Smoke and Mirrors

by Cheryl Bradshaw

  “Keep going. Three minutes.”

  “Were you in a special therapy group with Evan Hall that Caroline started?”

  He nodded.

  “How many others in the program?”

  “Three. Well, including Petey and myself, five. Two minutes.”

  As he counted down, I thought about what I could do to stall him.

  “What was the purpose of the program?”

  “Read the book and find out.”

  “What book?” I asked.

  “The book tucked inside your handbag.”

  “What are the names of the others in the program?”

  “What an unethical question.”

  “Are you done killing?” I asked.

  “Regrettably, no. I don’t think so.”

  “Who’s your next target?”

  “You, for starters, and then I suppose I should tie up loose ends. It’s unfortunate the senator survived. I’m still not certain how, although you were a most unwelcome distraction at the time. One inch less, and the man lived. I’m sure you’re proud of yourself for that.”

  “To see him live and you fail? Very.”

  “One minute, and now it’s my turn. Why did you come all this way to help a man you barely even know find a person you know nothing about?”

  “It’s what I do.”

  “You admit you took the job for the money, then?”

  “Nothing I do is ever just a job. I go after men like you to stop you from doing more harm than you already have.”

  “Wrong. You go after men like me to fill a void in your own life. You go after men like me because you’re afraid if you don’t, your life will lack the luster you so desperately seek. Take away the thrill of the chase, and your life has no meaning. I fulfill something in you. Something dark and disturbing. Something you don’t want anyone else to see or know about. You don’t just want to find me, you ache when you don’t.”

  “You’re wrong,” I said. “You know nothing about me or my life.”

  He bent his head toward me. “I never took you for a liar. At any rate, we’ll have to agree to disagree for now because your time is up.”

  “You have no regrets over what you’ve done, do you?”

  “I don’t think about it much, one way or the other.” He paused a moment. “Well, I suppose that’s not true. I don’t care about what others think about what I’ve done. All that matters is what I think of myself and whether I can justify my own actions. So far, I can.”

  He tipped his head toward me, and as his window went back up, he said, “You’ve made your choice to stay, and I accept it. When next we meet again, it will be the end ... for one of us.”

  The man pulled back onto the road. I slipped in behind him, and the chase was on.

  “Did you hear all that?” I asked.

  “Every word,” James said. “We recorded it.”

  “You wouldn’t happen to recognize his voice?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “I have his license plate number.”

  “Good work. Give it to me.”

  I gave it to him.

  “I’ll pass it along,” he said. “See what we can find out.”

  “How’s Grace? What happened?”

  “She’s fine, for now. I’ll fill you in later. We’re still several minutes away. Where are you right now?”

  “On the road again. He’s in front of me.”

  “Be careful, Sloane.”

  “Always.”

  No sooner had the word left my lips than the man made a sharp, right-hand turn, his car diving into what appeared to be nothing but a grove of trees. I jerked the car around and circled back, entering where he had. In front of me was a dirt road. I followed it for a couple of minutes, but there was no sign of his vehicle anywhere. A minute later, the road came to an abrupt end.

  I got out of the car, scanning the area, but saw nothing.

  I was empty-handed.

  He was in the wind.

  I came across James and Noel on the road, and we followed each other back to the police station, a place I was sure James wasn’t excited to be so soon after he’d left. Before we had entered the station, James wondered whether it might be better to tell the police about my conversation with the killer instead of playing the recording. He worried that revealing who I really was to the police and what I did for a living would land me in hot water. I assumed it would. But audible evidence of the killer’s actual voice was too good not to share, especially if there was a chance he could be identified.

  I was returned to the same room I’d been questioned in before. Charlie Branson was on one side of me, and James and Noel were on the other. A man I’d seen at Adelaide’s crime scene walked in and introduced himself as Detective Miller. He was around Noel’s age and a bear of a man, with a huge, square face, impressive dimples, and a short, messy crew cut. He was tall, six foot six, at least, and had the kind of hands he could easily grip a basketball in each.

  He sat down across from me.

  “You should have been honest with us about your reasons for being here from the start, Mrs. Monroe,” Miller said. “You lied.”

  “She didn’t lie,” Charlie said.

  “Withholding information is the same as lying,” Miller said.

  “Cut the crap, Miller,” Noel said. “If Sloane wasn’t around, we wouldn’t even be sitting here right now. I’ve dealt with enough in the last few days. Cut her a break.”

  “I respect you, Noel, and all the years you worked here,” Miller said, “but I can’t just—”

  Noel leaned forward. “You can and you will. I haven’t asked for a whole lot since your investigation began, but I’m asking for this. Try living through the hell I am right now and then look me in the eye and tell me you wouldn’t use every resource at your disposal to put this guy down. She’s put herself in danger more than once searching for this guy, and that’s worth something.”

