A View to a Kill

by Cheryl Bradshaw

  Alexandra’s appointment book listed her various engagements, but there was one glaring problem. The individual name of the person she met with on any given day was almost impossible to decipher. Most of the entries were initials in place of people’s actual names. So much secrecy. No wonder Chelsea couldn’t make sense of it.

  Aside from a few meetings with Barbara Berry, I focused on two of the names I believed she’d written as initials in the book: SH and LP. I picked up my copy of the book Alexandra Weston had signed for me, cross-referenced it with the initials, and came up with two matching names: Sandra Hamilton and Loretta Pratt, Elias’s mother.

  I closed the appointment book and set it down.

  Finch entered the room. “Any luck?”

  “Maybe. I’m more confused now than I was before.”

  He bent down, picked something off the floor, handed it to me. “What’s this?”

  I look at the item. An old photo. “I don’t know. There’s a sleeve in the back of Alexandra’s appointment book. It must have fallen from there.”

  Finch stared at the photo. “Who do you think the guy is in the picture? He doesn’t look a thing like Porter.”

  I was about ninety-percent sure I knew. “My guess, Elias Pratt, but I’ve never seen this photo before. It wasn’t in the first book she published about him, and it’s not in her latest one either.”

  I scrutinized the photo further. It was small, folded to about a quarter of its original size. There wasn’t a name on it, but there was a year. 1982. A year before he was arrested. In the photo, Elias was smiling, holding a puppy in his arms. Wearing a simple white tank top and jeans, he looked innocent, his eyes kind and merciful, unlike the heartless killer he turned out to be. I rubbed a thumb across his face, studying his features, and that was when I recognized something I’d seen before.

  CHAPTER 35

  I was heading out of my hotel room when my cell phone rang. Seeing the name on the caller ID caused me to tense, and for a moment, it felt as though I had no more breath in my body. He was a blast from the past. Someone I hadn’t heard from in years.

  “I can’t do this right now,” I said into the phone. “I can’t talk to you, Lucas. It’s not a good time.”

  “Sure you can,” Lucas said. “Try.”

  His voice sounded exactly the same as I remembered. I wondered if he thought the same about me.

  “Joslyn, you still there?” he asked.

  “Don’t call me that. In fact, don’t call me at all.”

  I pushed the end button, tossed the phone onto the bed. Twenty seconds later, it rang again, just like I knew it would. I watched it buzz once, then twice. On the third time, I cursed at the phone and then answered it. “I said not to call me.”

  “If you don’t want to talk to me, why do you keep answering?”

  Unnerving, irritating ass.

  “What do you want, Lucas?”

  “You decide if you’re coming to Clay and Court’s wedding next weekend?”

  “It’s none of your business.”

  “Maybe not. Wanted you to know, if you wanna come, it’s fine by me. I actually think it would be a good thing.”

  “It’s fine with you?” I said. “I don’t need your permission.”

  “Saw your mom today at the store. She seemed upset, said she didn’t think you were gonna make it. She is really hoping you’ll be here.”

  I envisioned the rendezvous between Lucas and my mother in my mind—how it went, how they talked to each other, how many times my mother mentioned things like how sorry she was when our marriage ended. After all he’d put me through, the fact she still had a soft spot for him irked me.

  “My conversations with my mother are also none of your business,” I said. “You shouldn’t be talking to her to me.”

  “You have it all wrong, you know. She approached me, Joslyn. Not the other way around. I’m just sayin’, don’t stay away on account of me.”

  “I don’t base any of my decisions on you. I stopped needing your permission a long time ago.”

  “Good.”

  “Good,” I said.

  “Anyway, been a long time. It would be nice to see you again.”

  I wanted to say, Yeah, well, it wouldn’t be good to see YOU. The words were right there, dancing around the tip of my tongue like a fighter dodging his opponent in a boxing ring. I opened my mouth then closed it. I didn’t need to do this. Nothing I said would change the past or affect the future. The “us” had dissipated long ago.

