by Gregg Olsen
“I’m rich,” she says flatly. “You couldn’t survive any kind of legal challenge and you know it.”
“I could tell people what you did,” I tell her.
She shakes her head, and the diamond earrings, the size of dimes, catch the light and send an incongruous sparkle across the suite.
“No,” she says. “No. I don’t think you would do that. I don’t think you would want Emma to know what you think of her mother. She’ll turn on you. She’ll know that everything you’ve told her was a lie. A car wreck? So unimaginative, Nicole.”
She doesn’t leave it there. Stacy-the-smoking-crater always goes deep.
“Mom always thought you were average,” she says, pouring two glasses of wine. “She used to say she felt sorry for people who were average. Like, what’s the point of living if you’re completely unremarkable?”
She hands me a glass, and I imagine snapping the stem from the bowl and ramming it into her throat. Instead, I pour the wine down my throat.
“Aren’t you going to have some crab?” she asks.
I finish the entire glass, realizing that some wines, in fact, are better than others.
“You could never beat me at anything,” she says.
I find my voice. “I let you win when we were little,” I say. “I loved you so much, Stacy. You were my baby after Mom left.”
She sits down and scissors her legs. “You shouldn’t have done that, Nic. Maybe things—maybe I—would be different. Maybe you are the reason I’ve turned out the way I have.”
“You can’t keep Emma,” I say.
Her eyes lock on to mine. “I can if I want to,” she says as the waves beat against the sun-bleached driftwood on the shoreline behind her.
“I won’t let you have her, Stacy.”
“I am her mother, Nicole. You are not. Besides, I never said anything about keeping her. I’m busy and have other things to do. You pretend that you’re her mommy for the moment. I really don’t care. I’m here to see her. Talk to her. Let her know that my disappearance isn’t like our mom’s.”
For a beat I think I see something human there. But it’s Stacy speaking. I put it out of my mind.
“You can’t,” I tell her. “It will confuse her.”
“Yes, Nicole,” she says. “You’ll have to tell her that you’ve lied to her. I know that will be hard for you.”
“Give me until next weekend,” I say.
“You’ve had enough time.”
“Please. What does a few more days matter?”
“Says the girl who doesn’t have to live in a dump like this.” Stacy gestures dismissively around the suite and its luxe fabrics and wall coverings. Not exactly Architectural Digest or Town & Country, but a far cry from an HGTV do-it-yourself building project.
Compared to the home we grew up in, the one that I live in with Emma, this is the Taj Mahal.
“Are you sure that’s all you want?” I ask.
Stacy strokes the stem of her glass.
“I don’t lie about everything,” she says with a laugh that is meant to be ironic.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Monday, August 28
Carter and I huddle over my computer as I push the “Play” arrow on the video from American Security Services. It has been thirteen days since Ally died in her father’s searing-hot Subaru. The picture shows the area by the dumpsters where we stopped after retracing Luke’s route. I try to advance the video to the 9:00 a.m. hour.
“This could be a while,” I say. “The file won’t let me fast-forward.”
“Maybe Angelina can get it to work,” Carter suggests. “I’ll get her.”
Carter disappears down the hall.
I watch as I sift through papers. At this rate, it will take more than forty minutes to get to the time in which we’ll scrutinize every second of the video. I’m grateful for the video for countless reasons, although there is one above all others. It takes my mind off Stacy for a moment. I can almost feel the bricks she’s stacked on my chest shift enough to let me breathe.
Carter comes back with two cups of office coffee.
“Caffeine is a good idea,” I say. “Thanks.”
He sits down and crab walks his chair a little closer to get a better view of the video on the screen.
“Angelina is in the middle of something,” he says. “She’ll be down here in a few.”
“Nine a.m.,” I say.
“Luke and Ally left McDonald’s five minutes ago for WinCo,” he says.
“Right,” I acknowledge. “A drive that will take him about fourteen minutes.”
The image looks like a still photo.
“You sure that’s recording the scene?” Carter asks. “Looks still. Nothing moving.”
I set down my coffee and tap the corner.
“Except for this rat,” I say. A rat is grooming itself just under the first dumpster, by one of the wheels.
Carter leans in. “Cute little guy.”
It’s now three minutes after nine.
“Nothing,” I say, feeling disappointment set in, though I try to shake it off. “The window of time could be larger.”
“If he stopped there,” Carter says.
“He stopped somewhere,” I say. “He had to. No one could drive that slow.”
Just as Angelina comes in, Luke’s Subaru comes into view.
My heart drops.
“Need some tech help?” she says.
I put my finger to my lips. “Luke stopped here.”
“Holy crap,” Carter says.
Angelina hovers over me.
Another car pulls in. I recognize it immediately.
“What is she doing there?” I ask.
My eyes meet Carter’s.
“Holy shit,” he says.
“Who is it?” Angelina asks, clearly not as immersed in the case as Carter and I.
I let out some air because I realize that I haven’t breathed. “It’s Mia Tomlinson’s car.”
“What he said,” Angelina says. “Wow. This changes things, doesn’t it?”
