Night had fallen, and Hannah felt a slight chill creeping through the air. She sipped her decaf latte and nervously rubbed her arms. “Ellie and I didn’t think everything through when we asked you to do this,” she said. “This Jensen guy knows me. I’ve posted pictures of Rachel and me on Instagram. And through Rachel, he could easily link you to me.”
Alden put his hand on top of hers. Hannah felt a pleasant little rush.
“Don’t sweat it, okay?” He smiled. “Have you seen me in any of Rachel’s social media posts? Like I told you yesterday, Richard and Candace Bonner’s girl does not associate with the help. My name isn’t linked with Rachel’s anywhere. So we’re safe. Plus I have my phone under my middle name—Patrick. It helps me screen the unsolicited calls. I also gave the guy a bad room number. There are three other Murphys in that piece-of-shit dorm, and by the time he goes through the three of them and gets to Alden Murphy, I’ll just deny, deny, deny. Easy breezy. And you don’t have to look for him yet. Our appointment isn’t until six-thirty. We have another ten minutes . . .”
Alden’s words were reassuring. And he still had his hand on hers, which was even more comforting. Just the same, Hannah kept looking over at the quad and O’Leary Hall.
“We’re not going to miss him,” Alden said. “He’ll be easy to spot. He said he was bringing his massage table.”
“Well, don’t you two look cozy?”
Hannah glanced up at Rachel, standing by their table. With a straw, she sipped some iced coffee concoction in a clear, tall, plastic glass.
Alden pulled his hand away.
She sat down with them. “Don’t mind me. Has Mr. Rub-a-Dub-Dub shown up yet?”
“Not yet,” Hannah said nervously.
Alden smiled at her again. “Relax,” he whispered. Then he looked at Rachel. “Where were you?”
“Talking with the parental units,” she sighed. She turned to Hannah. “I finally opened up the FedEx package. As promised, your father—our father—had his doctor send me a DNA kit. It came with very easy, very impersonal instructions. I’m to spit in a vial and stick the vial inside a special envelope and take it to the FedEx office, all pre-paid. Wasn’t that thoughtful of our dear dad?”
Hannah felt so ashamed. “I’m sorry, Rachel. Like I tried to explain the other night, they’ve had so many false alarms—”
“Yeah, well, I’m not some stranger pulling a hoax. I’m your roommate. I’m the one who...” She trailed off.
“You’re the one who paid for my scholarship,” Hannah finished for her. “Eden’s scholarship, too.”
“Not that she’s getting much use out of it this week,” Rachel muttered. She patted Hannah’s shoulder. “Listen, forget it. I didn’t really mean to go there with the scholarship thing. That’s my parents talking.”
“And how are Dick and Candy?” Alden asked.
“Peachy,” she answered, frowning. She sipped her iced coffee drink. “They were all up my ass about this paternity test. They don’t want me to take it. They said it’s beneath me. My dad says that . . .” She turned to Hannah, “He says that our dad will only arrange things with his doctor to fudge the test so it’ll look like I’m not really his daughter . . .”
“I don’t think he’d do that,” Hannah said. She took a quick glance over toward the quad and the dorm again. “He just needs to make certain . . .”
Rachel didn’t seem to be listening. “My mom was all, ‘Why do you even want anything to do with him? He’s given you absolutely nothing.’ And blah, blah, blah. They asked me not to take the test until they’ve talked to me in person. They want me to come home and spend the night on Saturday. I told them, fine.” She nudged Hannah under the table. “Listen, would you like to come with?”
Hannah hesitated. “Are you kidding? I’m from the enemy camp.”
“My parents have nothing against you.”
“Well, are you sure they wouldn’t mind?”
Rachel rolled her eyes. “Oh, please, they won’t even know you’re there. It’ll be fun . . .”
“Believe me,” Alden interjected. “When you see how big the house is, you’ll know she isn’t kidding.”
“It’s settled, you’re sleeping over Saturday night,” Rachel said. “Besides, if Eden doesn’t come back before the weekend, I’d hate to leave you alone here. I mean, what with all this weirdness going on right now. Plus that place is creepy when you’re alone there at night . . .”