  “If you’re worried about Kinsey being there, she won’t.”

  “It makes no difference to me if she is or if she isn’t. Why would it?”

  “I mean to say, she won’t be there because we’re not together anymore. We’re divorced.”

  There it was at last. The clarity I needed for his unexpected phone call shifted into focus. He may have used my mother as the excuse for his call, but he had another agenda. He was alone, and being alone terrified him. “What are you trying to do by calling me—”

  “I’m not trying to do anything. I thought ... I mean, I was hoping we could be friends.”

  “Friends? We’re not friends, Lucas.”

  “Why can’t we be?”

  “A friend is someone I can count on. Someone I can trust. Someone who would never betray me. You’re none of these things.”

  “Come on, Joss, I’m trying here.”

  “I’m sorry. It just isn’t possible. After all that’s happened, I can’t let you back in. It would be too hard.”

  I pressed the end button again.

  And this time when the phone rang again, I exercised restraint.

  CHAPTER 36

  We were just about to round the corner leading to Porter’s house when I glanced in my car’s side-view mirror for the tenth time. For the past several minutes, the car behind us had taken the same turns Finch had. He’d noticed too. I could tell. But he hadn’t said anything. Glancing in the car’s mirror, I didn’t have the best view of the man in the car behind us, but in my own paranoia, I saw my stalker. The truth was, I’d seen him over and over and over again since Clara died. Only, it wasn’t ever him. He was the clerk at the store, the guy at the gym, the onlooker in my live studio audience.

  It’s not him, Joss. Pull yourself together. It’s not him.

  Finch parked in front of Porter’s house, and the car behind us passed by. The man turned and smiled, then used a garage door opener to open the garage three houses down.

  The front door opened before we got to it.

  “Where’s Chelsea?” I asked.

  Porter stood in the doorway, his arms folded, face all screwed up like he didn’t want to see me. The feeling was mutual.

  “Not here.”

  Perfect. Exactly what I hoped he would say.

  “You received my text earlier when Chelsea stopped by my hotel, right?” I asked.

  “I did.”

  “And the one about where she was last night?”

  He nodded.

  “Have you notified the police about the break-in last night?”

  He laughed. “Are you kidding? I knew if I didn’t, you would have. It seems you have your hand in every kind of jar there is in this town. Must be nice to use your celebrity to get what you want.”

  “You know all about using people to get what you want,” I said.

  “What’s your point?”

  My point was about to be made clear.

  I leaned to the side, looking past him into the house. A few cardboard boxes were stacked in the corner of the living room. “Are you moving out?”

  “What does it look like?”

  “And Chelsea, she’s staying?”

  He turned a hand up. “This is her house now. Not mine. She’s made that clear. If we’re to have any relationship at all, I need to give her what she wants.”

  “Aren’t you concerned about her safety after what happened yesterday?”

  He laughed. “Would it matter if I was? My daug
hter informed me that if I’m here, she won’t be. So what would you like me to do, Miss Jax? Camp out in my car in the driveway to ensure her safety? She has a uniformed officer for that. Not to mention a fiancé.”

  I stepped into the house. Finch followed.

  “As of this moment, I still live here,” Porter said. “And I haven’t invited you in.”

  “Where’s Alexandra’s laptop?”

  “How should I know? I told you what happened to this place. Look around. First the cops go through it, then it gets burglarized.”

  “When did police search the house?”

  “Tuesday.”

  “I’m assuming they never found a laptop.”

  No reply.

  “Are you sure you have nothing to say? I may not know who broke in here, but I believe you’re the one who has Alexandra’s laptop.”

  He palmed his cell phone like he was going to make a call. “You know something? I’ve had enough.”

  Finch eyed Porter’s phone like he was prepared to jack it from his hand as soon as a button was pressed, which may not have been such a bad thing. Still, I had a better idea.