We watch as Mia, as clear as day, gets out of her car and goes to the driver’s side of the Subaru. She’s wearing her nurse’s aide smock—the same Tweety Bird that she had on when she came to the department to defend her husband against the charges that he’d intentionally left their baby in the car to die. Her hair is up. Her fingers jab into the air as she speaks.
“God, I wish these things had audio,” Carter says.
Instinctively, I look for the volume control, though the recording has no sound.
“What is she saying to him?” I ask.
“What is she doing there?” Carter asks.
We watch Mia and Luke in silence. The camera catches Mia looking in the backseat at Ally, though she’s too small and we can’t see the baby at all. But she’s there. We know that. The conversation is animated, though again we are unable to see Luke’s face, only Mia’s.
“Whatever she’s telling Luke,” Carter says of Ally’s mother, “she’s not holding anything back, is she?”
“Apparently not,” I say.
Mia turns to leave and looks around. By my estimation, she’s been there two minutes. Just as I add that in my notes for the updated time line, I catch something surprising.
“She sees the camera,” I say, looking at Carter and Angelina.
“Nice,” Carter says. “I wonder if that’s been percolating in her mind. I hope so.”
“She’s a part of this,” Angelina says.
I nod. “Yeah. We’re going to need to tread lightly here. She doesn’t know what we know.”
“How did she come and go from work undetected?” Carter asks.
“Trevor said she missed a staff celebration that morning.”
“Right,” Carter says. “Wouldn’t take her long to get from the hospital to the dumpsters and back.”
“Ten minutes,” I say. “Including the two minutes here. Still, we don’t know why she was there.”
Ange
lina reaches for her phone.
“I’m going to text my sister, Elena. She’s deaf and a pretty good lip-reader.”
“I didn’t know that Elena was deaf,” I say.
“I know, right?” Angelina says. “I don’t even think of her as being deaf. I’ve always thought of her as just being Elena. She was born that way and Mom and Dad raised her—raised all of us—to just see that as a trait, like hair color. Something that didn’t define her or us.”
She sends a text, and a second later she gets one back.
“She can be here in a bit,” Angelina says, looking up. Elena works in a medical office on Douglas. “Keep in mind, lip-reading isn’t an exact science, but she’s pretty good at it. Gets more than most do. This video is pretty clear for this kind of thing.”
Elena Marco Potter looks so much like her sister Angelina that I think they are twins, which they are not. Elena is younger by three years. Her hair is black, and she wears it in a bob that accentuates just how thick her locks are. While Angelina favors sweatpants for work in the lab, her sister is dressed in a skirt and blouse for her job as a claims mediator at the medical center. She smiles at us when Angelina makes the introductions using American Sign Language.
As she translates, Angelina glances over at me, then silently shifts her eyes to her sister. It’s a subtle reminder of what Angelina told us before we gathered in the conference room to watch Luke and Mia.
“Remember, even when I’m signing, it’s rude not to look at my sister. Deaf people should be addressed directly. Don’t ask her to speak through me. Just look at Elena. Like I said, lip-reading isn’t always one hundred percent. Some get only half of what they see. That’s pretty good too. When you speak to Elena, just take your time and enunciate.”
Elena’s eyes are fixed on my lips.
“Thank you for coming,” I tell her, realizing instantly that I’m speaking too slowly and too loudly. I tone it down. “As your sister says, we’re going to look at some video. It goes without saying, but I have to remind you that this is confidential. We’re in the middle of the case. You can’t tell anyone about what you’ve seen here. All right?”
Elena takes a seat and gives an affirmative nod. She signs something to her sister, and Angelina translates.
“I will not tell anyone,” Angelina says. She’s not saying “She won’t”; she’s interpreting for her sister the way she was taught.
Before Elena arrived, Angelina told us, “I’m a conduit. I’m not speaking for her, but I’m using her words.”
Angelina turns on the projector, and for once it works perfectly. The video starts.
Using both sign language and her voice, Angelina tells us that she was able to get the fast-forward feature to work. She immediately goes to the first frame in which Mia appears next to her husband’s car.
Elena retrieves some glasses from her purse and puts them on. She leans closer to the screen. The three of us sit there riveted until Mia gets back into her car and drives away with Luke following her.
Elena signs to her sister.
Angelina gives a nod.
“Let’s watch it again,” she says.
I hold my breath as Angelina cues up the video for a second viewing. I think of Mia and how she acted at the funeral. I think of the neighbors and the coworkers who said that she was more interested in her career than her baby. How I pushed back on that because—as Mia flat-out told me—it did feel like she was being judged for going back to work rather than staying home with her baby. She said she’d searched the same things on the Internet as her husband had—because they were concerned. Maybe even a little obsessed with the idea. Cases had been on the news, that much was true.
Luke Tomlinson couldn’t keep it in his pants. He was loathsome in every way. Mia seemed like the proverbial better half, though complicated, conflicted, and bitter at some of the things in the way of her achieving whatever it was that she was going after. A nursing career, I think, doesn’t tip the scales toward murder—not in the darkest of minds.
Up on the screen, Mia starts talking to Luke.