  Miller leaned back in his chair, clasping his hands together behind his head. “Yeah, well, I still don’t like it.”

  “I can live with that,” Noel said. “Now, I don’t care who you share the audio with, but keep Sloane’s name out of it.”

  “How am I supposed to involve anyone else if I don’t—”

  “Say she’s under police protection, and her information can’t be revealed. I think we’d both agree that it’s better to keep her identity a secret for now. You don’t even have to modify it. The guy didn’t use her name in the audio.”

  Miller pointed at me. “I don’t want to hear your name come up again, understand? You should go home.”

  He’d said I should go home, instead of ordering me to go home.

  “I’ll protect Sloane’s anonymity for now under one condition,” Miller said.

  “Name it,” James said.

  “I want to talk to Sloane alone, without you two, Noel and James, and without the lawyer.”

  “No way,” James said. “If you want us to leave, fine. But Charlie stays.”

  “This isn’t a negotiation.”

  “Sure it is. You just proposed a condition, and I’ve countered with ours.”

  No one had asked my opinion on the matter, and I sat there, listening to them duke it out as to who had the bigger ego. If I had talked, they would have drowned out anything I had to say. I saw only one solution. I stood up and walked out of the room.

  Noel chased after me.

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “It’s my decision whether I talk to Miller alone,” I said.

  “We’re just making sure you’re protected.”

  “You’re all missing the point. I’m not protected, not anymore. The killer made it clear he’s coming after me. Miller seems bright enough to understand it would be a mistake to send me packing. So, let’s hear what it is he has to say.”

  Miller sat across from me with a pleased look on his face. “I’d like to know what information you’ve come across in your own investigation tha
t we may not know.”

  “That’s not really why you want to see me alone, though,” I said. “Is it?”

  “It’s not the only reason. We’ll get to my agenda in a minute.”

  We swapped notes, except on his end, he didn’t reveal anything I didn’t already know. It didn’t mean he lacked more information on his end. It just meant he wasn’t willing to share it with me.

  “What are your thoughts on the killer seeking you out to talk to you?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure.”

  “You must have some idea why he did it.”

  “You heard what he said on the recording. Maybe I interest him, or maybe he needed to make contact in order to justify killing me, or maybe it’s some other reason entirely.”

  “What do you think about him threatening to kill you?”

  “I believe he means to do it.”

  “I’ll tell you something I haven’t shared with anyone else yet.”

  “Okay.”

  “We ran the guy’s plates. They’re registered. They’re just not registered to him.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “The plates are registered to Evan Hall. And he’s—”

  “Dead,” I said.

  “Exactly.”

  Miller’s idea of “sharing something” was more of him sharing nothing. It was information I couldn’t do anything with, even though I assumed he didn’t see it that way. He was gearing me up for something. I thought about the look on James’ face when he’d left the room minutes before. He was worried. He had a right to be.

  “Even with the recording, we still can’t identify this guy,” Miller said. “We’re looking into what we can on the guy’s car based on your description, but for now, we know little more than we did before this happened.”

  I leaned forward, resting my arms on the table. “I’m a big fan of being direct.”

  “Meaning?”

  “You asked to see me alone for a reason. Why not tell me what it is? I’m aware of your desperation to catch this guy before he kills anyone else. And before you fume over the word I just used, we’re desperate too, all of us, to put an end to it. If the killer is a man of his word, and I believe he is, he’ll come for me. If that means you need to offer me up as the sacrificial lamb, I get it.”

  He stared at me for a moment.

  “Unless I’m wrong,” I said, “and you wanted to talk about something else?”

  He shook his head. “You’re exactly right. I was just about to ask you if you’d consider being the bait.”

  I stood. “I already am the bait, so I’m in. Let’s do it.”

  We were dealing with a killer who would expect a turn of events, such as the police tail that had been assigned to me, a tracker being placed in the car I’d been driving, and another one attached on my person as a piece of jewelry so my exact location would be known at all times. The idea was as it always was in cases like this—the killer would take me at a time he assumed was clever enough for him not to be seen or caught by anyone else.

  It was a good plan.

  It was also a predictable one.

  My preference would have been not to go along with it, but in many ways, I felt I had no choice.

  I was sitting in James’ guesthouse bedroom engaged in a debate over the phone with Cade—one I was not winning. And given I’d just had a similar debate with James, I wasn’t up for it.

  “I had no idea your case had taken a turn like this,” Cade said. “I don’t like it. I want you to come home.”

  “I can’t,” I said. “Not yet.”

  “How do they expect you to defend yourself if this guy catches you off-guard? One stab to the chest, Sloane, is all it will take.”

  “I know. I’m being careful.”

  Cade sighed. “Please, don’t keep pursuing this one. You’ve done enough already. Let them figure the rest out themselves. Come home to me.”

