The Three Beths

by Jeff Abbott

  OK, a full name. Penny Gladney. For a moment she thought of sending a note saying, “Is it you, Bethany, hiding behind a dead girl’s name? Who are you really?” But then Julie would see it and know her account had been accessed.

  Mariah logged out. Now she had a full name, and she was rattled that in all the drama she hadn’t asked it of Sharon. Didn’t matter now. If this was Bethany…she wanted her mother to suffer.

  Quickly she searched for “Barbara Gladney,” using the child’s real first name. There it was. Years ago, run down in the street by a hit-and-run driver in a quiet neighborhood. No witnesses. No charges ever pressed against anyone. She had been playing outside her home. Her parents declined to be interviewed, except for a statement asking for anyone who knew anything to come forward. There was no mention of a suspect. Or a witness named Bethany Meadows, not by name. It simply said she had been playing with a friend. Of course another child’s name would be kept out of the newspaper accounts.

  No further news reports in the years that followed. An unsolved mystery.

  Mariah cleared the search history and then went to their bedroom. The furniture, she’d noticed, was very high-end. Andy and Julie had spent money on this place. She searched their closets. Julie had nice clothes. Really nice clothes. A few still had the sales tags on them: three-hundred-dollar, four-hundred-dollar tops and pants and sweaters. Her shoe collection was large and high-end. Andy had nice suits and shirts as well. In a drawer she found multiple watches, including two Rolexes. In a box she found a nest of jewelry that looked expensive.

  He worked for a family company. It must pay very well. Or…there was other money.

  She went upstairs, to the little boy’s room. More Star Wars stuff. She almost ignored the room, nothing to see, but she wanted to be thorough. She checked Grant’s closet. He also had very nice clothes, lots of designer labels, considering he’d probably outgrow them every few months. She looked under his bed. Nothing but a suitcase with a cartoon character on the side…and a large duffel bag that appeared to be full. Next to it was the sleek briefcase she’d seen Andy carrying when he was leaving Jake’s office.

  She looked at it with a sense of dread. It didn’t belong in a kid’s room unless he’d decided to play, what, investment banker?

  She tried to open the briefcase. Locked. She opened the duffel bag.

  Neat piles of bills. All hundreds. There was room where a couple of bound clumps of cash had been removed.

  Why? She counted one stack of bills, made a best guess at how much was in the duffel based on how many similar stacks there were. It was nearly twenty thousand dollars.

  Andy and Julie had thousands and thousands in cash that they weren’t keeping in a bank.

  Was this the money Bethany had stolen from Ahoy? If so, then Bethany had never taken it to Houston. Then that meant what? They’d killed her for this money? How did it fit in?

  She debated what to do for a moment. Take the money or leave it here? If she took it, then they’d know someone was on to them. But the money could be a bargaining chip—she could trade it for information. But then she thought, You don’t know what they’re capable of. All Sharon has to do is tell Andy what you know, and he’ll come after you. And if he has legitimate reason for this cash, then you’ve committed another felony.

  Choose.

  She zipped the duffel bag closed, lifted it, and settled the strap on her shoulder.

  She heard a car door slam and her blood turned to ice. She peered out the window, staying low, barely parting the curtain. Andy, parked down the street at the community mail stop. He would be here in moments. Why wasn’t he at work? She watched him open his mailbox and pull out envelopes. Had Sharon called him? Told him about Mariah learning the truth? No. He didn’t seem in any rush.

  Carrying the bag of money, she hurried down the stairs and back out the back door, and froze in front of the row of potted plants. She replaced the key and moved the pot back into place. She heard the garage door powering up; he was driving into the house. The garage entrance into the kitchen was right by the windows she would have to cross—he might see her as he exited the garage.

