“Which are you leaning toward?”
I shrugged. “I have no idea.”
“When you figure it out, tell me. I think it will make a fascinating paper.”
He really was too much. “I don’t suppose you would let me screenshot some of these messages before getting out of your hair, would you?”
“Knock yourself out. Just remember, I didn’t give you access.”
“I won’t tell a soul I know you.”
“That’s the way I prefer it.”
Twenty-Three
I found Jack and Bernard drinking iced coffee on the pier. They seemed to be in jovial moods, cracking wise, so I stood close to the railing and let them talk freely.
I spent a little time eavesdropping because ... well, I couldn’t stop myself.
“Millie just messaged,” Bernard offered. He was so chill that he often sounded lazy when talking. “She’s been on the phone with Myron again. Apparently Laura refuses to let go of what happened this morning.”
“That is so Laura,” Jack grumbled, playing with the whipped cream on his drink. I couldn’t remember ever seeing him get a frothy drink like that, so I was amused. “She’s not going to win this one. Chris put his foot down. She should be afraid. She’s not just messing with Charlie and me, but Chris, too. He has more power than she realizes.”
“I never thought Chris had any power when I first started,” Bernard admitted. “I was wrong. He’s got a great personality and always wants to believe in the impossible. He’s enthusiastic, a bit of a dreamer. He can also be tough when he wants to be.”
“He can.”
“He doesn’t seem upset about you and Charlie. That’s good.”
Jack shifted on his seat and focused his full attention on Bernard. “Are you worried he’ll be upset when he finds out about you and Millie?”
Bernard shrugged. “He loves her. He’s an adult, but sometimes he reverts to being a kid with her. I think she spent a lot of time with him when he was growing up.”
“Chris likes you. You have nothing to worry about.”
“He likes me, but he loves his uncle,” Bernard stressed. “I think, in the back of his head, he’s still holding out hope they’ll get back together. It might not be practical or realistic, but that kid thing he’s got going for him isn’t always cute.”
“He’ll get used to it,” Jack offered. “He won’t have the opportunity to do that unless you tell him what’s going on, though.”
“That’s up to Millie. I agreed not to get involved with her relationship with Chris or Myron. That’s really none of my business.”
“You can’t move forward until it becomes public.”
“Yeah, well, that’s becoming more and more evident.” Bernard rubbed his chin. “It’s not a worry for today. We’re not going to fix it here.”
“Definitely not.”
“What about you and Charlie? Things seem to be going well with you.”
I held my breath waiting for an answer. For some reason I turned into a total girl whenever talk of my relationship with Jack bubbled to the surface.
“Things with Charlie are fine ... other than the fact that she’s trying to hide and eavesdrop.”
I frowned when the words sank in, glaring when Jack met my gaze. He looked more amused than annoyed. I worked overtime to keep my face placid as I stalked to their table.
“I wasn’t eavesdropping,” I grumbled.
“Right.” Jack tilted his drink toward me. “Want some? There’s whipped cream.”
“I’ve already had three green iced teas. I’m good for now.”
“Where have you been?”
I told him about my run-in with Clark first. I figured if he was going to get angry he would blow up early and then settle when I told him about Max. As predicted, he wasn’t happy with the turn of events.
“I can’t believe you came right out and asked him about it,” he complained, his eyes darkening. “That was incredibly stupid, Charlie. What if he’s a killer? He could’ve taken you out.”
I snorted. “We were in the middle of the lobby. He’s full of himself, but he’s not stupid. There was never any chance he was going to put his hands on me.”
“You said the lobby was empty.”
“Yes, but there were hundreds of people in the conference rooms and there are employees walking through the lobby all the time. He wouldn’t have jumped me.”
“I guess.” He didn’t look happy. “I think it’s weird that he’s denying going to high school with her even though that’s easy to track down. He must have panicked.”
“He sounds like a real piece of work,” Bernard noted. “Everything you’ve said about him leads me to believe that he’s capable of murder. Maybe she pushed him too far. Maybe he had some image of his life that involved her and he finally realized it was never going to happen and snapped.”
“Maybe,” I agreed. “The thing is, she has five children with her husband. It seems to me that if he was going to snap because of that he would’ve done it after the first two kids. Why wait this long?”
“Maybe she pushed him.”
“Yeah, well, she was definitely pushing people.” I pulled out my phone and highlighted some of the screenshots I’d taken with Max. “I found out she had a private group that she urged to attack her enemies. It wasn’t something she did publicly, but apparently it was common knowledge.”
“How did you find this?” Jack took my phone and started reading. “I looked all over the social media sites and didn’t find this.”
“It’s a private group. I happened to stumble across a guy who is essentially an online ninja. He infiltrates all the private groups to keep up on the gossip.” I told him about Max as he read. “He’s like a genius or something. He writes actual books on his phone.”
Jack was amused. “You sound impressed.”
“He’s younger than me and he’s about to finish his rotations and be a full-fledged doctor. That’s freaking amazing.”
“That is pretty impressive,” Bernard admitted. “You said he knew who you were?”
