nothing.

  Sergeant Ware returns to the room seconds later, armed with a thin manila folder. Avoiding eye contact with us, he takes a seat.

  “Last night, my team followed up on a certain bit of evidence,” he says, pulling out pictures of an open trunk. “As you know, strands of hair and blood were found in the back of an abandoned Honda eighty miles outside of the city.”

  I still can’t believe it took them this long to find this shit. I parked that car there a month ago.

  “We rushed everything to the lab to test it and um…” He swallowed. “It’s a definite match for Meredith’s DNA.”

  Her father sucks in a few breaths as if he’s about to have a panic attack, and her aunt starts to cry like the world is ending.

  There are no tears falling from her eyes.

  “We’re having our crime scene unit run tests on the entire vehicle to see if we can find some fingerprints to run through the system, and the blood we found isn’t enough for alarm yet. There’s still hope we’ll find her alive. We also know that whoever has done this, isn’t as smart as we are, and they probably left something behind.”

  I didn’t. I’ve never left anything behind at a staged scene, and at the rate that their investigation is going, I’m twenty years ahead, and I won’t be able to take Meredith to stage two of my plan for another two months.

  “Do any of you know if she had any friends in Connecticut?” he asks. “The backseat was littered with Burger King receipts from there.”

  I mentally vanish from this conversation and put on my best “utterly devastated and at a loss for words” face. Me coming here is officially a waste of my time, and I decide to call in another tip to The New York Times tonight to accelerate this sloppy, half-assed investigation.

  When the sergeant’s lips finally stop moving, he stands up from his seat. “I’ll leave you three alone. If you have any concerns or other questions, I’ll be right across from you in my office.”

  For several seconds, neither of us says a word. I look at my watch and try to think of an excuse to leave, but her father beats me to it.

  “I’m sorry for your loss, Michael,” he says, reaching over and grabbing my hand. “So very sorry.”

  What the fuck? “Meredith hasn’t been confirmed dead. She’s still missing.”

  “Yes, well…” He shakes his head. “I’m holding out as much hope as I can, but I’ve always been a bit of a pessimist, I’m afraid.”

  “It’s true,” her aunt chimes in. “I’m the one who is trying to keep the hope alive.”

  “She really loved you, you know?” He smiled. “Even though we were just now getting closer, you were the first thing she brought up every day we met. With any luck, they’ll find her—dead or alive, I just want closure.”

  “I’m sure you do…” I can’t hold a straight face anymore, so I stand to my feet. “Can you two excuse me? I have somewhere I need to be.”

  “Absolutely,” they say in unison, and I get the hell out of there.

  The moment I make it to the parking lot, I pull out my phone and check on Meredith. She’s no longer in the living room, and all of the other cameras are showing an empty house.

  Confused, I rewind the video until I can see her writing a note at the dining room table. She leaves the sheet in perfect view for the cameras to see it, and then she ventures upstairs and into the one place where I don’t have any cameras. Her bedroom.

  I zoom in on the note to catch a better view.

  I’m running the cameras on a loop. Get ready to find me.

  I smile. There are secondary cameras in the ceiling. She isn’t going anywhere.

  Putting on my black leather gloves, I speed onto the road and command my car to text Trevor.

  Me: Off to handle the therapist. I’ll call when I’m done.

  His response is immediate.

  Trevor: Thank you. (9 more to go.)

  Michael

  Now

  Every child therapy office that I’ve ever visited is designed in the exact same way. There are open windows in the lobby, bright and cheery colors on the walls, and toys that clutter every corner in the waiting room. There’s also a Mickey Mouse printed on at least half of the tables, as if a fucking Disney character is capable of helping to soothe someone’s pain.

  Dr. Holden McAllister’s office, the top child therapy center in New York City, is the complete opposite of those places. Situated on the top floor of a gleaming grey building on Billionaire’s Row, the rooms are all painted in dreary shades of pale beige. There are no bright and cheery colors on the wall, no toys to keep patients calm while they wait, and the only Disney Characters in sight are the ones that you may catch a glimpse of on a Times Square billboard.

  Every time that I’ve managed to step inside this building to handle him, I’ve turned away at the last minute. I’ve always pushed his name further down my personal list since I don’t want to relive any of the things I used to tell him. The things he refused to believe, but knew damn well were the truth.

  Today won’t be a turnaround day.

  I’ve let him live enough of his life.

  I slide a pair of black shades over my face and make sure my leather gloves are secure before taking the elevator up to the fifty-first floor.

  “I’m sorry, sir, our office is closed,” the receptionist says as I step off the car. “You’ll have to come back tomorrow. If you’d like, I can take down your name and email address.’

  I stand still and make out what type of person she is in five seconds.

  Too eager to communicate. Wired on something other than coffee. Stupid.

  She’ll definitely remember my face when the police find Dr. McAllister dead and ask for potential suspects, so the front entrance is out of the question.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “Looks like I’m on the wrong floor. Where’s the gym?”

