Three Women Disappear

by James Patterson

  I changed out of my satin robe and into jeans and a T-shirt—my way of saying we were equals now. Then I opened up. She’d lost weight. Sarah never had much of an inch to pinch, but now she was out-and-out skinny. I was half concerned, half jealous.

  I didn’t say anything. Neither did she. She stood in the hall, looking me over, hands hidden in her coat pockets. I had to wave her in, then step aside so she didn’t run over my foot with her gargantuan suitcase.

  I went first.

  “You crazy, deluded, devious backstabber,” I said.

  She cocked her head, made her little gourmet chef hands into fists.

  “At least I fight my own battles,” she said. “I don’t hide behind my money.”

  “Can’t hide behind what you don’t have.”

  “Yeah, and I’m no one’s trophy bitch.”

  “And I’m no murderer.”

  “No, you just hire it done.”

  That was enough. She broke into a smile. Then we were hugging each other, laughing and crying at the same time. It was our code: if our reunion opened with mutual accusations and confessions, it meant neither of us was wearing a wire. It meant that, as far as we knew, we were in the clear.

  After Sarah freshened up, we headed down to the hotel’s five-star restaurant, took a seat on the terrace, and ordered giant prawns and even larger hurricanes. Three drinks in, we were trying our best to be quiet and civil.

  “To us,” Sarah said, raising her glass.

  “The three of us.”

  “Serena really came through.”

  “We all did,” I said. “The trophy wife, the maid, and the cook. Who’d have thought we could pull it off?”

  “Not Sean. He thought he was going to swoop in and save us all.”

  “He should have been saving himself. Did he give you the speech?”

  “All the way from Texas. He wanted me to say you’d paid Serena, then Serena hired her brother. Longest car ride of my life.”

  “He wanted me to say that I’d paid you, then you paid Serena, who in turn paid her brother. Every finger pointing in a different direction. He kept saying, ‘That’s how we beat this. Confuse them until they throw up their hands.’ We have to assume he’ll use the same strategy in his defense.”

  “Too little, too late,” Sarah said. “In the end, we had the better plan.”

  “Underestimate us at your own peril. Mob man and cop boy couldn’t fathom being brought down by three little women. Speaking of Sean…”

  I dug into my pocketbook. Sarah set her drink down.

  “Take a look at this,” I said, handing her a newspaper clipping. “It’s worth framing.”

  She read the headline aloud: “Bail Set at $5 Million for Detective Accused of Murder.”

  “The third paragraph from the bottom says the amount is unprece—”

  “Five million?” She was shell-shocked. “I don’t care how much Sean was reeling in on the side—no way he comes up with that kind of cash.”

  “That’s what the judge had in mind. Apparently he gave a long lecture on the disease of corruption in the Tampa police force.”

  “To our husbands,” she said, taking her glass back up. “Two diseases we’ve finally cured.”

  We clinked rims. Then Sarah turned serious. Serious is Sarah’s default mode. Whether she was baking a soufflé or conspiring to commit murder, she always seemed to be thinking of the worst possible outcome, holding it up in her mind’s eye like a threat. That was how she motivated herself. All stick and no carrot.

  “It isn’t over, you know,” she said. “We need to rehearse.”

  “What now?”

  Sarah took out her glasses, slid them up the bridge of her nose. Glasses with sheer plastic lenses. Glasses she bought when Sean started hitting her, as if four eyes would somehow make him a gentleman. She was wearing them now in order to appear more lawyerly.

  “Until the three of us are all set in our new lives,” she said, “we can’t afford to waste a second.”

  “I wish you’d thought of that two hurricanes ago,” I said.

  “I mean it, Anna. Sean is wily. He has resources. So far we’re ahead, but we can’t forget we’re playing in his world.”

  “All right, all right,” I said. “You go first. I’ll take small sips between questions.”

  She cleared her throat, sat up ramrod straight in her chair.

  “How would you describe your marriage to the deceased?” she began. “Was it happy? Were you what people call soul mates?”

