by Elise Noble
***
The wig itched like crazy, and Coco sat on her hands so she wouldn’t be tempted to scratch. If she dislodged the hairpiece, the private investigator might get curious, and if one thing was clear from the meeting so far, it was that Monica was sharp.
Remi hadn’t wanted Coco at the meeting at all. Too risky, he said. What if somebody recognised her? But Rochelle just scoffed and pointed out that she was a beautician, and not only that, she also did the make-up for the community theatre group in her spare time. Now Coco had long blonde hair, fatter cheeks, blue eyes rather than brown, and a thinner nose thanks to contouring. Even Remi had grudgingly admitted that she looked totally different.
So now she was sitting in the living room at the rented house while Monica gave them a rundown of everything she’d managed to dig up in the past twenty-four hours.
Remi had directed her to check out the partners at Hatcher, Marquez and Phillips, and she’d prepared a thirty-page report complete with photos. This journey back into Jocelyn’s life was…unsettling. Coco had hoped that the facts might stir a memory, a glimpse of recognition, but her mind was a blank.
It hurt.
It hurt that she’d been turned from something into nothing.
“The firm employs thirty full-time architects plus their support team,” Monica started, businesslike. Everything about her said “no-nonsense,” from her short-cropped hair to her sensible boots. “Although the office is between Lark’s River and Reno, the staff travel to cover the whole of Nevada and California too. A number of their clients are in LA. Phillips is the oldest of the partners—he turned fifty-seven in March. Arguably, he’s the most talented of the three, and also the best-known. Before he moved to Lark’s River, he worked in New York and designed several famous buildings.”
“Why’d he come here?” Rochelle asked. “I’d have stayed in New York.”
“He came for a woman and stayed for the casinos.”
“Huh?”
“He traded his wife of twenty-five years in for a mistress and a gambling habit. I think we can rule him out as a suspect. If Ron Phillips owned an expensive watch, he’d have swapped it for poker chips long ago. You still won’t tell me who your witness is? The person who saw the suspect?”
Remi shook his head. “I’m afraid I can’t.”
Monica just shrugged. “You’re paying the bill. Moving on to Marquez… Ms. Bordeaux—Jocelyn—reported directly to him, and it seems that his work ethic rubbed off on her. He got to his position by grit and determination. His father was a janitor, and his mother picked crops, but he scraped up enough money to go to college and qualified as an architect. He built them a house, and he has no debt, but I wouldn’t class him as rich. Those school loans were a millstone around his neck for much of his life.”
“Which leaves Carl Hatcher.”
“Ah, yes. Mr. Hatcher.” Monica’s voice had a “saving the best for last” tone to it. “Now, he is rich. Not because he works hard or even because he’s particularly gifted, but because he inherited a fortune from his father. I’d go so far as to say that work is a game for him. He enjoys short days, long lunches, and golf. He’s worked on a number of interesting projects—the public library in Lark’s River is one of note—but he’s in the game for the prestige rather than the money. He’s also married.”
Icy prickles crawled up Coco’s spine as her gaze met Rhys’s. Could Hatcher be the one? Would she really have had an affair with a married man?
“Any idea what car he drives?” Remi asked.
Monica consulted her notes. “A red Porsche 911 Turbo. One year old, top of the line.”
Red. Expensive. Now Rochelle stiffened too.
“What does one of those look like?” she asked.
Rhys found a picture on the internet and held up his phone. “Is this the car you saw?”
“I think so. I mean, I only saw it for a minute, but it was all curvy like that.”
They were on the right track, weren’t they?
Remi thought so too. “The pieces fit so far. How old is Hatcher? Young enough that a girl Jocelyn’s age might contemplate an affair with him?”
“Thirty-seven. His father died young. If you scroll to page eight of the report, there’s a recent photo.”