  “Before you decide whether or not you’re actually going to make a call, I’d like to show you something.” I reached into my back pocket, pulled out the photo, held it in front of Porter’s face.

  “What am I looking at?” he asked.

  “Elias Pratt. Don’t you recognize him?”

  “Of course I do. Who wouldn’t? Why are you showing his picture to me?”

  “I found this photo tucked away inside Alexandra’s appointment book.”

  “Her planner? How did you get—”

  “Chelsea gave it to me this morning. She thinks Alexandra was writing another book about Elias Pratt. Is that true?”

  “I don’t know. I think so. I assumed she was, at least. Though I couldn’t understand why.”

  “When did you find out about her new book?”

  “I overheard a conversation between Alex and Paula Page.”

  “On the phone?” I asked.

  “Here, at the house.”

  He was quite the gifted eavesdropper.

  “When did the conversation between Alexandra and Paula occur?”

  “Right before Alex left on her book tour, Paula showed up at the house in a frantic, crazed state, shouting at Alex to ‘leave things alone.’ She was hysterical.”

  “Any idea what things she was referring to?”

  “Alex was planning to expose something about Paula in her new book. She told Paula it was too late, said Paula should have told the truth in the first place. She wouldn’t be in the situation she was in if she had.”

  The truth about what? I wondered.

  “How did Paula react to Alexandra’s response?”

  “Paula threatened her, said if she didn’t back down, she’d expose a secret she knew about Alex too.”

  “How did the visit end?”

  “Paula shouted a few expletives at Alex and left. I walked into the room a minute later, asked what it was all about, and Alex laughed, acted like it was nothing. She was rattled though. I could tell.”

  It was clear to me now. “Elias Pratt is the reason you broke into Alexandra’s desk drawer and removed the laptop.”

  He laughed like my assumption was absurd. “Why would I do that?”

  “You wanted to read what she’d written. What she’d revealed in the book.”

  “I’ve never given a damn about what she puts in those books. Why would this one be any different?”

  “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking today,” I said. “Ever since you admitted Alexandra gave you cash to keep you from blabbing about the divorce, something’s been bothering me.”

  “Yeah? What’s that?”

  “Paying you not to mention the divorce to Chelsea before she was married doesn’t make sense. Many people already assumed the relationship between you and Alexandra was failing. Even Chelsea. Alexandra did pay you though, didn’t she? She just paid you for a different reason.”

  He remained silent. I continued.

  “Take a good look at this picture of Elias Pratt. What do you see?”

  “What everyone sees. A killer. A pathetic man who deserved to die, and he did.”

  “You want to know what I see?”

  “Whatever you’re getting at, say it.”

  I set the photo on the kitchen counter, stabbed my finger onto the noticeable birthmark on Elias’s shoulder. “You’re not Chelsea’s real father, are you?”

  CHAPTER 37

  “Of course I’m Chelsea’s father,” Porter said. “What are you trying to do here?”

  “Look at this photo of Elias,” I said. “Really look at it. The shape of his eyes, his complexion, the way his upper lip curves a little more on his right side when he smiles. It’s subtle, but if you really look, you can see the similarities.”

  He stared at the photo, said nothing.

  I took my phone out of my pocket. “Let’s call Chelsea. When she gets here, we’ll show her the photo and see what she thinks.”

  Porter pressed a hand to his chest, patting himself once, twice, then three times. I waited, gave him time to catch his breath.

  “Let’s sit down,” he said. “But first, I need a drink.”

  He walked into the kitchen, removing three glasses and an unopened bottle of whiskey from a cabinet. He filled each glass half full, passed them around.

  “Thanks,” I said, when he handed a glass to me, “but I don’t—”

  “Don’t be a prude, Miss Jax. Drink the damn thing. Okay?”

  I hated whiskey—the pungent smell, the peaty taste—but I downed it in one giant swig anyway, hoping he wouldn’t offer me another. Finch set his glass on the counter, whiskey still inside. Porter drank the glass he’d poured for himself, reached for Finch’s, and drank it too.

