No Charm Intended

by Mollie Cox Bryan

  “It is,” he said.

  “I’ll be right there,” Cora said, clicked off the phone, and turned to Jane. “He wants to see me at the station. It’s urgent. Do you want to come along?”

  “Just try to stop me,” Jane said. “After all, it is the prettiest police station on the planet.”

  Chapter 48

  Indigo Gap was a historic town on steroids, as was evidenced by its police department, housed on the main street, low-key, but classically designed. Eggplant façade and window boxes graced the outside and its waiting area was beautifully appointed. But, as you walked back through the snaking hallways to offices of the detectives, it felt more like the police stations back in Pittsburgh.

  The secretary showed them the way, even though both Jane and Cora had been there before. They walked past the cubical where Officer Glass sat—Cora was glad he wasn’t around, but she also noticed a good bit of activity in the open room. She’d never witnessed it here.

  Detective Brodsky was standing behind his desk looking out a window when Jane and Cora entered the room.

  “Please sit down, ladies,” he said. He wasn’t wearing his suit jacket, as was the usual. His shirt sleeves were rolled up and his tie was loosened and crooked.

  Cora and Jane glanced at one another and sat down.

  “I have a bit of a problem,” he said.

  “How can we help you?” Cora said.

  “I’m not sure you can,” he said, folding his arms. “But since Paul is in your house . . . you know him as well as I do.”

  “Paul? He’s not in trouble, is he?” Jane said.

  “He might be. We do have a killer on the loose.”

  “What? Why Paul?”

  “No, you don’t mean he’s a suspect, do you?” Cora said.

  He sat down with a grunt. “None of this makes any sense. But the DNA evidence is clear.”

  Cora felt as if her stomach were in her mouth. She breathed deeply. What was going on? Was she housing a murderer? Had she placed her guests in danger? She took in more air.

  “We know who killed Henry and it wasn’t Paul,” Brodsky said.

  Cora exhaled.

  Jane’s grip released on the chair arm.

  “It was Gracie.”

  The room was silent for a few beats. Cora blinked and peered at Jane.

  “Excuse me?” Cora managed to say.

  “Gracie killed Henry.”

  “That’s absurd!” Jane said. “Gracie is not a killer. She’s a gentle soul. You should have seen her with my London.”

  “Besides,” Cora said. “She went missing before Henry was killed.”

  “Exactly,” Brodsky said, and pointed to Cora. “Which makes me wonder if she was really missing or just was lying in wait for the opportunity to kill Henry.”

  “Ridiculous!” Jane said, and pounded her fist on the chair handle.

  “Calm down,” Cora told her, and reached for her hand, which was tense and hard. Cora rubbed her hand. But chills came over her as she considered what Brodsky just said.

  “Now, DNA evidence is hard to trump,” he said. “It isn’t always one hundred percent accurate. But this was absolutely clear. She killed him.”

  “How could she kill him? I mean, physically, she was much smaller than Henry. Did she have a gun? Some kind of weapon?” Cora asked.

  “A blade,” he replied. He gazed in another direction. “It was a gruesome scene. In fact, some of my officers wondered if it was an animal attack, until they found the blade.”

  Jane sobbed. Her face crumpled. “No, I just can’t believe it.”

  Cora’s arm went around her friend.

  She tried to sort through what she knew of Gracie, what she knew of Henry, and the professor.

  “What would her motive be?” she asked. “It doesn’t make sense that she’d kill Henry. They were friends,” Cora said.

  “I know. I’ve been trying to piece it together. I’ve found nothing. I’ve asked myself... were they having an affair? No evidence of that.”

  “Even if they were having one, what would he have done for her to want him dead. It doesn’t fit with her personality. She was a nanny. A law student,” Cora said.

  Jane sobbed. The detective handed her a box of tissues.

  Cora suddenly remembered the woman she grew up with who’d had a complete nervous collapse one day and killed her entire family. “You know, Gracie was seeing a therapist and was on antidepressants,” Cora said.