Coco studied the picture. A brown-haired man in a good suit, smiling for the camera in front of a wood-and-stainless-steel building. It appeared to be a corporate publicity shot, something that would go in a brochure or on a website. Hatcher didn’t look particularly special, but he wasn’t ugly either. Plus he kept in shape, and he had good teeth. Coco had decided that she liked a man with good teeth. Rhys’s were perfect. In one of their chats, he’d confessed that he’d worn braces for three years when he was younger and the kids at school had nicknamed him “zipper lips.”
Would Jocelyn really have dated that guy? She couldn’t rule it out. Would Coco? No way. Her tastes had changed for the better, and she wouldn’t go near a married man either.
“How did Hatcher Senior die?” Remi asked.
“Fell overboard on a fishing trip and drowned.”
The prickles turned into stabby little needles.
“Were there any witnesses?”
“Just one—his son.” Monica focused on Remi. “Mr. Klein, I suggest you tread very carefully with this.”
“Oh, I intend to.” Coco had seen Remi angry, and she’d seen him upset, but she’d never seen his eyes look as cold as they did at that moment, or as grimly determined. Even Celine shifted uncomfortably. “I didn’t get to my position by letting my guard down. In business, there’s always somebody waiting to knife you in the back.”
“What’s the next step? Do you want me to keep digging?”
“If you wouldn’t mind. But I’m also going to pay Mr. Hatcher a visit.”
“Is that a good idea?”
“I’ll let you know when I come back.”
CHAPTER 33
“DO YOU THINK Remi’s okay?”
Celine had been standing by the front window in the rental house for the last half hour, which made a change from pacing, Coco supposed.
“Nobody’s going to hurt him in an office filled with people.”
“What if somebody follows him?”
“Why would they? He’s got a good cover story.” As a billionaire hoping to build the perfect vacation home in the town his wife had “simply fallen in love with,” Remi had been granted a meeting right away. “Besides, Monica’s waiting outside the building.”
Just in case Hatcher went anywhere interesting afterwards. Remi planned to keep things low-key today, but Coco wouldn’t put it past him to push a few of Hatcher’s buttons. How would he react if they got close to finding out his secrets? Would he run? Or would he fight?
“But if— Here he is!”
Remi’s rented BMW turned into the driveway and drew to a smooth halt beside the marble fountain outside. Yes, the fountain. Everything about this house was over the top. Remi probably felt right at home.
“Well?” Celine asked as soon as he stepped over the threshold. “What happened?”
“Can I close the door first?”
“If you must. Was it him?”
But she did move back and give Remi space. Rhys appeared too, drying his hands on his pants. He’d offered to make dinner because Remi didn’t want to order pizza again. Coco had helped him for a while because the kitchen in the rental property was so beautiful that it made you want to cook, but after she’d gotten distracted and nearly chopped off a finger, Rhys had taken the knife away and told her that he’d finish.
“Hatcher was wearing a Blancpain Villeret Carrousel. It’s remarkably similar to one in my collection.”
Remi had a whole collection of expensive watches? Actually, that really wasn’t a surprise.
“So it’s him? Hatcher’s the psycho who murdered me?”
“It seems a strong possibility. Not only because he was wearing the watch, but because he was an arrogant fils de pute. A man w
ho likes to get his own way. While I was there, he berated his assistant for putting too much cream in his coffee, but he still kept staring at her derrière. Did you know he has a young daughter?”
“What?”
“A toddler. He keeps a picture of her on his desk.”
“The man’s an asshole,” Rochelle muttered, and she was completely correct. Jocelyn hadn’t been much better if she’d gotten involved with him.
“What about the tattoo?” Celine asked. “Does he have the tattoo?”
“He was wearing a long-sleeved shirt.”
“So all we have to do is keep following him until he rolls up his sleeves. It’s hot here—can’t you ask to meet him outside somewhere?”
“I could.”
“Bon. And then we’ll know that he’s the murderer.”
“Yes, but knowing it and proving it are two different things. We’ll know he did it, but so far, we have no evidence to present to the police. They’ve closed the case, remember?”
