Stolen

by Carey Baldwin

  “Like this reporter, I know you, my friends, are deeply curious, given the mysterious past of one of our nation’s most notable families. SLY has managed to obtain, from an anonymous source, a logbook containing an entry signed Laura Chaucer, as well as a shocking note, purportedly written by Laura herself.”

  Laura’s vision clouded.

  She grabbed onto the buffet table for support.

  The note!

  “We received this important evidence mere hours ago, and our managing editor, the esteemed Roland Pritchard, has already contacted the FBI and the Denver Major Crimes unit. Naturally, we’ll be turning both items over to the authorities as soon as arrangements can be made. But the public has the right to know the contents of this disturbing letter.”

  Laura’s heart had galloped itself out, and now was limping along at a slow clip-clop in her chest. She chugged the rest of her juice, hoping the extra fluid might keep her from fainting. It sloshed around in her stomach, making her want to retch.

  Kourtney’s red lips opened and closed like a talking doll.

  Laura couldn’t look away as the terrible words came out of the reporter’s garish mouth:

  Dear Mommy and Daddy,

  I’ve done it again. I know you don’t want to believe that your child, whom you have lavished with so much love, could be a murderer. But finally, I need you to believe the truth.

  This is the real me.

  It was I who killed Angelina Antonelli. I can’t explain why or how. I have no memory of the event itself. My mind goes blank, as if I’m in a deep, deep sleep.

  But now I’m awake, and I know I’ve done wrong. The evidence is right here in my hand. All these years, I’ve kept a lock of Angelina’s hair.

  And now, I’ve killed my beautiful friend, Harriet Beckerman.

  I’m holding her hair in my hand as well. I tied it with a ribbon, just like Angelina’s.

  I’ll enclose both in this envelope as proof I’m telling the truth.

  Harriet befriended me when I moved to Denver. She was haunted by her own demons and reached out to help me.

  I can’t believe this is how I repaid her.

  I’m sorry, sorry, sorry.

  I’m like the little girl in that movie The Bad Seed. No matter how hard I try, I cannot control my impulses. There’s only one way for me to stop.

  Please forgive me for leaving you like this, but I must end this nightmare once and for all. It’s the only way I can be sure I’ll never hurt anyone again. I’m such a coward. I tried once more, and failed once more, to die by cutting my own throat. But, I have pills, and I promise to finish the job.

  Do not blame yourselves. You’ve done everything a mother and father could do.

  I love you.

  This is good-bye.

  Laura

  Chapter 36

  Sunday, October 27

  8:30 A.M.

  Boulder, Colorado

  Last night, after being “officially” ordered off the Chaucer case and “unofficially” told to lay low nearby, Spense and Caity traveled to Boulder to be with the moms. Though it frustrated him, mostly because he knew he was to blame for getting Caity blackballed by the Major Crimes commander, Spense couldn’t help thinking the situation wasn’t all bad. He had some very important family business to attend, which was why he’d flown his mom, Agatha, out to be with Caity’s mom, Arlene. This visit gave him the perfect chance to drop his bomb without having to abandon his mother before she could process the news.

  And with four back-to-back cases in a row, he knew Caity could use a breather.

  He knocked, waited a beat, then pushed open the door to Caity’s room. He’d been to Arlene and Caity Cassidy’s Boulder home before, but he’d never seen her bedroom. “Not a knickknack kind of a girl, are you?”

  Caity sat on a bench in front of the vanity mirror in the nearly naked space. She ran her fingers through her melted chocolate hair, swiped on some Chapstick and turned to him—stopping his heart dead. “I’m hardly ever here.”

  He knew that, of course. Caity traveled a lot with her psychiatric consulting business, and up until recently things had been tense between her mother and her. He suspected she shared a house with her mostly out of a sense of duty, and that this was more rest stop than home. Still, he’d expected something more than four vanilla walls, an off-white bedspread, and a photograph of her father displayed on the vanity.

  Spense made a mental note to get her a colorful throw pillow and a scented candle. Maybe his mom could help pick them out.