I nodded. “He’s friends with Lily and Sarah, but he does his own thing. He admitted that Shayne outed him and he had to burn a pen name because of it. He didn’t seem angry. I guess he could be faking it. If anyone knows how to mask emotions, it would be him. That’s not the feeling I got.”
“I’m going to run him anyway,” Jack said. “Did you get his name?”
“Max Thatcher. I have no idea if that’s his real name or one of his pen names.”
“It’s a place to start.” Jack finished reading the screenshots and handed the phone back to me. “She was clearly the Devil. She played sweet and nice for the public but got off on screwing with people’s lives. I guarantee that when we get to the end of this, whoever killed her is going to feel justified because she wasn’t a good person.”
“We still have a lot of suspects,” I reminded him. “I bet there are more suspects out there than we’re even aware of. If I was going to take down my enemy in a public setting like this, I would fly under the radar.
“The thing is, most of these writers can’t fly under the radar because they’re dramatic by nature,” I continued. “They don’t see themselves that way, but they clearly are.”
“Definitely,” Jack agreed. “It’s like a soap opera except with writers. They stab one another with words instead of knives.”
“We don’t know that Shayne wasn’t stabbed with a knife,” Bernard said. “We have no idea how she died. Did the medical examiner say he was running a toxicology report?”
Jack nodded. “Yeah. They were going to message Hannah with the results when they returned. I’ll make sure to ask her later if she’s heard from them. If Shayne was drugged, that should show up. If she was using recreationally, that would show up, too.”
“Why does it matter if she was using recreationally?” I asked.
“She might’ve accidentally fallen into the water under those circumstances.�
�
Hmm. That made sense. “I think Clark is our best suspect right now. Shayne did a lot of nasty things to the other writers, but his beef with her was personal.”
“I agree, but how do you intend on getting him to own up to his past with her? If he won’t admit he knew her, we’re definitely not going to shake him enough to cause him to admit he killed her.”
“Well ... .” I didn’t get a chance to finish because my phone rang. “Hold on.” I didn’t recognize the number. “It’s probably a telemarketer. Do Not Call Registry my aching behind. Hello?”
There was hesitation on the other end of the call. I was close to hanging up when a voice finally responded. “Hello?”
“Yes?”
“Is this Charlie Rhodes?”
“It is.”
“Um ... hello. My name is Augusta Benson. You called and left a message for me.”
My heart skipped a beat and I held up a finger to silence Jack as I nodded. “Yes, Ms. Benson. That was me. I’m looking for information on Elsie May Haymark and Clark Savage. I understand you went to high school with them.”
Jack fell silent, his eyes inquisitive. He didn’t attempt to take my phone, and instead let me handle the questioning.
“I did, but I’m not sure how you found that out,” Benson said. I could practically feel her squirming through the phone.
“I looked online,” I answered honestly. “There’s been an incident regarding Elsie and Clark in Florida, and there’s some debate about their relationship.”
Benson was instantly on alert. “What sort of incident?”
“She’s dead.”
“She’s dead?” Benson didn’t exactly squeal the question, but her voice ratcheted up a notch. “Are you sure?”
“She died several days ago.”
“Did it hurt?”
The question caught me off guard. “I don’t know. Her cause of death is ... undetermined ... at this point. Why would you ask that?”
“Because this conversation is going to be a lot more fun if I know it hurt.”
Oh, well ... hmm. “She was discovered snagged in a shark net. She’d been fed on. There’s a very good chance it hurt.”
Jack and Bernard exchanged quick glances, clearly confused. They could only hear my end of the conversation. It was windy enough on the pier that I didn’t want to risk putting her on speakerphone.
“That’s what I want to hear.” Benson brightened considerably. “What do you want to know about Clark and Elsie?”
“Well, for starters, I understand that they were involved. He’s being evasive, and we’re trying to ascertain how deeply that association ran.”
“Deep,” she replied without hesitation. “Very deep, in fact. They were involved all through high school. From when they were freshmen until they graduated.”
“Really?” I didn’t have many relationships in high school, but that sounded like an intense union for two teenagers. “What were they like when they were dating?”
“They were close. Clark was obviously in charge. Whatever he said, she did. She wasn’t innocent or anything when all that stuff went down, though. She was simply better at hiding her involvement.”
I was practically frothing at the mouth I was so excited. “And what went down?”
“You don’t even know that?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Well, it was a big deal here,” Benson explained, warming to the subject. “Nancy Nelson went missing our senior year. It was rumored she’d been seen with Clark right before it happened. It was over by the track field and the team members saw them walking along the top of the hill. It was a big deal because Clark and Elsie were joined at the hip ... and other places, if you know what I mean.”
I didn’t need a diagram of the picture she was painting. “I get it.”
“Nancy never made it home that night. Her mother called the police when she didn’t show up, but they said there was nothing to be done until Nancy had been gone for twenty-four hours. So Nancy’s mother started calling friends and someone told her about seeing Nancy with Clark.”