  “Pshaw,” Jane said. “A depressed person isn’t a psychotic person!”

  “I know that, sweetie,” Cora said with a gentle inflection in her voice. “But remember our neighbor when we were kids?”

  Jane nodded.

  “Sometimes, there are no answers as to why murder happens. Why a person sort of breaks and freaks out.”

  “True, but those cases are extremely rare,” Brodsky said. “If that’s what happened, it’s more imperative than ever to find her before she harms someone else or herself.”

  “But you’ve searched everywhere,” Jane said.

  “It’s frustrating,” he said under his breath. “I’ve got my best guys on this. I’ve called the state and FBI for help. I’m still waiting to hear back on both counts.”

  “Wait. What about the professor? What does he know about where she is? It seems like he’d know something,” Jane said through her sobs.

  “He’s not talking,” he said.

  “Of course,” Cora said. Her arm was still around Jane. “I spoke with him yesterday. He seems more concerned about Gracie than anything else.”

  “Why were you talking with him?” Brodsky said. “Never mind. I just don’t want to know.”

  Jane’s phone beeped, alerting her to a text message. She glanced at it. “It’s Ruby, wondering we are. London’s awake. I need to go.”

  “Wait,” Brodsky said. “I need your word you won’t tell anybody about this.”

  “Sure,” Jane said. “Who’d believe it, anyway?”

  “I need you both to keep your eyes and ears open in regard to Paul,” he said.

  “What do you mean? Do you think he’s in danger?”

  “I don’t know. But, as I’ve said before, I think he knows more than he thinks he knows,” he said. “Do you follow?”

  “I think so,” Cora said.

  “Just let us know if there’s anything suspicious about his behavior, or if he disappears for any long amount of time. You know, things like that.”

  “Do you think she’d come for him?” Cora asked, her heartbeat quickening.

  “We have no way of knowing what kind of shape she’s in, or even if she’s still alive,” he said. “But if she is, and she needs help, I’m betting Paul would be the first person she contacts.”

  Chapter 49

  “We should just go home, right?” Jane said as they climbed into the car.

  “I reckon,” Cora said. “I suppose it’s more important we’re at Kildare House today than scouting around about Gracie. So much for playing detective.”

  “Yeah, we should probably be keeping an eye on Liv, too,” Jane said, after a few moments. She sniffed.

  “This is truly bizarre,” Cora said as she put the car into gear and started to drive toward home.

  “Yeah,” Jane said, and blew her nose. “I just don’t know what to think. I don’t think I can believe Gracie killed Henry.”

  “It’s beginning to feel like Alice in Wonderland to me,” Cora said. “Curiouser and curiouser.”

  “Not The Wizard of Oz?” Jane said, and laughed, halfheartedly, then sniffed again.

  “No,” Cora said. “The Wizard of Oz was about finding home, right? ‘There’s no place like home’ and all that.”

  “Well, on one level, yes. But it was also about knowing your strengths and weaknesses, and realizing you had all this power all the time,” Jane said. “Strength and magic you didn’t know were yours.”

  Cora stopped at the only red light in town. She glanced at Jane. “Are we rea
lly talking about The Wizard of Oz now?”

  “It would appear so,” Jane said with drollness.

  Cora noted her hands were still shaking on the steering wheel. “We are so in over our heads.”

  The light turned green and Cora crept along in the car, making certain she did not go over the twenty-five miles per hour speed limit.

  “Yep, I’ve almost given up.”

  “Almost?”

  “Well, there is Paul.”

  “Staying at Kildare House.”

  “Yep, and now we have this mission to watch him. How are we going to do that? He’s a grown man and comes and goes as he pleases.”

  Cora grunted. “He sticks around the house mostly. He’s kind of a homebody.”

  “But what if Gracie is still alive and shows up at Kildare House, half-crazed?” Jane asked, eyes wide.

  “What if?” Cora said, pulling into the driveway. “What can we do about that? If she’s alive, she’s been hiding and she’s been clever about it. The search teams have not found a trace. There’s not been a trace of anything until today.”