  “Arlene said to tell you she wants us both home for dinner.”

  “Why doesn’t she tell me herself?”

  “She just went out—some kind of friend in need.”

  Caity nodded. “Right. She mentioned it last night. Her neighbor, Bailey, doesn’t drive. This is the day Mom chauffeurs her around to do errands and such.”

  She got up and took his hand.

  Thank God the woman was no good at holding grudges.

  “I think I’ll run some errands of my own. Might be a good time for you to have your talk with Agatha.”

  He’d been thinking the same. He kissed the top of her head, then sat down on the vanity bench and kicked out his legs. “Agreed. What do you make of Kourtney Kennedy getting up in our business again?”

  She let out a breath. “Don’t be too hard on her, Spense. It’s Kourtney’s job to break stories. She’s ambitious, but she’s not mean-spirited. And I’m not sure reading that letter on the air was harmful. Now the public’s got an idea that Laura might be dangerous, and Major Crimes doesn’t have to take heat from the senator for putting it out there.”

  “But Kourtney bought evidence.”

  “You mean her news organization did, and they turned it over to the cops right away. We might never have gotten hold of that note and logbook otherwise. And, even though Kourtney didn’t divulge who her source was, at least she told you what he was.”

  Even that, he’d had to drag out of Kourtney with threats. Her anonymous source was a mountain man. One of the loner types Ranger Pandy said lived off the grid. He’d gone to Frank’s Cabin looking for shelter and found a bloody mess instead. From what Kourtney told Spense on the phone, it sounded as if the anonymous mountain man had arrived sometime after their hiker, but before the cops. He’d found a logbook in the cabin and a note that had blown under the porch. When he’d seen the Chaucer’s press conference on a barroom television, he realized what he had was worth money, and he figured he could get more from the tabloids than the measly ten grand reward the Chaucers were offering.

  He’d been right.

  SLY News paid him double and made him a solemn promise to keep his name out of it.

  “Maybe it won’t wreak too much havoc. But I remember Kourtney making a big show of turning over a new leaf. She said she’d learned her lesson after interfering with the Fallen Angel Killer case.”

  Caity let out a low laugh. “You believed her?”

  “Point taken.” He pulled Caity in for a hug. “Wish me luck with Mom.”

  “Chocolate chip or oatmeal?” Agatha asked Spense.

  “Oatmeal.” He liked chocolate chip better, but oats were good for his cholesterol.

  “Good choice. I wouldn’t want to see you . . .” His mother’s voice trailed off and he finished her sentence in his head, go the way your father did.

  He wouldn’t either. In more ways than one.

  Arlene Cassidy’s kitchen was the opposite of her daughter’s bedroom. Painted a sunny yellow, the walls were covered with framed inspirational quotes, oversized metal spoons, wooden geese, and coloring book art from the neighborhood kids.

  His mother, Agatha, pulled a chair up next to him at the kitchen table, and set a plate of homemade oatmeal cookies on the lace tablecloth.

  He broke one in half, dipped it in his tumbler of milk, and took a bite that made his heart smile. His boyhood was filled with memories like these. He was very lucky in the mom department. He cleared his
throat. He used to think he was lucky in the dad department, too. But after the information he’d uncovered about his father, while working his last case, that had changed.

  “Not to be a Debbie downer—but a family history of early death due to heart attack puts you at risk.”

  He turned his palms up. “You’re the one who made cookies. And I can’t control my family history.”

  “But you can control your diet and exercise.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Mom. I’m a good boy, I promise. You have no idea how much sh— . . . ribbing I take for my veggie burgers. According to the Bureau, real special agents eat meat. It’s in the manifesto.”

  She laughed. “Thank you, son.”

  “For what?”

  “Just for being you. Since your father died, you’ve been looking out for me in every way a mother could hope. And I think these good habits of yours are more for my sake than your own.”

  She had that right. He didn’t want his mother to suffer another loss. Which was why, at the moment, his vocal cords had suddenly gone on strike.