  “Ah, I figured. This happens all the time.” She smiles. “Right below on the fiftieth floor.”

  I give her a fake smile in return and take the elevator a few floors down. I find my way to the emergency stairwell and wait for half an hour before heading back up to Dr. McAllister’s office.

  I move from room to room and disable every camera and security feature. I double-check to make sure that no other employees are here, and then I stop dead in my tracks when I reach the patients’ waiting room.

  Everything in his office is exactly how I remember it in my nightmares. The hard-plastic chairs that surround a shaky metal table, the rug that serves as an inkblot test, and the “Wall of Forgiveness” where each patient gets the “honor” of letting go of people who’ve hurt them in the past.

  Walking over to the small bookshelf near the window, I push up the bottom panel to see if my message has survived the test of time. Right underneath the crackling paint, are the words I wrote at my last session here.

  Fuck forgiveness. You will burn for this, and I’m going to watch you die.

  Old and ugly memories begin to play in my head, and I shake them away before I can succumb to their twisted horrors. I set a timer on my watch—twenty-six minutes, and vow to get this done in half that time.

  Making my way to the white French doors that lead to Dr. McAllister’s office, I knock as hard as I can.

  “My business hours don’t start until nine o’clock tomorrow!” he calls out. “Go home, Taylor. Whatever it is, you can wait to tell me about it in the morning.”

&
nbsp; “I’m not Taylor.” I step inside the room, shutting the door behind me. “I’m—”

  “Trespassing,” he says, looking up from a book. “You can come back at nine o’clock just like everyone else. However, please know that I’m not open to taking clients like you.”

  “What do you mean, clients like me?”

  “Adults,” he says. “Surely you see the words, World Renowned Child Specialist etched on all of my doors. It’s not there for decoration.”

  “I must have missed that.” I walk over to his desk and pick up one of the rare cigars from his Tinder box. “You still collect these?”

  I don’t wait for him to answer. Instead, I pull a lighter out of my pocket and place the cigar into my mouth. I take a long drag and debate whether I want to take a few of his cigars with me on the way out.

  You have very good taste, Dr. McAllister.

  “Did you not hear me say that you need to leave my office, sir?” He walks over to me and crosses his arms. “I believe I asked you very nicely.”

  “It’s amazing how easily you’ve been able to take your business to the next level after all these years.” I walk over to the far wall, pretend to admire all of his framed certificates and medals. “I bet you’re very proud of yourself.”

  “I am…” He stares at me, looking completely confused.

  “I bet you’d be even prouder of yourself if you didn’t wake up every morning with the guilt of what kept you in this business,” I say, putting out the cigar and tucking it into my jacket. “I bet your clients would scatter like roaches, if they knew who you really were and what you were doing twenty-five years ago.”

  “I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about.”

  “Denial isn’t helpful, Doctor. You used to tell me that all the time…” I walk over to a huge black case on the wall, where he keeps a custom diamond beretta pistol.

  “Please don’t touch that.” He holds up his hand. “It’s a classic beretta. It was handcrafted just for me.”

  “Is it loaded?”

  “Of course, it’s loaded.” He rolls his eyes. “Please, don’t—” He lets out a sigh as I take it out of the case, as I run my finger over its beautiful, diamond-studded trigger. “Look, whoever you are, I really don’t have time to play these games. I’ve honestly never seen you a day in my life, and I’d like to continue doing so.”

  “You were never a frequent visitor at 347 Holden Lane Avenue twenty-five years ago?” I say, and his face immediately pales. “Never spent significant time with two identical twin brothers named Michael and Trevor?”

  He gasps and takes a step back.

  “This is the part when you admit that you do know me,” I say. “That you knew me long before I ever became an unfortunate client of yours. You can also admit that you spent most of our sessions trying to convince me into believing what did and didn’t happen.”

  “I was a bad social service director then.” He swallows. “I would never treat you the same way now as I did then.”

  “Because you moved on to others.” I look around the room, making sure this scene will look exactly how I want. A random murder in the middle of the day. “You thought that if you just stopped and tried to become a World Renowned Child Specialist, that it would erase all of the things you did before. It fucking doesn’t.”

  He’s peeing his pants, shaking and attempting to grab his cell phone from his pocket.

  “I’m usually civil about these types of things,” I say, moving his picture frame a little to the left. “But for you, and because of all the damage you’ve gifted me, I’m going to make one hell of an exception.”

  “I’ve asked you to leave my office three times now,” he says, his voice wavering. “Don’t make me call the police.”

  “You know what?” I pull my burner phone out of my pocket. “I think that’s a great idea.” I dialed 9-1-1 and made sure to hit the speaker button so he could hear.

  “9-1-1, emergency response,” the operator’s soft voice fills the room. “What’s your emergency?”