“Wait a minute,” Alden said, looking toward the quad. “I think I see our guy . . .”
Hannah followed his gaze. “That’s not Nick Jensen. And the man’s carrying a painting and an easel.”
“Put your glasses on, stupid,” Rachel said.
Alden’s phone rang. Sitting up, he pulled the phone out of his pocket and gaped at the screen. “It’s him,” he whispered.
“Put it on speaker,” Rachel said.
He took a deep breath and touched the screen. “Hello?”
With a hand over her mouth, Hannah stared at him.
“You gave me the wrong room number, Patrick,” Nick Jensen said evenly.
Alden seemed stumped. “Um, really? Gosh, I’m sorry. Where are you?”
“More important, where are you right now? We have an appointment.”
“Yeah, I know.” Alden gave Hannah a helpless look. “Listen, I’m sorry, but something came up, and I can’t make it. I meant to call you—”
“I know what you’re up to,” Jensen said. “I’m watching you right now.”
“What?” Alden asked.
Hannah heard a click.
“Oh, fuck me,” Alden whispered. Wide-eyed, he stared at the phone.
“God, do you think he really means it?” Rachel asked.
Panic-stricken, Hannah glanced around. But there were just too many people, all the buildings with windows, all those bushes and trees, too many places where he could be hiding.
“Call Ellie,” she said. “We need to call her right now. Tell her what just happened . . .”
* * *
“He obviously knows he’s been set up,” Hannah urgently whispered on the other end of the line. “He said he’s watching us now, but—well, I think we’ll be okay. We’re headed over to the bungalow. Rachel has a bodyguard, and she just called him. He’s on his way. He’ll be here in, like, five minutes. He’ll stay with the three of us. Rachel says he’ll stay with us all night if he has to.”
“Good,” Ellie said. She stood over Nick Jensen’s kitchen counter with his files spread out in front of her. “Listen, tell Alden and Rachel I’m sorry I got them into this—”
“It’s okay!” she heard Alden yell in the background. “Just get out of there!”
“He’s right,” Hannah said. “Finish up and get out of there.”
“Will do,” Ellie answered. “By the way, I found some stuff. It’s very interesting. I’ll tell you about it later.”
“Call us as soon as you’re safe and in your car, okay?”
“Okay. Bye.” Ellie hung up. Her hands were shaking as she tried to put all the paperwork from Nick Jensen’s files back in order.
Amid the clippings, printouts, and scribbled notes, she hadn’t found anything about the Immaculate Conception murders from fifty years ago. There was nothing about Diana either. But he was clearly obsessed with Rachel Bonner, her family, and her roommates. She’d found detailed notes from discussions he’d had with Hannah and Eden. But Ellie couldn’t quite decipher them because of his penmanship and all the abbreviations.
She wished she had more time to go over everything, maybe even take some photos of his notes, but she couldn’t risk hanging around there any longer.
She heard a car in the parking lot outside. Her heart racing, Ellie hurried to the window and moved the curtain a tiny bit—just enough to peek down at the lot. It was one of Jensen’s neighbors. She watched a station wagon pull out of the lot and onto the street.
Ellie told herself that it was too soon for Jensen to have already
returned from the campus—unless he was lying to Alden on the phone. Was he really watching Hannah, Alden, and Rachel—or was he just trying to intimidate them? Ellie hated the idea that she may have put Hannah and her friends in danger.
She was about to move away from the window when she spotted the red Ford Fiesta already parked in the lot—the same spot Jensen had been in before.
It looked like the car was empty.
Ellie heard someone coming up the outside stairs.
Backing away from the window, she helplessly looked around for some place to hide—or something she could use as a weapon.
She froze at the sound of the key in the door.
There was a click, and then the door opened. From the threshold, Nick Jensen glared at her.
Ellie couldn’t move or talk. Standing in the middle of his living room, she gaped back at him. He was blocking the exit.
“What are you doing?” he asked finally. “Is someone else here with you?”
She shook her head.
“So what the hell are you doing in my apartment?” He stepped inside and shut the door behind him.
