Closer Than You Think

by Karen Rose

  Deacon froze. No way. No fucking way. He snatched the photo from Bishop’s hands. ‘We don’t need a BOLO. I’ve seen this woman. Tuesday morning. She called herself Mary.’ He caught Faith’s gaze, held it. ‘This is Jordan’s housekeeper.’

  The color drained from her face. ‘No.’

  Deacon pulled out a chair and gently pushed her into it. ‘I’m sorry, honey.’

  She shook her head. ‘This is not possible. He couldn’t have killed all those women. He couldn’t have tried to kill me. He’s not even the right size. The man who came through my window was big. The size of Combs. And the man who shot at us from the hotel room across the street was big too. He was on the camera. You said so. This can’t be right.’

  He crouched beside her chair. ‘But the man who took Roza matched your uncles’ build.’

  ‘Stone and Marcus switched places to fool Stone’s Fed tail,’ Bishop added. ‘Marcus is probably forty pounds lighter, but wore a padded coat. From a distance he passed for Stone. Your uncle might have done the same.’

  Deacon let Faith recover from the initial shock, knowing her denial would be short-lived in the face of facts. It took her less time than he’d expected, confirming that she’d suspected this herself. She was just unable to believe it to be true.

  ‘Arianna said he was soft when she tried to hit him,’ Faith whispered.

  ‘You’re right,’ he said softly. ‘I’d forgotten that.’

  ‘And if he was wearing a padded suit, he might move stiffly. Like a Michelin man. Or a robot, like Combs’s girlfriend said.’ Tears filled her green eyes, streaked down her pale face. ‘Why didn’t Jade tell my grandmother? She was alone with Gran a lot of the time, taking care of her. Gran would have helped her.’

  ‘He had Roza,’ Deacon said. ‘Jordan kept Jade in line with threats to Roza.’

  ‘That’s why he never let Roza’s mother say goodbye to her “dead sister”,’ Bishop said angrily. ‘He didn’t kill her. He’s been holding her hostage in plain sight.’

  ‘You’ve never seen her, Faith?’ Isenberg asked. ‘Not in all your visits?’

  ‘No. Whenever I came to visit, Jordan gave her time off. I used her bedroom.’

  ‘Then where did he put Jade?’ Deacon asked.

  Faith shook her head, bewildered. ‘In the basement?’

  ‘Then Roza might have seen her,’ Deacon said. He thought of the pink genie. ‘Maybe he kept her in the apartment over the art gallery. Maybe he has Roza there right now. We’ve got plenty enough for a warrant.’

  ‘I’ll get it moving,’ Bishop said. ‘We’ll turn his place upside down until we find some sign of where he’s holding Roza.’

  ‘We put unmarked cars outside both his townhouse and gallery yesterday,’ Deacon said, coming to his feet to join Bishop in the planning. ‘Jade is still inside the townhouse and Jordan didn’t come home last night. He didn’t go to work either, but add the gallery to the warrant.’

  They took a few minutes to set up the logistics, and when Deacon turned back to Faith, she was standing in front of the bulletin board, frowning ‘What is this list?’ she asked.

  ‘A list of diseases that can cause a man not to ejaculate sperm,’ he said. ‘Arianna’s rape kit was negative for fluids, even though he didn’t use a condom.’

  ‘I remember,’ she murmured. ‘Arianna was worried by that.’ She pointed to the second item on the list. ‘Testicular cancer. That’s what Jordan had when he was seventeen.’

  ‘I assumed he had leukemia,’ Deacon said.

  ‘That was Joy. Jordan’s was different.’ She frowned. ‘I remember a conversation between my parents, how my mother was complaining about Jordan, that her mother spoiled him so much. Which she did. Gran never held Jordan accountable for anything, but if the rest of us screwed up . . . watch out. Anyway, my dad said Gran felt guilty for causing Jordan’s cancer.’

  ‘How?’ Bishop asked. ‘That’s not a cancer that’s caused by anything, is it?’

  ‘I don’t know. I can call my father and ask.’ She turned to the victims’ photographs, one arm pressed against her stomach like it hurt. With the other hand she pointed to the photo of a smiling blonde. ‘Melinda Hooper was reported missing the day after Tobias’s will was read.’

  Deacon glanced at Bishop. ‘The day your mother died,’ he said carefully.