  “You said you had something important to talk about.”

  He sipped his milk. There, that was a bit better.

  “Atticus?”

  He thumped his chest with his fist and coughed to get his throat working again.

  She started to refill his tumbler of milk.

  He should just rip off the bandage. There really was no good way to break the news. “It’s about Dad.”

  Her hand froze midpour. Milk overflowed onto Arlene Cassidy’s fancy lace tablecloth. “Heavens to Betsy!” His mother set down the carton and tried sopping up the mess with the lone napkin available. “Look what I’ve done. I’ve got to get this tablecloth in the wash right away. I’d hate for Arlene to come home and—”

  He reached out and laid his hand over hers. “It’s okay. I’ll buy her another one. We need to talk about Jack.”

  She drew her hand away and straightened in her chair. “Atticus, please don’t refer to your father by his first name. It’s disrespectful.”

  “I’m sorry.” He was sorry his changed attitude toward his father hurt his mother, even in this small way. But he wasn’t sorry for disrespecting Jack. He didn’t think of Jack as Dad anymore, so why call him that?

  He could say Father. That would work.

  Father was easy enough and accurate. Jack Spenser had sired him and raised him until he fell over from a heart attack. But even so, to Spense, he’d never be Dad again. “I love you, Mom.”

  Her chin was up, she was looking him square in the eyes, and she was so quiet, he wasn’t sure she was breathing.

  Which was strange.

  Because he hadn’t so much as hinted about a problem, yet clearly she was anticipating the worst.

  Her shoulders rose and fell.

  Good. She was breathing after all.

  “You don’t have to tell me anything, Atticus. There’s very little about your father I don’t already know.”

  “I’m afraid there is.”

  She wadded up the soaked napkin in her hand and tossed it with amazing accuracy into the wastebasket. “I don’t think so, my love.”

  He rubbed his temples with his fingers. Her eyes held such love, so much compassion. The look on her face was like the one he remembered from Jack’s funeral. The one that seemed to say that no matter how bad things got, she’d always be there to make it better for him.

  “Don’t worry, honey. Whatever it is, it’s going to be all right.”

  There was no possible way she could guess how wrong she was. Time to stop drawing this out. It wasn’t going to get any easier. “My father was unfaithful to you.”

  She didn’t look away. Her expression didn’t change. She didn’t even blink.

  “Not just in a small way. He . . .” It was Spense who had to look down. He hated what he had to tell her. He took a long breath and glanced up again. If she was strong enough to have this conversation without flinching, then so was he. “It went on for years—most of my childhood.”

  “Yes, I think it probably did.” She picked up a cookie then put it back on the plate.

  He felt as though he was listening to her speak from under water.

  “Thank you for telling me. I didn’t know, for a fact, that he cheated. But since the day of his funeral, I suspected.”

  “Why didn’t you say something? Maybe you didn’t want to tell me when I was young, but after all these years . . .”

  “Like I said, I wasn’t sure. And with your father dead and gone, I didn’t see the point in tainting his memory for either one of us.” She sighed heavily. “After the funeral, while you were on the floor of your father’s study, desperately trying to put his Rubik’s cube back the way it should be, I was going through bank statements, clothing, shoe boxes. I found photographs . . . of a beautiful blond woman. I found an embroidered handkerchief that wasn’t mine, scented with a strange perfume. Ticket stubs from movies your father and I had never been to. I didn’t have proof, but in my heart, I felt it. All those business trips to Dallas over the years. Is that where she lived?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “I met her in Texas. On our last case.” There was so much more to tell her, but she looked tired. “Let’s go into the living room and hang out on the sofa. I’ll pour you something stronger than milk, and I’ll tell you everything.”

  “It’s not even 9 a.m.!”

  “If I can have cookies for breakfast, you can have sherry.”