  “Soul mates? Who’s defending Sean, a Hallmark card?”

  “Anna, this is important. Get into character.”

  I shut my eyes, shook myself semisober.

  “Yes,” I said, “we were happy. There were ups and downs, but on the whole I’d say we did better than most couples.”

  “Hmm…The ups must have happened in private, because people I’ve talked to only seem to remember the downs. Is it true that at your own wedding you threatened to castrate him if he so much as glanced at one of your bridesmaids?”

  “If I didn’t love him, I wouldn’t have cared.”

  “You must have loved him a whole lot, because I have witnesses on record saying that you threatened to slit his throat when he fell asleep, to burn down the mansion with him in it the next time he passed out drunk, to lace his shampoo with sulfuric acid, his iced tea with antifreeze, his underwear with—”

  “Yeah, and he threatened to run me through a meat grinder. It was The War of the Roses at our house. We fought. We were passionate. But we never would have hurt each other.”

  “Maybe not, but would you have paid someone to hurt Anthony?”

  “What?”

  Sarah shot me a look that said, Nice job. Your surprise seems genuine. I thought, Maybe I should bring a hurricane to court with me.

  “It’s been widely reported that three women disappeared immediately after Anthony Costello’s murder: you, Sarah Roberts-Walsh, and Serena Flores. What hasn’t been reported is that something else went missing. Something very valuable. Your jewelry. A half million dollars’ worth, maybe more.”

  “I don’t know where my collection went.”

  This was one bald-faced lie I’d told Haagen. I was confident I could repeat it without tipping my hand.

  “Really? Because Sarah Roberts-Walsh told detectives that she sold every one of the pieces.”

  “That’s what I heard.”

  “No, don’t say that,” Sarah scolded. “Don’t pretend to have heard.”

  “I have no idea what Sarah did or didn’t do. The jewels aren’t worth much unless you know how to fence them and I doubt she figured that out.”

  “You doubt that, huh?”

  “She’s a cook, not a jewel thief. She wouldn’t have the stones to take them, and even if she did, she wouldn’t have the slightest idea how to fence them.”

  “Do you also doubt that Sarah had access to Detective Walsh’s collection of knives? Do you doubt she had access to his vehicle? To the Jeep where the murder weapon—a monogrammed knife—was so conveniently discovered?”

  “Oh, please,” I said. “Sarah Roberts-Walsh is about as dangerous as a retired librarian. If I was going to pay someone to kill my husband, it sure as hell wouldn’t be her.”

  “So who would you hire?”

  I pretended to be looking over the courtroom.

  “I didn’t hire anyone,” I said. “But if I had, it would have been someone like him. Someone who traveled in Anthony’s circle. Someone who knew how to handle himself. Someone who might stand a chance against a three-hundred-pound man who grew up in a mob family.”

  Sarah nodded.

  “The defense would have objected until he was blue in the face, but you got your point across. Now you grill me.”

  “Later,” I said. “I’ve got something to show you first. Something I don’t like to leave unguarded for too long.”

  Chapter 37

  BACK IN my room, I slid a titanium suitcase out
from under the bed, knelt down, and undid all three locks.

  “What’s this?” Sarah asked.

  “My collection,” I said, popping open the lid, pulling away a layer of neatly folded sweaters to reveal a little over a million dollars in tightly wrapped stacks of bills. “I meant it when I said you wouldn’t know what to do with them.”

  “How did you…?”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “This looks like a lot more than we told Haagen.”

  “You think I went around advertising their real value? Remember, that’s half for you, half for Serena. I’m not paying you off. This is so the two of you can start over, like we agreed. You’re the ones who…who did the heavy lifting. I’m so sorry. I just couldn’t—”

  “He was your husband. Of course you couldn’t.”

  “You were right about Sean. He was so convinced the killer had to be male, he never stopped to think that two women might have done the job. I guess we fooled the forensics team, too.”