  “I just heard a lot of gunshots in a building on Billionaire’s Row,” I say. “I think it came from one of those fancy therapy offices, so some officers may want to check that out.”

  “Can you tell me exactly where you—”

  I end the call and Dr. McAllister’s face is now ghost-white. He holds up his hands, looking like he’s about to beg for forgiveness.

  I don’t give him a chance to say another word. I aim the beretta at his chest and unload the clip faster than I’ve ever unloaded on anyone before.

  Eleven rounds. Eleven bullets.

  His body hits his desk, and then the floor with a sickening thud. Blood splatters all over the plain walls, coating pieces of the hardwood floor in a bright red.

  Walking over to him, I set the gun down on top of his chest. “You deserved more bullets than that,” I whisper. “I let you off far easier than you let me and Trevor…”

  Taking his cigar collection, I move through the back halls of the office and take a freight elevator down to the lobby. The guests are running and panicking at the sound of sirens, and the security guards are blocking the elevators.

  Dropping the burner phone down one of the city’s drains, I feel somewhat relieved that this chapter of my life is almost over, but I know there’s no way I can go “home” to the mansion right now. I know I’m bound to have one of those nights where I’m unable to escape the final nightmares that come, and I’ve never slept around Meredith for that reason.

  I’ll go home tomorrow.

  Or maybe the next day.

  Meredith

  Now

  My limbs burn as I slowly drag my body out of the heated pool. I’ve completed more than my required laps for the night, and I can’t take anymore. Dripping onto the tile with every step I take, I throw up my middle finger to the camera that’s tucked away in the corner, just in case he ever watches me when he’s away.

  Wrapping myself in a towel, I slide my feet into my flip flops and brace myself before heading upstairs to the kitchen. He’s been gone three whole days, so I know it’s only a matter of time before he walks through the door and resets the board for a new game of chess. Before he baits me with fake news about my own case.

  I look around and notice that the last chess game we played is still on display. The lights in the kitchen are still set how I like them, and there’s no new novel waiting for me on the counter. No phone charger with a “You can use this for one hour. PS—I’m still waiting on you to say thank you,” note.

  Confused, I grab my watch from a drawer and see that it’s nine thirty.

  He never comes home that late…

  I tap my fingers against the countertop, thinking this could finally be my chance. The perfect time for me to start getting to the bottom of who the hell I really married.

  I force myself to wait for another twenty minutes, and then I decide to go for it.

  Making my way up the grand staircase, I make a left and head to Michael’s bedroom. The keypad on the door handle gives me pause, but I’ve seen him type in the code before, seen him switch up the numbers every now and then whenever we happened to cross paths in the hallway.

  I typed in what I remember from last week, 1-17-4-16-5, and the lights flash green.

  Immediately pushing the door open, I step inside and let it shut behind me.

  He’s never let me see the inside of his bedroom before, and I’m shocked at how bare it is compared to the condo he showed me in New York.

  There’s a king-sized bed at the center of the room, draped in white sheets and flanked by two nightstands. There are six fans hanging from the ceiling, all positioned right over the mattress—all hanging at varying heights.

  Why the hell would he need more than one fan?

  I walk over to the nightstands and pull every drawer open, but there’s nothing inside. Undaunted, I look under the bed—hoping to find something, but there’s nothing more.

  Walking over
to his closet, I type the same code into the keypad, but the lights flash red. I try it again, and an error message appears.

  Too many digits… Please enter the correct six digits.

  I try to think of what combination of numbers a psycho would pick—666-666, 123-456, 911-911, but none of them work. Just when I’m about to throw in the towel and leave, I enter the digits of the night we met—12-31-19, and the lights flicker yellow before turning green.

  The door slowly swings open, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand at full attention.

  What the hell is this?

  Stumbling forward, I struggle to make sense of what I’m seeing.

  In a room that’s the size of my bedroom several times over, is an immaculate and organized crime warehouse. On the right side, there’s an array of weapons locked behind a tinted wall of glass. Handguns, pistols, automatic rifles, a fucking buffet of artillery. On the left side, all of his trademark black and grey clothes are hanging at the exact same distance apart.

  His collection of designer shoes—shiny black loafers and copper-colored Oxfords, are sitting still on glass risers. His tennis shoes are all laced for an instant run, perfectly aligned with each other.

  Near the back of the room are perfectly pressed uniform tops for all types of businesses where he doesn’t work. A red and gold bellman jacket for The Four Seasons, a light brown top for the UPS delivery service, a green and black barista shirt for Starbucks. There are a few more that I don’t recognize, but none of the nametags on any of the uniform shirts sport his real name.

  Austin Greenwich. Tommy Porter. Jason Dean. Who the hell are these people?

  Something tells me that I should turn around and walk away at this very moment, but I can’t help but stay. I move to the far-right corner, where a beautiful white dresser stands next to a black file cabinet.

  Pulling open the top dresser drawer, I hope to find some hint of who Michael is, but it’s empty.