  “This is three-thousand-dollar whiskey,” Porter said to Finch. “If you can’t appreciate it, I sure as hell am not letting it go to waste.”

  Porter grabbed the whiskey bottle and held it out in front of him, allowing the bottle to lead the way to the living room. The three of us filed in and sat down.

  “Does Chelsea know you’re not her father?” I asked.

  He sighed. “Before I reply to your question, what makes you think she isn’t?”

  “When she was at my hotel earlier, she was adjusting the sleeve of her shirt, and I noticed a birthmark on her shoulder. The same birthmark in the photo I just showed you.”

  “What do you plan to do if I tell you the truth?”

  “If you’re asking if I have any intention of revealing it to anyone else, I don’t. Not unless I have to. Does Chelsea know?”

  He shook his head. “She doesn’t, and I don’t know you enough to know if I can trust you.”

  Whether he could or couldn’t, he no longer had a choice.

  “You can trust her,” Finch said. “Joss would never lie to you, especially about this.”

  Porter looked at Finch like it didn’t matter; he didn’t believe him either. “It’s a hard question to answer. I’m her father. I’m just not her biological father.”

  “How do you know Chelsea doesn’t know?”

  “Because her mother and I worked hard to keep it that way. It was one of the only things we agreed on actually.”

  “How long have you known?”

  Porter tipped the whiskey container, poured himself another drink, stared at an abstract painting on the wall of two girls stretching on a parallel bar in ballet class. His expression was disheartened, as if recalling an unwanted memory. “Chelsea was around five years old when I learned the truth about who her father really was. By then, we’d already bonded. She was mine. Still is.”

  “How did you find out? Did Alexandra admit it to you?”

  He shook his head. “I doubt Alex would have ever told me unless there was an advantage for her to do so.”

  “How did you figure it out then?” I asked.

 
“Chelsea’s always had that half-inch birthmark on her shoulder. Looks like a bird in flight. I never thought much of it, just assumed it was a strange little oddity some kids have. One day Alexandra was going through some old files in her office. A folder fell on the floor. Pictures slipped out, scattered everywhere. I bent down, helped her pick them up. And that’s when I saw it.”

  “Saw what?”

  “A photo of Elias Pratt. One I hadn’t ever seen before. The one you just showed me. I noticed the same thing you did. He had the exact same birthmark in the exact same place.”

  “Did you confront Alexandra?”

  “It wasn’t necessary. She saw the look on my face and she knew there was no point denying it. For years I’d raised Chelsea thinking she was my daughter because the woman I loved, the woman who was supposed to be my confidant and best friend, thought it was better to lie to me than tell me the truth. You want to know the saddest part? She never would have told me if I hadn’t discovered it for myself.”

  It was a despicable secret, and I knew why Alexandra had done it. If the public ever found out about the baby’s true father, they’d also find out about her wrongdoings. She probably would have never had an interview with a man behind bars again. Her perfect image, the one she worked so hard to develop over the years, would have been marred forever.

  “How did Alexandra manage to be intimate with Elias when he was locked up?” I asked.

  He tipped his glass in my direction. “According to Alexandra, there are ways around everything. Even in prison.”

  But Elias wasn’t just in prison. He was on death row.

  “Was it a one-time thing?”

  “She said it was, but then, she was a gifted liar, wasn’t she?”

  “In your opinion, were there genuine feelings between Alexandra and Elias?”

  He nodded. “Until the day he fried, and even then it didn’t stop. She visited his grave once a month for ten years. She didn’t know I knew, but I did.”

  He downed another shot, set the glass down, poured another. I exchanged glances with Finch, neither of us saying a word. For days, I’d despised Porter, convincing myself he was a manipulator, a person who used Alexandra for her money, flaunting his relationships with other women in her face for his own amusement while extorting her on the side. Now I wasn’t sure who he was or if I’d misjudged him.