My stomach shifted in a way that told me I wasn’t going to like the end of this story. “Then what happened?”
“Nancy’s mother tracked down Clark at his house,” Benson replied. “She said he looked disheveled and seemed nervous. He denied being with Nancy and said that whoever told her that was lying. He said he was with Elsie, but when Nancy’s mother tracked her down, she initially denied that.
“Nancy’s body was discovered in the bayou the next day,” she continued. “The cops said she was probably dumped there in the hopes the gators would get to her, but it never happened. She was intact, which was a small comfort for her mother.”
I definitely felt sick to my stomach. As if sensing that, Jack rubbed his hand over my back. He was quiet and let me continue the conversation at my own pace.
“What happened with Clark?” I asked finally. “Was he arrested?”
“Nope. He told the cops he was with Elsie. The runners on the track team said they couldn’t be one-hundred percent positive they saw him with Nancy, but they were eighty-percent positive. Elsie changed her story and said Clark was with her the whole time, and charges were never filed.”
I was dumbfounded. “Was anyone else ever arrested in Nancy’s death?”
“No. Everyone knows it was Clark. He took off right after graduation, and to my knowledge, he’s never come back. Elsie comes back occasionally to visit her mother, but she stays to herself. She didn’t try to hook up with any of us. I heard she was living in Baton Rouge, had some big house from her books or something, and insists her mother visit her there now.”
I licked my lips, my mind going a million miles a second. “Do you know why Clark and Elsie broke up?”
“No. I heard rumors, but I don’t know if they were true.”
“What were the rumors?”
“That she was cheating on him with some guy at college. I believe it was the guy she ended up marrying. She was all meek and stuff in high school. I guess that changed when she got away from Clark.”
“What about when they broke up?” I pressed. “How long did they last after graduation?”
“Not long. They went to separate schools, and by the first Christmas break she had a new boyfriend. I heard Clark was furious, but he didn’t keep in touch with anyone, so I’m not sure how that word spread. It could be a total lie.”
I knew how it spread. Shayne — er, Elsie — was a master at telling stories. She wrote her own narrative.
“Is that all?” Benson asked. “Do you need any other information?”
“No. That’s it. Thank you so much for your time.”
She hung up without saying goodbye. My hands were practically shaking with excitement when I shoved my phone back into my pocket. “You’re not going to believe this.” I told Jack and Bernard the story. When I’d finished, Jack was already on his feet.
“That is way too similar to be a coincidence,” he said. “That’s obviously his fallback plan. He killed that Nancy girl and left her for the gators to eat. Years later, he took out the one person who knew his secret and left her for the sharks to eat. His plan simply worked better this go-around.”
“What are you going to do?” I asked, eyeing him with overt curiosity. “Are you going to tell the cops?”
“Eventually. First, I’m going to pull the police report on Nancy Nelson’s death. There might be information in there that your phone friend wasn’t aware of.”
That sounded like a good idea. “What do you want me to do?”
“Stay out of trouble.”
I frowned. “That’s it? You don’t want me to help you?”
“Actually, I do want you to help me.” Jack changed his tune too fast to avoid suspicion. “I want you to keep Bernard company and talk to the shark net folks when they’re finished. Chris will want information about that shark net no matter what we discover about Clark. I can trust you to do that, right?”
He had to be kidding. “I want to go with you and see the police report.”
“I’ll show it to you later. I need you to do this now.”
He was clearly torturing me. “But ... .”
“No buts.” He wagged his finger. “We both have jobs to do. You’ve done the heavy lifting so far. Now it’s my turn. That doesn’t mean your shift is over.”
I was morose as I focused on the workers. “This is boring.”
“It’s also safe.” He handed me the remains of his iced coffee. “I’ll be back as soon as I find what I’m looking for. Don’t leave until you have the information Chris specifically asked for. You’ll be in trouble if you do.”
“Whatever.” I folded my arms over my chest and avoided eye contact.
“Oh, don’t be like that,” Jack complained. “It’s not my fault. You can’t pull the files.”
“Do what you want.”
He sighed. “I’ll be back as soon as I can and I will share whatever information I find.”
That wasn’t as exciting as being part of the discovery process. “You’re the boss. You have a job to do.”
“I do. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Have fun.”
“Charlie ... .”
“Just go,” Bernard instructed, waving him off. “I’ve got this. Believe it or not, I know a thing about wrangling feisty females.”
Huh. That sounded like an insult. Apparently Bernard was bucking for a fight today, too.
Twenty-Four
The hunt for Clark Savage was on. The problem was, he’d disappeared right after our conversation.
No one knew where he was or how to find him.
“I think we should call the police,” Hannah suggested once the group met in the condo she shared with Chris and Laura. That was hours after Jack left me to watch the people erecting the new shark net. “It’s their job to find him.”
“It’s their job to find him, but we have no proof Clark is a killer,” Jack countered. “We have our suspicions, a rather interesting set of facts from his childhood, a police report with gaping holes, but we don’t have proof. We need to talk to him.”
The Megalodon Mix-Up Page 22