  She ran the other way. She started to climb over the fence, into a neighbor’s yard, and a large, angry dog barked at her, leaping upward toward her. She ducked back down and went over the other side of the fence, awkwardly holding the duffel of cash. Quiet, empty, but now she was in a backyard of a house on the street parallel to where she had parked. She would have to hurry. She exited the yard, walked down the street, turned, and then turned left onto the street where Andy and Julie lived. He’d be in the house by now; he wouldn’t see her. Her breath felt ragged in her chest.

  Andy stood in the driveway, before the raised garage door, staring at her car parked two houses away. Now turning to watch her.

  Oh, no.

  She still held the duffel.

  “Mariah?” he called slowly. “Are you looking for me?” he called. He started walking toward her. He must have noticed her car, started pulling into the garage, and then realized that the car was hers. Maybe he memorized her plates when he’d spotted her at Jake’s office. She remembered Claudette, at the window, reading off the plates. Maybe even then he saw her as a threat. She felt sweaty and sick.

  He saw the bag she was carrying…recognized it.

  “What are you doing?” His voice hardened.

  She pulled out her keys, aimed them at the trunk, it opened.

  He was running toward her now.

  She dropped her keys into her boot, pulling out the telescoping baton. With a flick it snapped free and he reached for her, trying to grab at the duffel.

  She slammed the baton down on his arm, and he howled in shock and surprise.

  “What the hell!” he yelled, taking a step back. “You’re a damn thief,” he said.

  “Am I? Or are you? This money. Where does it come from?”

  “That is none of your business,” he said, gritting his teeth. She slammed the baton into his other arm. He cussed and staggered back.

  She moved to the open trunk, eased the duffel into it, and pulled out one of her Glocks. This she aimed at him and his eyes went wide.

  “Put that away!” he yelled.

  “Is this the money Bethany took from your company?”

  He stared.

  “I am going to drive straight to the police and tell them I took this from you. I don’t care. They won’t press charges against me. They’ll want to talk to you.”

  “It’s not what you think. I didn’t take the money from her.” Now his words were a pleading rush.

  “Did she give it to someone else? Like my mom? Did you take it from my mother?” Her voice rose, the gun unsteady in her hand. “Did you kill my mother for this money? Or for the video?”

  “No! No, I don’t know anything about your mom! Please, it’s not what you think.”

  “Whose money is it, then?”

  He tensed. She’d whipped both his arms, and he was in clear pain and couldn’t grab at her. You might have to shoot him, she thought. She shut the trunk, with the money inside, and began to move toward the driver’s door.

  “I’ll give you half of it,” he said. “Just take it out of the trunk and leave and I won’t call the police.”

  “I don’t want it.”

  “Well, you’re driving off with it!” he yelled.

  “I guess I am,” she said. She made her way to the driver’s door. Got inside.

  He charged at her. She slammed the door shut, hit the locks. “You don’t know what you’re doing,” he said. “She’ll kill you.”

  “Where do I find Bethany?”

  He shook his head.

  “I’ll try another name. Where do I find Penny Gladney? Tell me and I’ll give you back the money.”

  “Let me make a phone call,” he said after a moment, gritting his teeth in pain. “Then I’ll call you. Just don’t go to the police, please, Mariah.”

  “Stay away from Sharon,” she sai
d after a moment. She’d decided what to do. “I know what you’ve done to her.”

  Something shifted in his face. He leaned back and tried to kick in the window. She hit the ignition button and powered the car away as he tried to make a second kick.

  He screamed, “You don’t know what you’ve done!”

  She saw him watching her in the rearview mirror, standing in the street.

  You don’t know what you’ve done.

  She was shaking as she turned south at the main road. But she knew what she was going to do.

  49

  I​T WASN’T LUNCHTIME, but Andy’s aunt Claudette was at the front desk. She was reading a new issue of People.

  She glanced up as Mariah came into the office. “He’s not here. You should call first.”

  “I know he’s not here. I’m here to see you.”

  Claudette appeared unimpressed by this announcement. She wet her finger and turned the page, shook her head at the young actor pictured in the article. “You know who was handsome? Cary Grant. Sidney Poitier. Paul Newman. All these young guys look like they got over-polished.” She made it sound like a bad word.