That was when it really hit Coco. The fury. The regret. The thought of never getting justice was a punch to the gut. Closure, my ass. Monica had used her contacts to get ahold of the police file, and Remi was right—there was no evidence. No defensive wounds, no footprints, and any trace material had been washed away by the water. The only eyewitness that day had been a woman out with her dog who’d seen Jocelyn hurrying along the sidewalk towards the lake, alone.
They’d found the man who killed her—killed her—and he was going to get away with it. He was going to carry on going to his fancy job and living in his fancy house with his no-doubt fancy wife. His wife… Did she even know what her husband was capable of? He’d murdered two people for sure—Jocelyn and her baby—maybe three if his father’s death hadn’t been an accident, and Emily Hatcher was still sharing his bed. Could ignorance be bliss? Or was it a ticking time bomb? What if she was the next to die?
For her, there would be no miraculous resurrection. No rebirth under a tree in the middle of the night. Hell, they still didn’t know how Coco had even got into the damn plant food.
Carl Hatcher’s next victim was a dead woman walking.
Jocelyn was gone.
And Coco… Fury warred with loss, but all that came out was tears.
CHAPTER 34
“I CAN’T DECIDE what’s worse, not knowing who killed me or knowing who did and not being able to do a damn thing about it.”
They’d confirmed it now. Hatcher had the tattoo. Monica had tailed him from the office to the gym, where he removed his wedding ring, followed her into the sauna, and invited her out for drinks. Monica assured Remi that she was fine, that she had a black belt in karate and carried a knife in her bikini top, but the thought of her getting so close to Hatcher still made Coco shudder.
What had Jocelyn ever seen in that sleaze? Had he told her his marriage was over? Sweet-talked her with false promises? Bribed her with a promotion? Monica said he didn’t look like much in his Speedos, so it certainly hadn’t been the dick.
“It sucks,” Celine agreed. “He’s getting on with his life as if nothing happened. I bet his wife has no idea that you even existed. I mean, a baby? She’d have divorced his ass for sure.”
Remi raised an eyebrow. “Divorced his ass?”
“When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Or speak as the Romans speak.”
“The Americans.”
“Whatever.”
Coco flopped backwards onto the couch, thunking her head onto the cushion. She wished she’d thunked some sense into herself last year. Or the year before. Who knew how long the affair had been going on? And hell, she wished she could apologise to his wife as well. Jocelyn had lost her damn mind even before she died—that was the only explanation.
“I was so freaking stupid! Did he tell me he loved me? Was I blinded by his money? Not knowing is gonna drive me crazy for the rest of my life. My second life. The better one.”
Rhys, the voice of reason, squeezed her hand. “We’ll probably never know the full story, but you’ve got to stop letting him screw with your head. If you give him that, then he’s still got power over you.”
“Easy for you to say—it’s not your head he’s screwing with. I just wish there was a way for me to do the same to him.”
Remi drummed his fingers on the dining table, which wasn’t irritating at all. Grrr. He’d taken up residence behind his laptop again, both to catch up on emails and to research Hatcher.
“Maybe… Hmm… Maybe there is.”
Everyone turned to look at him.
“What do you mean?”
“As far as Carl Hatcher is concerned, you’re nothing but a ghost. And I wonder, does he believe in the supernatural?”
What did that devious smile mean?
“I don’t get it.”
“Perhaps you’ve heard that Le Château de Villance is haunted? There are always rumours around the town.”
“I might have heard it mentioned,” Rhys said.
“There are no ghosts, of course, but I encourage the stories. Even though logic tells people that ghosts don’t exist, the scared child deep inside wonders if they do. If spirits really walk the earth on a different plane. So, I play sounds at night from time to time—footsteps, a baby crying, a woman’s scream. It helps to keep the townsfolk away from the place.”
“Wish you’d bloody told me.”
Remi’s grin was a little too cheerful. “You fell for it?”
“No.”
“You did.”