  “The blades were identical. Sean was so in love with that knife, he had to have the black and the silver handle.”

  “Lucky for us.”

  “Doesn’t get any luckier.”

  I looked over at her. She wasn’t convulsing or gnashing her teeth or even blinking. She was standing dead still while tears rolled down her cheeks, one on top of the other.

  “Hey,” I said. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

  As if I had to ask, but a stock phrase was the best I could come up with—the crisis equivalent to clearing your throat.

  “I loved him once, you know?” she said. “It wasn’t supposed to be this way. This wasn’t in our vows. Now I’m getting rich off of…”

  She couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence. I shut the suitcase, stood, and put an arm around her.

  “First of all,” I said, “half a mil doesn’t make you rich these days. And second, what do you think would have happened to you—to me—if we’d just sat back and left our fate to those men? You said it yourself: Sean would have killed you sooner or later. And even if he hadn’t, you’d have spent the rest of your life scared out of your mind, never knowing when the next trip to the ER was coming.”

  She nodded, wiped away tears with the heel of one palm.

  “And me?” I went on. “You know firsthand what kind of animal Anthony was. I used to think I loved him. Really, I was seduced by everything that came with him. The house and the cars and the jewels, but also the celebrity. Being able to walk into any restaurant and get a table on the spot. Having people wait on me, even at home. I grew up outside of Jackson. Not poor, but nowhere near rich. Just average. Everything about me was average. I never had any talent, never saw myself as anything more than a secretary or a shop clerk.”

  Sarah’s tear ducts had stalled out. She was listening now—taking a break from her story to hear mine.

  “But then I met Anthony. At a minor-league baseball game, if you can believe it. It turned out his uncle owned the team. Anthony saw me sitting up in the bleachers with my girlfriends. I wasn’t the prettiest of the group, but it was me he invited to join him in the family suite.

  “After the game, he introduced me to the players, then took me for a drive along the coast in his Jaguar. I was hooked. It felt like the big time—as big as it gets in Central Florida. I didn’t see what was coming any more than you did. But it came. For both of us. We grew up in our marriages, and then we saw our mistakes. Our husbands were bad men, and they had all the power on their side. We did the only thing we could do. Don’t call it murder. Call it survival. Because that’s what it was: them or us.”

  Sarah patted my arm. She looked thoughtful, as if she was about to share some life-altering insight. Instead, she asked for a Kleenex. I laughed out loud.

  “A Kleenex and champagne,” I said. “Not because we’re celebrating, but because it’s there and we might as well drink it.”

  I took two half bottles from the minibar. They cost more than two full bottles, but this wasn’t the time to be frugal.

  “Plastic cups, or straight from the bottle?” I asked.

  “Straight from the bottle.”

  “That’s my girl.”

  We sat across from each other on the twin beds, drank without toasting, seemed for a long beat to have run out of things to say. Then I had an idea.

  “Let me see those sham glasses of yours,” I said.

  She looked confused but dug them out of her pocketbook without asking any questions.

  “And that snapshot in your wallet of you and Sean at Niagara—let me have that, too.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we’re going to burn it.”

  “Burn it?”

  “And these awful reading glasses, too.”

  The frames were bright yellow with patches of brown—the most pitiful pair Sarah could find. I put them on, pushed them up the bridge of my nose.

  “Weakest prescription money can buy,” I said. “Luckily you don’t need them anymore, since Sean won’t be coming at you anymore. Time to let go of the past.”

  I took the metal wastepaper basket from under the desk, filled it with pages from the Tribune, then dropped in the glasses and the photo. As a show of solidarity, I pulled out of my pocket a leather key chain with AC & AC branded on one side and tossed it in. A present from Anthony on the occasion of our third anniversary. By then, the romance was already dead.

  “Come on, now,” I said.

  She followed me onto the balcony. Below us, the street was starting to come to life. Fast-talking front men were out fighting for business, luring tourists to their restaurants, bars, clubs. A street musician with an accordion was butchering the theme to The Godfather. Everywhere people were singing, holding hands, climbing lampposts. A few flames on a balcony would only add to the festivities.