  I wanted to go home to him. Even though we’d been together for many years, it had been harder than I expected to be apart so soon after the honeymoon. We were just gearing up for phase two of our lives.

  “I need to see this through,” I said. “I’m sorry. I know it’s not what you want to hear. It will all be over soon.”

  “You can’t know that.”

  “It’s just a feeling I have.”

  “I’m not going to tell you what to do. You wouldn’t listen even if I tried. But can you do something for me? Can you sleep on it tonight? Really think about the risk you’re taking over there. It’s not the same as the cases you have at home.”

  Aside from not being able to carry a weapon that fired, it was the same. It was no less danger than I always found myself in. The difference was that Australia was foreign to Cade. He’d never been and had formed an opinion in his mind based on what little he did know. He also felt it was different because he wasn’t there to protect me.

  “I’ll think about it,” I said. “I’ll sleep on it.”

  I heard a knock at my front door. I walked up and looked out. It was Grace.

  “Cade, Grace has come to say goodnight. I’ll call you in the morning, okay? I love you.”

  “Come on in,” I said.

  Grace nodded and walked inside, sinking down on the couch in the front room. Her conversation with Miller at the police station earlier had been every uncle’s worst nightmare. Grace had said little in the way of answering questions, but what she had said over and over again was that Tommy didn’t kill Hugh—she did. Unsure what to believe, the police allowed her to return home with James for the night, while they sorted out whom to believe, something I was questioning myself. She’d be questioned again in the morning, and if her answer didn’t change, there was a chance she could be arrested.

  “How are you doing?” I asked.

  She glanced up at me, and the tears started flowing. I reached for a box of tissues and handed it to her. She blew her nose a few times and set the box in her lap.

  “It’s not fair,” she said. “I told them, and they still won’t let him go.”

  “The problem is, you told them the same thing Tommy did, and now they don’t know who to believe. One of you isn’t telling the truth, and what I don’t want to see happen is for you both to be in trouble for it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If the police can’t be sure which one of you is telling the truth, you could both be held responsible. Did they explain that to you?”

  “They said a lot of things. I wasn’t listening.”

  “Murder isn’t the only charge a person can go to prison for,” I said. “There are other charges you could be convicted for, like murder by association.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s when you help someone else commit murder in some way. Even if you didn’t do it yourself, you could spend your entire life in prison for it.”

  “We could both go to prison, even if only one of us did it?”

  “Yes, because you’re both confessing to the crime. The police might decide you killed him together, and you’ll both go to trial.”

  “But I didn’t know Hugh would fall down the stairs. I was just so angry.”

  “I know, and I understand how the two of you found yourself in a situation where a hard decision needed to be made. Your uncle understands too. That’s why he’s been trying to protect you. But he can’t do that if you’re only concerned about protecting someone else.”

  She was crying harder now.

  “I don’t want Tommy to go to jail or prison or anywhere else! It’s not fair!”

  “You don’t deserve to go to prison, either, but if the real truth doesn’t come out, both of you could be punished for Hugh’s death. I’m sorry to be telling you this, but you need to know.”

  I woke up the next morning to a photo I’d received from Cade of him sitting on a plane. There was no need to reply. I knew what it meant. I glanced at the time he’d sent it, which was about five hours ago. Depending on layover times, he could a
rrive in Australia as soon as tonight, and that would change everything.

  Aside from the photo, I’d also had a missed call about an hour earlier from an Australian number. I called it back.

  “This is Dean,” the man said.

  “This is Sloane,” I said. “I called you yesterday about Caroline.”

  The phone connection wasn’t great. There were cracks in the line, making it hard to hear him.

  “I’ve been off the grid, traveling through a national park in my camper van for the last month. I had no idea she’d died until I went to town last night, turned my phone on like I do when I come into service, and got your call. I’m heading back to the city today and will be talking with the police. I only wished I could have done it sooner.”

  “I’ve been trying to locate the man responsible for her murder.”

  “I can’t say for sure, but I have my suspicions.”

  “I believe her death is related to a project she was working on, a weekend retreat with a group of people who were in hypnotic regression therapy with her.”

  “I fear you may be right. It was a risky group test to begin with, but Caroline was determined to make a name for herself, and she was sure she was onto something that would change the way we treat specific patients in the future. She’d even started writing her own book based on the research she’d performed.”

  “What was she doing with the patients she treated during those weekends?”

  “It was similar to the treatment already being used, except Caroline believed bringing patients with similar traumatic experiences together would prove to be a more supportive way for them to cope after recovering the lost memories they had been repressing.”

  “What did you think about what she was doing?”

  “I was skeptical.”

  “Why?”

  “When you put a group of people together who have deeply buried trauma, you’re rolling the dice on how they’ll handle it once it comes out. To tell a therapist is one thing—to tell an entire group is another. I was concerned some might feel vulnerable and ashamed, especially if those in the group didn’t respond well to what they heard.”