  A half hour later, his stoic mother drained the last drop of pink liquid from her goblet, and blew her nose on the last tissue from the Kleenex box. Spense was mad as hell at Jack Spenser, but she was taking it better than expected. She’d cried a lot, yes, but she hadn’t sobbed. And she hadn’t uttered a single angry word. He didn’t understand it, but Jack was her husband, and she had a right to react however she wanted. If she wanted to forgive the cheating bastard, Spense wasn’t going to try to stop her.

  “Atticus.” She looked up at him with red-rimmed, watery eyes. “I need you to believe that your father loved you, because I swear to you, he truly did. You were his whole world.”

  That was bullshit, but let her believe whatever she needed. “Sure.”

  “I adored him, with all my heart. I wouldn’t trade my life with your father for another, more perfect version of him, even if I could. I loved and still love a flawed man. But you, my dear, are as close to perfect as any son could be. You inherited all of your father’s good traits and not a single one of the bad.”

  “I don’t know about that, but I’m damn sure not a cheater.”

  She grabbed his hand. “Look at me, please.”

  It was hard. He couldn’t forgive and forget so easily as his mother. But then again, it had all come as a complete shock to him, whereas she’d suspected for a long time that his father had been living a double life.

  “Promise me you won’t turn cynical about marriage. Promise me you won’t let your father’s mistakes stop you from enjoying a full, joyful life with the woman you love.” She pulled his chin up so he could no longer avoid her eyes. “I’m talking about Caitlin, son. Don’t you dare let her get away.”

  Chapter 37

  Sunday, October 27

  10:30 A.M.

  Pearl Street

  Boulder, Colorado

  Caitlin whirled and checked out her reflection in the dress-shop mirror. She didn’t usually go on shopping expeditions in the middle of a case, but then again she hadn’t planned on being blackballed, nor had she planned on her mother giving away her favorite fall coat along with most of her winter work clothes to the church. It seemed there was a single mom around Caitlin’s age and build who needed warm clothes, and as her mom had pointed out, Caitlin hadn’t bought anything new in years. This was her mother’s way of nudging her into updating her look, and doing good at the same time. It was a win-win, according to Arlene Cassidy. Only Caitlin was now stuck prowling the Pearl St
reet Mall instead of perusing murder files.

  She greatly preferred the latter.

  But it was all good—Spense needed privacy to talk to his mother.

  News like that wouldn’t be easy to either tell or hear. Hopefully, they were getting through it okay.

  She wished there was something she could do to brighten their rough day.

  Then she remembered an independent bookshop, just around the corner that carried crosswords, ciphers, and even San Gaku. On the way home, she’d stop and pick up some puzzles for Spense and a copy of the new Harper Lee for Agatha.

  But first, she had to fulfill her promise to her mother. She waggled her eyebrows at the reflection staring back at her in the mirror. This dress ought to do the trick—a pretty blue silk she could wear to dinner with Spense. The skirt was snug in the butt and shorter than her usual fare, but she was fairly certain that was what her mother had meant when she’d used the term update.

  Caitlin stepped out of the dressing room in her bare feet and slowly rotated in front of the triple glass to get a better look at the back.

  “Is it too much?” she asked the young woman who’d been helping her—Darcy.

  “It’s uber sexy.” Darcy put her finger on her chin. “But you still look classy—I think you can definitely pull it off. Is it for someone special?”

  Caitlin flushed and hesitated. But it wasn’t like Darcy would spill her secrets. “Yes. At least I hope so. We’ve known each other for years—but most of that time, I’m afraid we were butting heads.”

  “Frenemies to lovers. That’s hot.”

  “Our romantic relationship is still pretty new.”

  “And exciting, I bet. Then this is just the ticket. You look stunning in it. The royal blue really complements your eyes, and that fabric really complements your figure.”

  Caitlin was warming up to this whole shopping thing. Maybe she should do it more often. “Okay. I’ll take it.”

  She returned to the dressing area and slipped out of the sleek silk and into her jeans. Back at the checkout counter, Darcy hung the dress and pulled a plastic protector over it. Then she opened a box, folded a sheer lace bra and a blue thong in tissue paper and closed the lid.