  “Andy took the fifty thousand in cash from your company. Not Bethany. He did.”

  “That’s quite an accusation.” But it made her look up from the magazine.

  “He framed Bethany for it when the embezzlement was discovered. But then he offered to settle with her, and promised you he’d pay back the money. Am I right?”

  “What’s your interest in all this?”

  “It’s a yes or no question, Claudette.”

  “It’s Mrs. Candolet to you, dear.”

  “I’m sure the police will call you Mrs. Candolet as well, when I tell them you withheld critical information in the investigation.”

  “This is a family business. We don’t have shareholders or investors. Our matters are private.”

  “I assume like most businesses you have bank loans,” Mariah said. “Right? The bank might care about fifty thousand vanishing and not being reported to the police. It could make getting future financing difficult. There could be a concern that where one crime gets covered up, there could be more.”

  Five seconds ticked past. “What do you want?”

  “I don’t have to go to the police, or to anyone else. But I want to know the truth. If you lie to me, I’ll burn Andy down, and I’ll bet the fire will spread to this place.”

  Claudette put her hands on the desk, on each side of her magazine. The wry attitude was gone. She was all business. “All right. Bethany was working here. Andy got her the job. Then Lizbeth got a temp job here, and the two of them became instant friends. They went out together a lot, they talked about writing books, Bethany and Lizbeth joined some writing club. Whatever Bethany was interested in, Lizbeth liked, too.”

  “Lizbeth.” That was right. She’d nearly forgotten. But she had only worked here for a few weeks. “That was during the embezzlement?”

  “Yes. I thought at first Lizbeth had helped Bethany steal the money from the accounts. But she hadn’t. It was Bethany who had logged in and accessed the account and moved the money into some falsified vendor. Those vendors didn’t exist. It was an account set up by Bethany.”

  “That was your only evidence against her? Someone could have gotten her passwords. At home she left them on a sticky note on her monitor.” She thought of that sentimental memento in Sharon’s office.

  “Andy’s in charge of security, and I trusted him when he said she did it.”

  “Andy has a large amount of cash hidden in his house. I’ve seen it.” She showed photos she’d taken of the opened, cash-filled duffel on her phone to Claudette, who blinked once but whose expression did not change. She didn’t mention the cash was in her trunk. “Do you know why he has that much cash on hand?”

  “I do not.”

  “And when you discovered your money was missing, you reacted how?”

  “The last person who stole from me was in the hospital for a long time. Unfortunate accident in their car,” Claudette said. “These coincidences are a part of life.”

  Mariah waited. This woman’s a seventy-five-year-old gangster, she thought. He’s not supposed to have it. I can see it in her eyes.

  “Andy told me he would get the money back. From her husband. More than money. Some shares in his stock. I said no, I don’t like the stock market. I’ve always preferred cash. But Jake Curtis has been paying us back, in cash, over the past several months.”

  Andy, going to Jake’s office. Would he really give Andy cash there? Well, it was as good as any place.

  “So Andy’s brought the money to you?”

  “Yes. In cash. In small amounts that wouldn’t attract attention when deposited. We just added them to existing invoices. Banks look for large cash deposits. I don’t want the attention.”

  “I think Andy’s playing both you and Jake. He’s told Jake that Jake owes more than what was stolen. And Andy’s pocketing some of that money instead of giving it to you. To finance that lifestyle he and Julie like. Which is really dumb, but he seems to not think well about consequences.”

  The clicking of the old clock on the wall was loud. Claudette took a deep breath. “You’ve done your good deed for the day. Go. I’ll deal with Andy.”

  “I want to know about Lizbeth Gonzales. She’s the other side of this puzzle.”

  “What about her?”

  “Do you have a picture of her? A file with her address?”

  Claudette got up and went to a file cabinet in the corner behind the desk. She unlocked it and pulled out a file and opened it. Blinked. “There was a picture after we hired her. She had to have it for an ID card. It’s gone.” She pointed where a photo had been torn from a stapled job application.

