“Who are you, and how do you know my name?”
I owed her an explanation, but how much of one I wanted to give, I didn’t know.
“Where to?” I said.
“Cottonwood Heights.”
“Are you okay?”
She shook her head.
“And Parker?”
“His family jewels might be sore for a while, but I’m sure he’ll survive. He always does. Wait, how did you…?”
“How do you know Parker?” I said.
She gazed at me. “You first.”
“It’s a long story. Have you known him long?”
“About a year.”
“Were you two involved?”
“If you mean in a romantic way, yeah.”
“For how long?” I said.
“About nine months. I broke it off a couple weeks ago.”
It crossed my mind that Charlotte might have found out about Parker’s dirty little secret and that she paid for it with her life.
“Why did you break up?” I said.
She sighed and looked out my car window. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“When did he hit you last?” I said.
By the look on her face, she was startled by my comment. It was more of a hunch, and I knew I had pushed her with my questions, but right now she was stuck in my car with no other place to go.
“Look lady, I don’t even know you so what’s with the twenty questions?”
“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it,” I said.
She massaged her arm with her left hand which jerked a tiny bit every time she touched it.
“Are you hurt?” I said.
She nodded.
“I wanted to break it off for good this time. That’s why I went to see him. How could I be so stupid, sono cosi stupido!”
I wasn’t sure what she meant, but her anger transcended the language barrier.
“You loved him, didn’t you?” I said.
She hung her head but didn’t say a word.
“Do you know a woman named Charlotte Halliwell…or Zoey Kendrick?”
She shook her head back and forth. “Should I?”
“From what I understand, they were both involved with Parker,” I said.
Her face hardened. She didn’t know.
“What makes you think there are others?”
“Up until a few months ago, Parker planned to marry Charlotte Halliwell, but then she called it off,” I said.
She contracted her hand into a fist and thrust it into my leather seat, twice.
“Bastard!”
“If it’s any consolation, I believe he kept all of you in the dark,” I said.
“And you think this Charlotte person, she didn’t know either?”
“I’m not sure,” I said.
“Why don’t you ask her?”
“Because,” I said, “she’s dead.”
Daniela squeezed both temples with her fingers. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too,” I said. “You could help me by telling me more about your relationship with him.”
“How did you know I was going to meet Parker tonight, and how did you happen to drive up at the exact time I ran out, like you expected me?”
“Good timing,” I said.
She shrugged.
“Fine by me, you don’t answer my questions, I don’t answer yours.”
It seemed we were at an impasse. I didn’t want to give up my true motive, and she didn’t want to pour her life story out to a stranger. One of us needed to relent, and since she’d crossed her arms and closed her eyes, the answer was obvious.
“All right,” I said.
For the next several minutes I fed her rudimentary details about my interest in Parker Stanton and hoped she would keep quiet long enough for me to confront him myself. I made no mention of my earlier run in with him that evening.
“That’s crazy,” she said, when I finished.
“Now can you see why I need your help?” I said.
“You want to know if I think Parker is capable of murder?”
“I’m asking you to share what you know about him. Anything you can tell me would help.”
She paused for a few moments, and then her shoulders relaxed, which meant she was about to give me something. I just hoped it was something useful.
“At first, our relationship was different from anything I’ve ever experienced before, like something out of a fairy tale. He left presents on my doorstep and notes on the windshield of my car, and he took me on trips all over the place. Paris by day, London by night. Nothing was out of his reach. I guess some part of me questioned whether it was too good to be true, but I didn’t want to believe it wasn’t. No one in my life had ever treated me that way before.”
“When did things change?” I said.
“About halfway into the relationship, but by then it wasn’t easy to get out.”
“It’s a hard decision to make, especially when you’ve invested your feelings into it,” I said.
“Parker has a nasty temper. Anything can set him off. At first he would just grab my arm or pin me down, but after a while, he became more aggressive.”
“How so?”
“One day he shoved me and I fell. He spent the next two days apologizing and said, if I had it in me to forgive him, he’d never lay a hand on me again.”
“And did he?” I said.
“For the next couple months after that no, but one day last month he went off in a tirade. He hit me in the face, and it left marks. I backed up, trying to get away from him and ended up tripping over the coffee table.”
Daniela turned on the passenger side light and lifted up her shirt. It revealed a faded seven-inch bruise on her side.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“I thought he was the one, you know? We planned our life together, kids, the whole bit.”
“Did you tell anyone what he did to you?”
She shook her head.
“I wanted to, but I was embarrassed,” she said. “I didn’t want my family to find out what happened so I left for a couple weeks and visited a friend while I tried to sort it all out in my head. I know what you think: How could I go back to that monster after what happened? He called me every day, and for a long time I didn’t answer, but the messages he left me were so sweet. Even with all we’d been through in the past, it was hard not to see him again.”
She lifted her finger and pointed out the window. “Take a left at the stop sign.”
I turned.
“You can pull over right here,” she said.
She opened the car door, walked over to a wooden post, and punched in a code that opened the gates into a long drive.
“Nice place,” I said.
“It’s my brother’s winter home. We only use it a few months out of the year during ski season.”
It looked like a smaller version of the Hearst mansion. I couldn’t imagine what his summer home looked like.
“I’ll walk from here.”
“Can I call you if I have any other questions?” I said.
“All I want right now is to get away from Parker and to put this behind me, for good this time.”
“At least let me give you my card so you can call me if you need to,” I said.
She took the card and turned toward the gate.
“Thanks for the ride.”