“That walk from the château to the cottage gives me the heebie-jeebies, okay? You need more lights along the path.”
“I’ll install some if you’re going to be staying there for any length of time.”
Was that an option? The future was still so up in the air, Coco hadn’t thought beyond the trip to America. But she’d go wherever Rhys wanted to go. Did he like living in France?
“So what are you saying?” Celine asked. “That we should play footstep sounds to scare Hatcher?”
“No, I’m saying that Coco should become the ghost. If Hatcher thinks she’s come back to visit, that’ll definitely mess with his mind. Fear mixed with guilt mixed with the conviction that he’s always right—who knows what will happen?”
“You sure scared me when you showed up at my door,” Rochelle said. “I thought I was gonna have a heart attack.”
A heart attack would be acceptable. Could it truly work? Even if there was only the slimmest chance, they had to try, didn’t they?
“I like it. I really like it. I could drive him insane.”
“You’d be good at that,” Rhys said, but he was smiling even as Coco elbowed him in the side.
“How soon can we start?”
“As soon as we’ve made a plan.” Remi’s smile grew even wider. “And I’m good at making plans.”
***
At Remi’s request, Monica brought in a “local security specialist.” He introduced himself as Bones, and while he might have smiled, the atmosphere turned oppressive when he walked into the room. As if he’d sucked all the air out of it. Coco sure was glad the man was on their side and not Hatcher’s.
Together with Monica, Bones had spent the last three days researching Hatcher, which included following him as he went about his business.
“He’s still at it,” Monica reported after the first day. “He took a young blonde out for a swanky dinner while his wife was at home with their daughter. Cute kid. The daughter, not the coed he was kissing. Three years old and looks just like her mom.”
A pang of pity hit Coco along with a wave of disgust. “Our actions are going to ruin his family’s lives too, aren’t they?”
Coco was already dead. Hatcher deserved to be. But his wife and child—they were innocent.
“He’s already sleeping with girls on the side, and he killed one of them. Maybe more—who knows? Is he really a good father?”
“I guess not, but…”
“Look, hun. I grew up with parents who st
ayed together even though they hated each other. When I turned eighteen and they finally divorced, it was a relief, not a hardship. I only wished they’d done it sooner. We’d all have been happier.”
The Hatchers didn’t come across as unhappy in the photos. That smiling girl… Why had Coco been so worried about having a baby of her own? Even if its father was a jerk, she could have raised the child and loved it enough for two.
“It’s your decision,” Rhys told her. “If you want to call this off, you can.”
Monica gave her a weird look. Shit.
“I knew Jocelyn,” Coco explained. “She was an old friend. I hadn’t seen her in a while, but I wish we hadn’t grown apart.”
“What if he kills someone else?” Celine asked. “What if the new girl ends up dead in a lake as well?”
There was only one decision Coco could make, wasn’t there?
“Then we have to carry on.”
***
It was like a game of chess. They plotted a move, then tried to predict Hatcher’s reaction. The endgame? Checkmate. They wanted Hatcher to admit what he’d done. Since they couldn’t prove it to a court, a confession was the only viable way to get justice, and any recording would need to be made in person because a legal wiretap required either agreement from all parties involved in the conversation or a court order, unless it was a 911 call. In-person recording was legal in Nevada as long as one party had consented.
“How do I look?” Coco asked, giving Rhys a twirl.
“Beautiful, as always.”
“No, really?”
The boot-cut jeans and hooded sweatshirt were anything but pretty, but that wasn’t the effect they were going for. Coco needed to look on the creepy side of normal. Rochelle had made her face appear pale and gaunt, and today’s contacts were pure white. They made her vision fuzzy, but it wasn’t as if she’d need to drive. According to Rochelle, she’d had a licence, but she’d also been fond of speeding. Oops. Coco was back to her own hair today, although they’d told Monica she was wearing a wig—how fortunate that she looked similar enough to Jocelyn to play her body double, eh?