Elena motions for her sister to pause the video, which Angelina does immediately. Elena starts signing and Angelina translates.
“She’s saying, ‘Don’t do this. Don’t do this to me.’”
“Mia was there to stop her husband,” I say, looking at Carter. He pushes away from the table and looks in my direction. He’s just as horrified as I am.
Angelina replays the same segment, and now that I know the words, I too can tell that’s what Mia is saying.
Angelina signs and speaks to her sister.
“On to the next part of the conversation?”
Elena nods as her sister starts up the video. Elena’s gaze is intense. She shakes her head a little as she watches Mia appear to tell off her husband. Mia’s face is a study in controlled rage.
Angelina stops the video when Mia stops to take a breath.
Elena signs to her sister, and Angelina proceeds to the next piece of the conversation.
“‘What’s the matter with you, Luke? Are you crazy? What kind of man are you? Just stop this right now.’”
“You’re right. She was there to stop him,” Carter says. “Didn’t see that coming. Didn’t have any idea that she knew what he was up to.”
“If she was so worried about Luke doing this,” I say to Carter, “then why didn’t she call the day care to make sure Ally arrived safely?”
While we speak, Angelina signs to her sister.
Elena waves her hand at us and indicates the video on the screen.
“Does Elena think she’s gotten it wrong?” I ask, recalling that lip-reading may not be exact.
“No,” Angelina says. “There’s more.”
She pushes “Play,” and the video starts up again.
Elena stands and walks closer to the screen. Her fingers are out, and she nearly touches its surface. When she turns around, she looks at all of us. Her eyes are full of tears.
Angelina stands. “What is it?”
Elena’s hands wave and swoop through the air, her fingers firing on all cylinders as she conveys what she’s seen.
“Are you sure?” Angelina asks.
Elena nods.
“Here Mia is saying, ‘You do this. You get this done. You do it or everyone will know about you. You know you don’t want that, right? Grow a pair, Luke.’”
“That bitch,” Carter says. “She wasn’t there to stop him.”
“No,” I say. “She was there to make sure he went through with it. She followed him.”
We sit in astonished silence.
My phone gives off a faint ping. I look at the text. It’s from my sister. I know I can no longer avoid her and ignore what she’s after. I know that despite the fact that her presence has turned my life into the Titanic on her maiden voyage, there is nothing left to do but turn her in to the police. It’s hard to say what she will do. She might fight it through an expensive lawyer. And she could win. She might grab me like a crab in a pot and pull me under with her. In any case, the love of my life, Emma, will be in good hands. I look over at Carter. His good hands.
Stacy: Don’t forget, I want to see her today.
Me: I know. After work. I have a big case.
Stacy: You’ll be a big case. Don’t even think about screwing me over. I don’t fight fair.
Understatement of the new millennium, one I’m nearly certain can never be beaten.
Me: The Ocean Shores cabin. Promise. I’ll be there. So will Emma.
Stacy: Fine. I’ll be there.
Me: After work.
I look up at Carter, Angelina, and Elena. They have been watching me text with my sister. My face turns crimson.
“Sorry. My sister. Lots of family drama.”
Carter shakes his head a little. “Yeah, I know.”
I turn to Angelina. “Can we show Elena the video from WinCo?”
“Good idea,” she says. She signs to her sister, and Elena nods.
This video is far less dramatic. It shows Luke walking to his car and saying something to someone out of the range of the security camera. At first we thought it might have been Rachel Cromwell, since she worked at WinCo. But she told us she’d had nothing to do with Luke since their breakup.
The video that captured Luke after lunch with his coworkers at Jersey Mike’s is ready, and we watch.
Again Elena is taking her task seriously. Her face shows no emotion this time as her eyes take in the movements of Luke’s lips. When the clip is over, she looks at us, then at her sister. She signs.
Angelina turns the hand gestures into words: “‘God, I shouldn’t have done this. God, help me.’”
I look at Carter. “He’s talking to himself. There isn’t anyone there.”
“Yeah, and he’s full of remorse,” Angelina says.
My stomach roils, and I know it has nothing to do with what I’ve eaten. I’m sickened by the Tomlinsons.
“Not enough remorse to save his daughter,” I say. “She might have still been alive when he said that, according to the M.E.”
For a moment, the four of us are lost in thought, too sickened to speak.
“He might be protesting a little much here,” Carter finally says. “The truth is he’s the one who left Ally in the car to die.”
Angelina speaks up. “He’s a pig and a killer. But Mom is the button pusher. Like, I know this isn’t my area, but the tape doesn’t lie.”
I thank Elena for her help, and I turn to Carter.
“Let’s go pick her up.”
“Can’t think of anything better to do,” he says. “In fact, it might make my entire day.”
“Week,” I say.
“Year,” he says.
“Since it is so close by, how about a stop at the jail and a little visit with Luke?” I ask.
Carter gives me that handsome smile of his. “Now I know this is the best day ever.”
My phone pings, and I look down at a text. It’s Ocean View. My father fell again.
“You chat up the prosecutor’s office,” I say. “I have an errand that can’t wait.”