  “I think I should send London to stay with someone for a few days, just until this blows over,” she said.

  “That might be a good idea,” Cora said.

  When the two of them entered the front door of Kildare House, they saw Liv sitting on the couch with her laptop.

  “Hey,” she said. “My dad will be here soon and I’ll be out of your way.”

  “You can stay as long as you like,” Cora said.

  “Have you seen Paul?” Cora asked, trying to sound nonchalant. From Jane’s slanted glimpse in her direction, she hadn’t been quite successful.

  “He went to lunch with his parents,” she said. “I think they were going to check out apartments as well.”

  Cora’s heart began to thunder as she sucked in air. Calm down, she told herself, he was with his parents. He wasn’t alone. Still, she felt the need to sit down. She found her chair and her basket of embroidery next to it. She needed to focus on something else or she was going to have a panic attack in front of Liv. Why did he have to go out today?

  “Have you been getting any more notifications from the game?” Jane asked as she was texting someone herself. Cora assumed it was Ruby, who’d been staying with London.

  “All morning long,” Liv said. “I finally shut my phone off.”

  “I think that’s good news,” Jane said.

  “Why?” Cora asked as she threaded her needle with red embroidery thread.

  “Well, they must not know the police are watching. It means their technology is not as good as they think,” Jane said, slipping her phone back into her bag.

  Cora started to sew. The gentle motion of thread weaving into fabric always soothed her. She was hoping it would work its magic on her racing heart and fluttering stomach.

  “Not necessarily,” Liv said, snapping her laptop shut. “They may know and don’t want the cops to know they know and so they are continuing to harass me, but going deeper underground.”

  Cora’s stitches were not exactly even, but she wasn’t going to care about perfection when she was trying to breathe. “Tell us about that. You know, that Darknet thing.”

  Liv sighed. “A lot of people won’t even go on it for fear of viruses. But I have kickass security software.”

  “So people play games on it and what else do they do?” Jane asked.

  “Buy drugs, prostitutes, commit all sorts of crime,” she replied.

  “What? How do they get away with that?”

  “Sometimes they’re busted. Like this guy who was running something called the Silk Road. What was his name? Let me think. Ross Ulbricht. His Silk Road was a black market with bitcoin as currency. He was busted on seven counts, including narcotics trafficking, and sentenced for life,” she said.

  “Why does it even exist? Isn’t it illegal to even have it?” Jane asked.

  “No, it’s not illegal, but some of the activities are. And I have to tell you it’s not all bad. It’s been useful for journalists, dissidents, and whistleblowers, you know, that kind of thing,” she said. “You need special software to access it. It was started by the government years ago as a way to safely share sensitive information online. Of course, others found out about it.”

  “So is this something students use a lot?” Cora asked.

  “Some do,” Liv said. “Some people just aren’t interested. The school frowns on it, of course. There was a group of students a few years ago who got busted buying pot from the Darknet. But there was a mastermind behind all of that. He was on campus. What was his name? Ted. Yeah, Ted Brice. He was the same guy who wrote that letter, I guess.”

  “Interesting guy,” Cora said.

  “That’s one way of putting it,” Liv replied.

  London and Ruby came through the front door. “Mommy!” London said, running to Jane and jumping on her lap.

  Cora watched as Jane snuggled her daughter. The two of them sometimes nearly broke her heart.

  Chapter 50

  “What’s on your mind?” Ruby said, as she plunked down on the couch next to Cora.

  “Nothing,” Cora said, watching as Jane and London left the room to find something to eat in the kitchen.

  “You’re sewing,” Ruby pointed out. “You usually sew when something is on your mind.”

  “It helps me to think and to calm down, I grant you,” Cora said, and kept her eyes focused on the design and her work. “But nothing in particular is worrying me. Just life in general.”

  Ruby grunted. “Any news on Henry’s murder case? Or on Gracie? I know you two met with Chelsea this morning.”

  Liv’s head tilted in interest.