  Sarah sat on a wrought iron chair and watched me strike the match.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.”

  She was turning emotional again. The alcohol brought it out in her.

  “Of course it’s a good idea,” I said. “The best idea I’ve ever had. We’re protecting your future self. Ten years from now, do you really want to stumble on those glasses and lose a night of your life to nostalgia or guilt or whatever you happen to be feeling just then? All triggers have to go. Otherwise, we’ll never be free.”

  She gave me a reluctant nod. I let the match fall. With no accelerant, the burn was slow, but once the flames took hold they shot up a good three feet above the basket. Someone on the street yelled something about a Thelma and Louise weenie roast. I saw myself as the independent and tough-minded Louise, even if it hadn’t been me who wielded the knife.

  Sarah leaned forward until the fire’s glow reflected on her skin. She wasn’t crying, but her face was somber as hell. I put a hand on her back.

  “Believe me,” I said, “I wish it was different.”

  And I really did. I could have ripped my hair out thinking about all the ways I wished things were different. I could have collapsed on the floor and screeched in tongues. But Sarah had been so strong—it was my turn to be strong for her. Later, I knew, I’d have all the time I needed to be weak. I had my own hard moments ahead.

  Chapter 38

  Detective Sean Walsh

  AT LEAST they cared enough for my well-being to stick me in solitary, though even then I wound up next door to someone I’d put away: Marty the Mute. At least he made the place a little quieter. Sometimes we’d play hangman by passing a slip of paper back and forth through an air vent. I lost every round. It made me wonder who else Marty might have been if he’d made the effort.

  Otherwise, there wasn’t much to do in my cell besides sit and steam. Sarah’s betrayal was like a gut punch. The best memories were the hardest to cope with. Walks on the beach. Airboat rides through the Everglades. Trips to Niagara Falls, New York City, Yellowstone Park. All tainted now. We’d started in love and wound up strangers. Wasn’t it
supposed to be the other way around?

  I was deep into a set of prison cell push-ups when a flabby corrections officer with bad skin announced I had a visitor. My first thought: Sarah had come around, wanted to talk things through with me before she set the official record straight. I saw in a flash how willing I was to forgive her, even if she never forgave me. And yes, I’d done plenty that needed forgiving.

  I worked out a short speech in my head as the CO led me to the visiting area. I’d let her know that she had my attention now. I understood who I’d been, and I wouldn’t be that person anymore. I was done playing fast and loose with our wedding vows, with the policeman’s oath of honor, with every promise I’d ever made. Whether we stayed together or split, I’d love and cherish her, for richer or poorer, in sickness or in health, until the end of my days.

  But it wasn’t Sarah I found waiting for me: it was Defoe, Vincent’s right-hand goon. One look at him and I forgot all about my little mea culpa. I was spitting mad again—angrier at Sarah than I’d ever been before. Like we’d set up this rendezvous and she’d sent Defoe in her place. Defoe, the ugliest man on two feet. All pockmarks and scars, oil and dandruff. I’ve seen bodies in every state of decomp, but I always had a hard time looking Defoe in the face.

  He gave me a little nod as I took my seat. I nodded back. The thick prison glass between us seemed to magnify his deformities. We reached for our handsets at the same time. Defoe got right down to business.

  “Our mutual friend is very displeased with your current situation,” he said.

  He had an unnerving way of talking through his thin smile, almost without moving his lips.

  “He couldn’t come here and tell me himself?” I said.

  “I assume you’re joking. It’s good to see you still have your sense of humor. You’ll need it in the days ahead. Of course, how many days you have left depends to a large extent on what you say now.”

  “How many days I have left?”

  “I mean behind bars.”

  Defoe wasn’t the brightest, but he had too many years’ experience to threaten me outright in a state-run facility where any and all conversations might be recorded.