  ‘Yes.’ She drew a breath. ‘To answer your question, Detective Bishop, there wasn’t a chair. But my mother’s toes didn’t touch the floor when she was swinging. How did she do that without a chair?’

  ‘What do you think, Faith?’ Bishop asked softly.

  Deacon held his breath as Faith continued to stare at Melinda Hooper’s photo. ‘I think that it’s one hell of a coincidence that Melinda was in the basement being tortured on the same day that my mother hanged herself from the ceiling.’ She looked from Deacon to Bishop. ‘You already thought of this, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ Deacon said. ‘You’d covered a lot of memories last night. We figured this could wait until you’d had some rest and time to process.’

  ‘I’m processing now,’ she murmured. ‘Jeremy was standing there holding the rope. When I started to scream, he let the rope go and grabbed me. Covered my mouth and nose with his hand. What if my mother saw him killing this woman? What if he killed her to keep her from telling anyone?’

  ‘We don’t think you’re wrong,’ Bishop said. ‘Someone keeps trying to kill you. Like he wants to silence you before you remember or before you connect all the dots.’

  ‘Well they are well and truly connected now,’ she said, a hint of hysteria in her voice. ‘What can I do? How can I know?’

  Deacon smoothed his hand down her hair, hoping to calm her. To take the sting out of what he was going to say. ‘We can exhume your mother’s body. We’d need your permission. But we can probably confirm how she died.’

  She looked up at him, her eyes suddenly those of a child. ‘She didn’t leave me,’ she whispered, his suggestion of an exhumation ignored. She was nine years old again and had to process twenty-three years of life seen through a faulty lens. They’d come back to the present soon enough.

  ‘No, I don’t think she did,’ he whispered back.

  ‘Oh my God.’ The words were nearly inaudible, her breath coming in shallow huffs. Her voice breaking. ‘All these years I’ve hated her. But she didn’t leave me. She was the victim. All these years I didn’t say a word and he got away with it.’ She looked away as a quiet sob broke free. ‘He stole my mother from me. He broke my father’s heart and he got away with it.’ Her chin jerked up and she met Deacon’s eyes, hers fierce with fury. ‘He got away with it. And then he killed so many more.’ Angry tears rolled down her cheeks.

  Bishop put a tissue in Faith’s hand. ‘We need your help now, Faith. As hard as it is, you’re going to have to focus for us for a little while. Can you do that?’

  Faith dried her cheeks, nodding unsteadily. ‘Yes.’ Carefully she lowered herself into a chair. ‘You want to exhume my mother’s body. Can I do that without telling my father?’

  ‘Do you have his power of attorney?’ Bishop asked.

  ‘I do, since his stroke. So does Lily. But . . .’ She hesitated. ‘Can they even tell anything at this point? The body was . . . badly burned. I saw the photos. I’ll never forget it.’

  Deacon gritted his teeth. ‘Who showed you the photo of the accident, Faith?’

  Her shoulders sagged further. ‘Jordan. He wanted me to see that no one would ever know that she’d killed herself. He lied to me. Of course he lied to me. He’s a killer. Deacon, I let them do that to her. I let them take her away and put her in a car and burn her up.’

  ‘You were a child, Faith. Nine years old. You didn’t let him do anything.’

  She shook her head hard. ‘Them. It was both of them that day. Jeremy and Jordan.’

  Deacon sighed. ‘I don’t think so, honey. Stone said he remembered the day of the reading of your grandfather’s will. He remembered Jeremy
coming home devastated because he’d been accused of molesting you by your father and your mother let it happen. Stone said that the next day they went to Kings Island all day – the four of them: Jeremy, his ex-wife, Stone and Marcus.’

  ‘Stone’s lying. Or mistaken. I saw Jeremy in the basement. I saw him. I’m not crazy.’

  ‘Of course you’re not crazy,’ Bishop said firmly. ‘But Stone was not lying or mistaken. I went to see Jeremy’s ex-wife early this morning, after the three of us finished talking. I asked Della Yarborough about that day at Kings Island.’

  ‘You did?’ Deacon asked, surprised.

