The Devil Died at Midnight

by Cheryl Bradshaw

  I accepted his soft, never worked a day in his privileged life hand in mine, and we shook. “Nice to meet you too. I hear you and Chelsea are getting married in a few weeks.”

  “We were,” he clarified. “With the death of her mother, my family decided it would be best to put it off for a few months at least.”

  I found his comment revealing. He and Chelsea hadn’t decided together. His family had decided for them. “Who are your parents?”

  He beamed. “Hollis and Dorothy Claiborne.”

  I drew a blank, which he happily filled in for me. “Governor Hollis Claiborne.”

  Impressive.

  “We’ve never met.”

  He gave me a snarky look like, Why would you?

  Chelsea fanned herself with a hand. “Man, it’s like a million degrees in here.” She removed her coat, adjusted the sleeve of her shirt that had slid off her shoulder, and we all sat down. Chelsea tapped the top of the table with her fingers like it was a piano. Whatever she’d come to say, she still seemed unsure about saying it. Not one for awkward silence, I helped things along. “What do you need to talk to me about?”

  “I, umm, lied to you the other day,” she said.

  I knew this already, of course. “Okay. What about?”

  “When we first met, you asked me if I knew about the book my mother was writing before she died. I said I didn’t. Truth is ... I do know something about it.”

  “I know.”

  Her eyes widened. “How could you?”

  “Before we got on the subject of your mother’s book, you didn’t have a problem looking me in the eye. Afterward, you did. Why did you feel like you couldn’t tell me what you knew?”

  Chelsea rolled an elastic band off her wrist, fastening it around her hair into a ponytail. “My mom had just died. I didn’t know you. Not really. I didn’t see the point in talking about it. After I was run off the road yesterday, I feel differently. I’m willing to say anything just to feel safe again.”

  “What can you tell me about the book your mom was writing?”

  “It was going to be her last. This was one reason why she didn’t tell anyone she was writing it. And it’s just ... I’ve had time to think about it the last few days. I’m worried she was killed because someone found out what she wrote in it.”

  “Who else knew about the book?”

  “No one, except me, and my dad probably knows now too. That’s why we were fighting last night. He has her laptop, and he won’t give it to me.”

  “How do you know he has it?” I asked. “Did he admit it to you?”

  She shook her head. “It was in the top drawer of my mom’s desk. A drawer she always kept locked. I was walking by the desk last night and noticed the metal hole the key goes into looked funny. It was bent, like someone jammed a knife inside the hole and broke it. I ran my finger over the hole, and the drawer pulled right open. The laptop wasn’t there.”

  “Did you ask your dad if he had it?”

  She nodded. “He swore he didn’t have it. He’s lying. I know he does.”

  “Is that why you trashed your mom’s house after he left, to find the laptop?”

  She jerked her head back. “Trashed the house? What are you talking about?”

  “Your father said when he returned home this morning, it was a disaster. Someone broke in last night. Your father has been trying to find you. He seems genuinely worried.”

  Chelsea sprung from the chair. “Are you kidding? Someone broke into my mother’s house?! When? Did they take anything? Do the police know about it?!”

  “I’m not sure. If it wasn’t you and it wasn’t your father—”

  “How could it be me? I wasn’t there.” She looked at the officer. “Ask the police guy. He’ll tell you.”

  The officer nodded.

  “When did you leave the house?” I asked.

  “Last night. I thought after my dad cooled off, he’d come back, try to talk to me again. I couldn’t go another round with him. So I left, went to Bradley’s parents’ house. I didn’t leave there until this morning, and I came straight here to see you. I haven’t been home since I left last night.”

  “It’s true,” Bradley said. “She got to my house around eight.”

  Chelsea grabbed Bradley’s hand, walked to the door. “I ... I can’t be here right now. I have to go.”

  “Hang on, Chelsea,” I said. “Give me one minute, okay? I understand you’re shook up, but maybe if you give me more information, the two of us can figure out who broke into your house and why.”

  She fidgeted with the key in her hand, sliding her thumb up and down like a nervous tic. “It’s just ... the thought of someone in my mother’s house ... all of this ... it’s so hard. I’m not even safe in my own house anymore.”

  Sensing she was about to cry, Bradley squeezed her hand. “It’s all right, babe. We’ll go back to the house, pack some bags, and you can stay with me until we’re married. My mom has already offered for you to stay with us as long as you want. Say what you came here to say.”

  Chelsea sighed, looked at me. “Okay, fine. Just ... let’s hurry.”

  I picked the black planner off the table, held it out to her. “You left this on the table.”

  “Oh, right. I meant to leave it. I brought it here to give to you. Well, loan to you.”

  I opened the planner, flipped through it.

  “That’s my mom’s planner,” Chelsea said.

  “Where did you get it?” I asked.

  “It was in my mom’s desk.”

  “Wouldn’t the police have taken it when they searched the house?”

  She nodded. “After what happened to my mom, I wanted to look through it first. I gave it to Bradley, and he kept it at his house until now.”

  “You should have turned it in,” I said.

  “I am kinda, now. I’m giving it to you.”

  “I’m not the police. Have you looked through it?”

  She nodded. “I went through her appointments last night, but I can’t make heads or tails of anything. I was hoping you could take a look. Maybe you’ll see something different.”

  “Absolutely, but I need to be honest. After I look at it, I want to hand it over to the police so they can look at it as well.”

  “I brought it to you because I don’t want it given to them. They still have the purse she was carrying the night she died. They also took other things from her car. I have no idea when I’ll get any of it back. My dad asked, and they told him they didn’t know either.”

  “Trust me, giving them the planner is the right thing to do, Chelsea. We’re all trying to accomplish the same thing here.”

  She frowned. “Whatever. I guess.”

  “I’ll go through it first just to see if anything stands out.”

  She opened the hotel room door, looked back. “Thank you. Will you tell me if you find anything?”

  I nodded. “One last question before you leave. You never said whether you know the subject of your mother’s last book. Do you know? Did she tell you?”

  “She didn’t, but I was in her office one day when she was writing. I was at her desk talking to her, and I recognized a name she’d typed.”

  “What name?”

  Her answer was shocking and unexpected, spinning me in a whole new direction.

  Elias Pratt.

  CHAPTER 34

  I spent the next hour poring over the appointment book, piecing together whether or not Elias Pratt and Alexandra Weston’s murder could somehow be connected. Several things didn’t add up in my mind. For one, Elias was dead. For another, Alexandra had just released a book about him. Still, it was odd Chelsea had seen her mother typing Elias’s name.

  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 daughter 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.”