  “Do you have it on digital?”

  Claudette went to the computer and typed. Something in her expression shifted. She looked up at Mariah. Her mouth narrowed. “The picture is gone.”

  Mariah leaned down to look.

  Claudette’s voice was steel. “She’s been deleted from our records.”

  “Who could do that?”

  “The network administrator. Or Andy.”

  Mariah looked at the application in the file, the one bit of evidence that Lizbeth had worked here. Her name was written as Jennifer Elizabeth Gonzales. There was a Social Security number, an address in Lakehaven. Her emergency contact was a man named Bill Gonzales, listed as her father. There was a Houston phone number for him. Houston, again. Mariah took a picture of the form.

  “Andy deleted her. Why would he?” Mariah said.

  Claudette shook her head.

  “You and Andy both talked about Bethany’s life spinning out of control. Credit card spending, drinking, this theft, inappropriate gifts sent to coworkers to embarrass her.”

  “Yes.”

  “Her life wasn’t spinning until someone set it to spinning.”

  “You think it was Andy and Lizbeth?”

  “Or just Lizbeth.”

  “Why? What motive would they have?”

  “At first I thought it was just Andy. But why would he hide Lizbeth?”

  Claudette looked at her, seemed to weigh what to say. “I thought the two of them might have been seeing each other.”

  “I thought he only had eyes for Julie.” Mariah knew this was false, but she wanted to see Claudette’s reaction.

  “That boy has eyes,” Claudette said, “for whatever gal looks back at him. Or for ones he can’t have, like Bethany.”

  “How long after this embezzlement incident did Lizbeth stay?”

  “A week after Bethany left, she gave two weeks’ notice, but Andy just cut her free. Paid her for the time she didn’t work, too. It annoyed me, but he said since she and Bethany were such friends, it was better if she was gone.”

  “Do you know anything about her? Her references?”

  She waved her hand. “Andy checked all that, I didn’t.”

  “She was here just l
ong enough to help Bethany lose her job,” Mariah said.

  “I never thought of it that way, but yes.” Claudette reached for the phone. “I think I’m gonna tell Andy he needs to get over here.” Then she surprised Mariah with a knowing look. “Do you have this money? You took pictures of it. I bet you took it with you. For proof. So he couldn’t hide it.”

  Mariah kept her voice steady. “It’s in a safe place.” The trunk of her car, which wasn’t safe at all.

  “Fine. You can leave the money with me. If it’s not mine, he can pay me back with it.” The anger was rising in Claudette’s voice.

  “I think I’ll hold on to it for a while,” Mariah said. “Until we’ve established where it came from.”

  They stared at each other. Mariah could tell Claudette wasn’t used to being told no.

  “He will be chasing you down, little girl. You going to call the police? I’ll give you a cut of the money. I don’t want this in the papers.”

  “If he killed my mother for it, I don’t want a cut,” she said.

  “Now you listen to me. Andy is clearly a total mess, but he’s not a murderer,” she said.

  “I could drive straight to the police with this. Even having entered his house. They put me in jail, I’m safe from you all. But then he has to explain this money. Either he stole it from you or from Bethany, but he’s a thief, and I don’t think you want him in jail. Talking to the police about what goes on here, what you might transport beyond legitimate freight. Trying to reduce his sentence.”

  “So what do you want?”

  “I want you to call him and bring him here. Keep him busy.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Have a talk with Julie.”

  Claudette’s face made a little sneer.

  “You don’t like her?” Mariah asked.

  “He could do better.”

  “She has expensive tastes. Maybe that’s why he was stealing.”

  The sneer deepened, and Mariah knew it was the right card to play. “He’s my heir, and if he’s so dumb to risk inheriting this company to steal from me now just to keep that Julie in jewels, I’ll cut him out. I’ll find out whether he’s lied to me or not. If there’s a tie to your mama, I’ll find it. But you don’t go to the police. I help you, you help me.”