  Bishop shrugged. ‘I wanted to believe Marcus. He behaved like a hero and his story was the same as Stone’s. So I went to see his mother. I figured I’d wait until she woke up to see her since it was so early, but she wasn’t asleep. Her housekeeper took me up to Mickey’s room where Della was just sitting on his bed, looking lost. When I asked her about Jeremy, she said the same thing that Stone and Marcus did – that Jeremy is a good man. She told me the same story her sons had, but added a detail. She was pregnant with Audrey at the time and walked so much that day that she went into labor the next morning. They took video, Faith. She gave me the cassette. She’s as big as a house in the video. Jeremy is in it too. He even has a black eye from your father hitting him.’

  ‘It could have been manipulated,’ she said stubbornly.

  ‘Possibly,’ Bishop allowed. ‘How do you know it was Jeremy you saw in the basement?’

  ‘He had a mustache and parted his hair . . .’ Faith let the thought trail. ‘You think Jordan was pretending to be Jeremy? Why would he do that?’

  ‘To create a scapegoat?’ Deacon suggested. ‘You said Jeremy looked at you in a way that made you uncomfortable. How did you know it was him then?’

  ‘Same way. Oh my God.’ New tears filled her eyes. ‘I could have been wrong. All these years he’s been estranged from the family because of something I said.’

  ‘You were a child,’ Deacon said insistently. ‘I’m not saying Jeremy’s innocent, but you can’t know what you saw when it comes to those two. How often did you see them?’

  ‘Not often. Just when we visited Gran.’ She dragged her hands down her face, wiping the tears away. She gave herself a little shake. ‘All right. First things first. Let’s exhume my mother’s body. I need to know.’

  ‘I’ve got the form ready,’ Bishop said. ‘I just need your signature.’

  ‘Fine. I’d like to talk to Jeremy.’

  ‘Why?’ Deacon asked. ‘What do you hope to accomplish?’

  ‘I want to see his face when I tell him my mother was murdered. And if he’s innocent of all the things I’ve thought all these years, I want to apologize.’

  Deacon shook his head. ‘Just because he wasn’t there the day of your mother’s death doesn’t necessarily prove he’s innocent of everything else. He and Jordan could still be working together.’

  ‘And how can I hope to see guilt or innocence when Jordan has snowed me for so long?’

  Deacon swallowed his wince. ‘Yes,’ he said simply. ‘You’re not objective.’

  She nodded once. ‘I accept that. But don’t you want to be watching his face from the other side of the glass when I ask him about my mother?’ she challenged.

  Deacon let out a breath. ‘Hell, yeah. But you’re not leaving this building.’

  ‘I’ll ask him to come here,’ Bishop said. ‘He was touched that you went to bat for him yesterday with Isenberg so that he could be with Marcus. I’ll tell him that coming here is for your safety, so he won’t feel like he’s being interrogated.’

  Deacon caught Faith’s gaze, held it. ‘We’re going to search Jordan’s properties now. Do not talk to Jeremy until I get back.’

  ‘All right. I promise.’

  Cincinnati, Ohio, Thursday 6 November, 9.30 A.M.

  Faith waited until they were gone, then sank into a chair, trembling. Jordan wants me dead. He killed all those people. He tortured Arianna. Tortured them all. Every victim on the bulletin board. All the victims in the basement. In Florida.

  And Jeremy? Had he killed? Did he want to kill her too? Would she even see it in his face if he did? How could she possibly have been so blind?

  She closed her eyes as a wave of grief stole her breath. Mama. All these years she’d hated her mother. All these years. She hunched in on herself, covering her mouth to muffle a whimper, desperately trying to hold it together.

  I’m sorry, Mama. I’m sorry. She let herself cry silently for all the times she’d missed her mother. For all the nights her father had drunk himself to sleep alone.

  And then she saw Jordan, all those years. Laughing with her. Partying with her. Rock concerts and beer. Why? Why would he do that? But when she looked back at those years through the filter of truth, she understood.

  He hadn’t been laughing with her. He’d been laughing at her. And all the partying . . . God. He’d encouraged her to do so many unsafe things. To go with unsafe people. To indulge in a lifestyle that could have easily resulted in her becoming an addict or a drunk. Or dead. Then his problems would have been solved. His dead niece couldn’t tell his secret. Couldn’t expose him.

  And had she tried to tell? Who would have believed her? She’d had a nervous breakdown. She’d snuck out to parties and concerts and into bars on fake IDs. Her grandmother would never have believed her. Jordan had covered all his bases, hadn’t he?