  “Not really,” Cora said, and sighed. She was such a bad liar. “She knew all along Gracie had problems and didn’t take issue with it.”

  “Mighty big of her,” Ruby said.

  “That’s what I thought, but I’m not too sure about Jane. She probably wouldn’t have hired her if she knew.”

  “That’s a tough call,” Ruby said after a minute. “It’s your kid, you know?”

  Cora nodded, keeping her eyes focused on the red coffee cup she was sewing into the fabric. She was thinking about so many things—Gracie’s depression and maybe other mental problems were the least of them. She was also thinking about the coffeepot this morning; in fact, images of Gracie’s apartment tugged at her. Wizard of Oz. Darknet. Gracie killing Henry. Too much to think about. Her heart was calmer now, now that her thoughts were elsewhere. She wasn’t going to dwell on Paul being out and about with his parents. No, if indeed Gracie was still alive and roaming the streets of Indigo Gap, Cora was certain she would not approach Paul with his parents around.

  “You know, I’ve been thinking about this game,” Liv said.

  “What game?” Ruby asked.

  “The Wizard of Oz game,” Liv said. “The one I’ve been playing. The one Gracie had been playing.”

  “Oh,” Ruby replied.

  Cora kept sewing, weaving her red thread in and out of the fabric.

  “I really didn’t have any concerns about playing it, but maybe these messages are part of a virus. Or something like a virus,” she said. “I mean, I have kickass security software, but maybe this is different.”

  “Humph,” Ruby said. “I don’t know nothing about computer viruses or software. But I do know about people. Just sounds like some lunatic has crossed wires and enjoys making everybody jump through his hoops.”

  “Gamers can be like that,” Liv said, after a minute of what appeared to be deep thinking on her part.

  “What if it’s not a game?” Ruby said. “What if people only think it’s a game?”

  “I don’t follow,” Cora said, looking up from her embroidery.

  “What if it’s a front for some kind of other thing. I don’t know what. And you all have just stumbled into it?” Ruby said.

  Liv’s dark eyebrows lifted, and violet eyes sparkled with excitement.

>   “Sounds like something out of a sci-fi novel,” Cora said.

  “But it’s possible,” Liv said. “On one level it makes a lot of sense.”

  “Wouldn’t the police know about something like this?” Cora said. “They don’t pay attention at all when anybody brings up this game. Henry and Paul were adamant about it and they wouldn’t listen.”

  “That leaves us with three possible explanations. One possibility is the police are right. There’s no reason to check into the game. It’s just a game. Period. Or they know something is fishy and are clamming up. Or, the last possibility is they don’t know anything and are complete fools,” Liv said. “You know your local cops, which is it?”

  Ruby harrumphed. She crossed her arms. “It could be any of those things.”

  “In any case, what can we do about it?” Cora said. “If the game is a front—highly unlikely—what’s it a front for? And what do they want with you, Liv? Why you?”

  She shrugged. “Gracie and I were the only two women in the country who got to the Gates of Oz in the game. This is the only thing we have in common. The game. She was a law student. I’m an art student.”

  “You both went to the same school,” Ruby said.

  “The same school where Rawlings teaches as well,” Cora said. “Could someone at the school be behind all this?”

  “Do you mean someone besides the creepy professor? My money’s on him,” Ruby said.

  Liv laughed. “Sorry, ladies, I don’t think he’s smart enough to pull something like this off. I’m not sure anybody I know is.”

  “But still,” Cora said. “The school does seem to be the one thing all the players have in common.”

  “There has to be someone at the school who is smart enough to do something like this,” Ruby said.

  “I’m not convinced the game is anything more than a game,” Liv said, glancing at her watch. “My dad should be here by now.”

  “Maybe you should check your phone,” Ruby said.

  “I shut it off because of all the notifications from the game, which I can’t stop,” she said, reaching for her phone, which was on the coffee table next to her. She flipped it on. “Yep,” she said. “Dad is having car trouble. Looks like I’ll be here another day.” She eyed Cora with a sheepish look. “Is that okay?”