Ellie swallowed hard. “Why do you have files on Rachel Bonner and the O’Rourke sisters—and that girl who died?”
He didn’t answer. He looked over toward the papers spread across his kitchen counter.
“What have you done with Eden O’Rourke?” Ellie dared to ask.
“Nothing,” he replied, still standing by the closed door. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his sweatshirt. “I ran into her at the Sunnyside Up Café last Friday night and haven’t seen her since.”
“No one has seen her since,” Ellie said.
He let out a sigh. “I had a bad feeling that was the case. Her sister told me yesterday afternoon that Eden went off by herself to Chicago for a while. But the way Hannah acted when she talked to me, I wasn’t sure what to think . . .”
Ellie warily studied his face. Was his concern real— or just part of the innocent routine she’d seen him do before?
She was still scared, but impatient, too. She frowned at him. “I’ll ask you again. Why do you have files on those girls? Why do Eden O’Rourke’s whereabouts matter to you?”
“Because Eden is Rachel Bonner’s roommate,” he said. “And that’s not a good thing to be. Last year, Rachel’s roommate, a girl named Kayla, was going to help me when she suddenly met up with a fatal accident . . .”
Ellie kept staring at him. In his track shorts, T-shirt, and open sweatshirt, it didn’t look like he was carrying any concealed weapons. He hadn’t attacked her or even threatened her yet, and he easily could have. “Who are you?” she asked. “Is Nick Jensen even your real name?”
He didn’t answer. Wincing, he rubbed his forehead. Then he walked past her to his refrigerator and opened it up. “Would you like a beer? I could sure use one. I also have bottled water in here, a Sprite, and a couple of Cokes.”
“Never mind that,” Ellie said. Her heart was still racing. “Why did you enroll in my journalism class?”
“Because Hannah O’Rourke tweeted about it over the summer,” he replied, taking out a beer and a bottle of water. Then he shut the refrigerator door with his elbow. He handed her the water. “Here. Let me know if you’d like something livelier. In her tweet, Hannah said she was looking forward to taking your class, and they were making a movie about you. She mentioned that Eden was taking the same class. I figured, if I took your course, I’d have a good chance of getting to know at least one of them.”
“Why is it so important to know the O’Rourke girls?” Ellie asked.
“Because in an earlier tweet, Hannah said she and Eden were going to be roommates with Rachel Bonner. And that interested me very much.” He walked over to his sofa and sat down.
Ellie narrowed her eyes at him. “Why? I don’t understand any of this . . .”
He opened his beer. “Well, first off, you’re right. Nick Jensen isn’t my real name.” He let out a dazed little laugh. “Jesus, after two years, it sounds weird to hear myself actually saying that to somebody.”
He raised his beer can as if toasting her. “My name’s Nate Bergquist. I’m from Portland, Oregon, Ms. Goodwin. And I’m supposed to be dead . . .”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Thursday, 6:53 P.M.
“After the explosion, I don’t remember anything until I woke up a few days later,” he said, sitting on one end of the sofa with the beer in his hand.
Ellie was at the other end of the couch. She’d switched from bottled water to beer. As a reporter, she was used to listening to people’s stories. She could usually tell when someone was lying, and so far, she believed what Nate Bergquist was telling her about the assault on him, his detective brother, and their girlfriends in a remote cabin in Oregon two years ago.
“I found myself in a strange bed and in the care of this middle-aged woman,” he continued. “It was a scene right out of Misery. I kept thinking that’s how I would have described it to my brother, Gil. We always compared real life to the movies. I was just like James Caan in the film, really banged up. I had a broken leg, a broken arm, fractures, bruises, all these horrible cuts and burns. The burns were the worst . . .” He pointed to the scar on his forehead and then rolled up the sleeve of his sweatshirt to show her his arm. “You noticed this the other day. I didn’t get it in a motorcycle accident when I was a teenager. I got it two years ago—in the explosion.”
Ellie grimaced. She suddenly felt stupid, thinking he was with that group of arsonists.