  Fury suddenly burst within her, burning her up, leaving her cold and focused. And needing revenge. Justice. And answers.

  ‘Why?’ she demanded of the empty room. Nervous energy had her surging to her feet, pacing. A clean whiteboard was mounted next to the bulletin board, an irresistible invitation to make a list.

  In bold capitals she wrote WHY??? And beneath it, she listed her questions. What made Jordan this way? She’d slept in the townhouse countless times, oblivious to the danger. Why didn’t he kill me while I slept? What’s up with the fake applicants? Who’s getting their money? Why didn’t an audit pick it up? Why these victims?

  She looked at the faces of the victims. All blonde, she wrote. All young. All connected to moments of rage.

  All connected to moments when Jordan had lost what he thought should have been his inheritance.

  ‘They got your money,’ she said quietly. ‘They got scholarship funds and that money should have been yours.’ She shook her head, even as she noted it on the whiteboard. ‘But it’s more than that.’ Deeper than that. ‘There’s too much rage for it just to be about money.’

  Of the four O’Bannion children, Joy was the only blonde. The others were redheads. She wrote this down, then stepped back.

  ‘You hate Joy,’ she said. ‘You keep killing Joy. She took your money.’ Her gaze swept over the victims’ photographs. ‘And then all of you took his money.’

  ‘I agree.’

  Faith wheeled around to see Isenberg in a chair behind her, calmly munching a Danish. ‘When did you get here?’ Faith demanded, her hand pressed to her pounding heart.

  ‘I’ve been here all along,’ Isenberg said, ‘sitting behind your boxes. Novak and Bishop had everything under control, so I did my email. But when you started pacing, I wanted to see what you’d do. What you wrote makes sense. And I imagine he didn’t kill you in your sleep for the same reason he didn’t shoot you when you were at the cemetery on Sunday afternoon. He didn’t want to give the police any reason to investigate him.’

  ‘He wanted to lure me away and kill me in private. Like maybe in a car accident like the one I had three years ago.’ Faith turned back to the whiteboard. What happened three years ago? she wrote. ‘It’s been nagging at me.’

  ‘It should. It’s a glaringly missing piece.’

  ‘I got a divorce that year. And moved from the house I had with Charlie into this tiny apartment in a bad Miami neighborhood that made Dad nervous.’ Her heart sank. ‘And Gran, too. Gran said I needed to leave Miami, that it was too dangerous.
That . . .’ She swallowed hard. ‘She said that I should come home.’ And then Faith knew what she needed to do. Reluctantly she dialed Henson and Henson.

  ‘Did you get the files?’ Mrs Lowell asked.

  Faith put her on speaker. ‘I did, thank you. Your indexing of the box contents allowed me to find the family of the missing eleven-year-old very quickly. But this morning I have another question. Can you tell me if my grandmother made any revisions to her will in the last few years?’

  ‘I can check the computer for the change history . . . Here we are . . . Barbara filed the original will a few months after her husband died and updated it four times over the years. The last time was three years ago, on July 24.’

  Faith drew a breath, struggled to keep her voice calm. Her car accident had been three days later. Two days after that, a victim had been taken, tortured and buried in her basement. ‘What was the nature of that change?’

  ‘She did a complete overhaul and made you her heir.’

  Faith had known she’d say that, but still it hurt to hear. ‘Who was the heir before me?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that.’

  Faith nearly snarled. ‘Mrs Lowell, someone has tried repeatedly to kill me since I inherited the house. Someone also tried to kill me on July 27, three days after Gran changed her will.’

  ‘Oh my goodness,’ Mrs Lowell said on a rush. ‘But . . . I can’t tell you, Faith. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Was it Jordan? Please, Mrs Lowell. Not only has someone tried to kill me since I inherited the house, they have killed twelve people in the last month trying to get to me. I can’t go on like this, wondering who is going to be next. Was it Jordan?’

  An exhale. ‘Faith. I can’t tell you that it was. But I won’t tell you that it wasn’t.’

  Faith shuddered out a breath, her suspicion confirmed. ‘All right. Can you tell me who manages the books for the Foundation, and have we been audited? As I’ll be taking on my grandmother’s place on the board, I need to know.’

  Mrs Lowell’s answer was wary. ‘The board hired Michelle Vance as its accountant. We haven’t been audited in some time, actually. Not since Mr Henson Junior was here. Why?’