“Anyway, the woman was a nurse. And she wasn’t Annie Wilkes or Kathy Bates. Her name was Ruth, and she put me back together again. She was a godsend. It helped that I was a physical therapist and knew what to do to heal faster. Just the same, I was laid up in Ruth’s house in Beaverton for months. I was hiding, too. Ruth was friends with a guy who worked for my brother. His name was Frank Pomeroy. He was Gil’s ‘invisible partner. ’ Nobody knew about him. Remember I mentioned that, after those two creeps showed up at the cabin, I thought Gil might have secretly phoned somebody? Well, he did. He called Frank.”
Nate Bergquist shrugged and then sipped his beer. “I guess Gil knew we were in trouble. He knew some terrible people were out to get him. According to Frank, after he got the call from my brother, he drove like a bat out of hell to the cabin. He was off the highway and on the private road to the cabin when he saw the explosion. He managed to save me. It was too late for the others. He loaded me into his car and drove me to Ruth’s. The fire from the blast did a lot of damage to the woods around there. There was nothing left of the cabin. There was nothing left of my girlfriend, Rene, either, nothing to identify her . . .”
He started to tear up and quickly wiped his eyes. “Sorry, I’ve never really discussed this with anybody. I’m not used to it.” He let out a shaky sigh. “Anyway, there were enough remains to identify the others. But both Rene and I were assumed dead.”
He cleared his throat and took a swallow of beer. “Whoever employed those two thugs, they must have had some influence with the local police or bribed somebody, because it came out that my brother was running a crystal meth lab in the cabin, and that’s why the place exploded. There were even stories about me stealing and selling drugs from the veterans hospital where I worked. I found out about it days later, when I was recovering at Ruth’s house. Eventually, the investigators put it together that the crystal meth story was bogus. But they knew something was up because of the criminal records and various aliases for the two creeps who had showed up at the cabin that night.”
“Did they ever figure it out?” Ellie asked.
Nate shook his head.
“Why didn’t you go to the police?”
“Frank convinced me I’d be a lot better off if everyone thought I was dead. He was worried people were watching him. He persuaded me to stay in hiding at Ruth’s place. He’d saved my life. I didn’t want to put him in any more danger than he already was.”
“Did you eve
r find out what Rachel Bonner had to do with all this?” Ellie asked.
He frowned. “Well, we figured Gil must have discovered something about Rachel or her family during one of his private investigations. Gil was my brother, and I loved him. But he definitely had a sleazy side. I think he was trying to extort money from the Bonners or an associate of the Bonners. That’s how he got himself in trouble—and how he got himself killed. While I was convalescing, Frank dug up what he could about Gil’s various jobs in the months leading up to his death. He’d been doing some work on and off for a woman named Cassandra Farrell in Portland. She’d first hired him about fifteen years before, and again, every few years after that . . .”
“Cassandra Farrell,” Ellie repeated. “You mean the woman who raised Eden O’Rourke?”
“Exactly,” Nate said, nodding. “Gil had been investigating Dylan and Sheila O’Rourke for her.”
“He must have found out about Sheila’s sister and the affair with Dylan—and the baby the Bonners adopted. There’s the Rachel connection.”
“Yeah, but at the time, Frank had no idea what Gil discovered. My brother did a good job covering his tracks—and his findings. I’m sure that’s why no one ever connected him to the O’Rourkes when they were in the headlines a couple of years ago. So, back when I was convalescing at Ruth’s, we didn’t see a link between the O’Rourkes and Rachel Bonner. We still had no idea what Gil had found out. I became pretty obsessed about it. I wanted to know why my girlfriend, my brother, and his girlfriend were all killed. I wanted to know why my life had been destroyed. Frank told me that I’d live a lot longer if I just let it go. He even pulled back on his own investigation into it.”
Nate took another drag of his beer. “So, I focused on getting better. Good old Frank, like Gil, he had a few shady business associates. And through one of them, they got me a new identity—and all the fake documents to go with it. They even gave me a name close to my own—Nick, Nate. Anyway, after four months living off the kindness of Frank Pomeroy and Ruth, Nick Jensen moved to Taos, New Mexico. I laid low for a year, got a massage license, and saved my money.”
The Bad Sister Page 26
