Max was famished and Lucy was late.
Max weighed the etiquette instilled in her by her grandmother versus her need for food. Was this an actual planned dinner? Or was it a suggestion? Was it more, “I’m eating at 8:00 P.M., join me if you can” or “We’ll meet at eight to dine together?”
No matter how she sliced it, they’d planned on eating together. Damn, she was going to implode from lack of food. What was the etiquette for waiting? Twenty minutes? Thirty? She was pretty certain there was a rule about it somewhere … but she certainly wouldn’t be calling her grandmother to ask.
Max was on the verge of summoning the waiter when Lucy walked into the dining room. The fed stopped briefly, assessed the venue and everyone in it. She scanned the room as if she had a photographic memory, pausing over every table—not looking for Max, but knowing where everyone was. Was she doing a threat assessment? She was an odd duck and Max didn’t know exactly what to make of her.
Max always understood people. She was beginning to grow frustrated with the fact that she hadn’t been able to pin Lucy Kincaid Rogan into a corner. The not knowing was going to drive her up a wall. She knew why. So much about her childhood was still a mystery to her that she sought answers where she could find them.
Lucy sat down next to Max instead of across from her where the place setting was laid out. Lucy moved it over herself. Typical law enforcement—Max’s ex-boyfriend Marco and current boyfriend Nick—was he still her boyfriend, she wondered … she didn’t know and that saddened her—would have done the same thing.
“I’m sorry I’m late—I ended up reading the rest of Justin’s file.”
“And what did your brother say?”
“He’ll talk to Nelia.”
“Very well.”
“I didn’t expect you to be so reasonable about it.”
“I am always reasonable.”
Lucy smiled and almost laughed. When had Max given her the impression that she wasn’t reasonable? Maybe almost walking out yesterday to interview Detective Katella alone … but that was one time.
“All I care about is the truth,” Max said. “I don’t much care how I get it, either, as long as I trust the information. Your brother has a long and distinguished career and I have a sense that he’s extremely honest. I think he’s the best person to find the answers we need.” She paused, just a beat. When Lucy didn’t say anything, Max added, “He holds back. During the call, I could see that he wanted to say things, but refrained. He’d be easy to beat in poker.”
“And why is this bad? If people took a minute to think before speaking, most conflicts would be avoided.”
“I suppose I could learn that lesson, but in my business when I make people angry, I tend to get the truth.”
The waiter came over and Max ordered two appetizers and a second glass of wine. “I’m famished,” she told Lucy, “but I’ll share and give you time to look at the menu.”
“I know what I want,” Lucy said. She ordered and Max was surprised that Lucy added a glass of wine. When she said, “Any red wine is fine,” Max interrupted.
“Bring her a glass of the Trefethen cab.”
“Ordering for me?”
“The house wine is fine here, but trust me.”
“I don’t drink very much.”
“All the more reason to enjoy good wine when you do.”
Max waved off the waiter and finished her own glass of chardonnay. She generally preferred a lighter white, but they offered one of her favorite chardonnays by the glass.
“So, is everything okay with you and your brother?” Max asked.
“Yes.”
Again Lucy offered nothing else. Answer the question and get out. She would be a lousy interview.
So Max got down to business. “I spoke to Andrew. My producer put in the FOIA request and Andrew will expedite it. Probably cutting a few corners, but he’ll have the files ready for us tomorrow.”
“You,” Lucy said. “I can’t—I mean, what you choose to share with me after you review the files is fine, but for now I think it would be safer for you and Andrew to go through the employee records. If we end up with a viable suspect, I don’t want to jeopardize a conviction because of a warrant issue.”
“What do you plan to do?”
“I’m going to talk to my sister. Carina.”
“About?”
“It’s personal.”
The waiter came back with the two wines, and Lucy sipped the cabernet that Max had ordered. She took a second sip. “Okay, this is delicious.”
Max smiled. “I know wine.”
“After you and Andrew go through the files, I want to touch base with Katella—see how far he’s gotten. And if you have names—we should run the names by him as well. Then I’ll contact Santa Barbara and see if I can get information without making a formal request.”
“Does your boss know what you’re doing?”
“No,” Lucy said. Again, nothing more.
“On ‘vacation’?”
“I called in sick. I don’t have any more vacation time—I used it all for my honeymoon.”
“Where did you go?” Max asked.
“Vail, Colorado.”
“I love skiing.”
“No snow in October and I’m not very good on the slopes.”
“So you’re really a newlywed.”
“I suppose we are.” Lucy averted her eyes and smiled at something only she knew about. How could Max get her to open up? Even about something as little as this? Usually women loved to talk about themselves, their boyfriends or husbands. Why couldn’t Lucy just bite at Max’s hook?
“Your husband is very … intense.”
Lucy laughed. It sounded genuine. Max wondered if she got Lucy drunk—or at least tipsy, since she admitted to not being much of a drinker, if she could get Lucy to talk. At this point, any information would be a win. “You had two strikes against you when we walked in. Sean isn’t always so intense.”
“I was doing my job.”
“We’re private people.”
“I respect that.”
“Do you?”
“I’m not going to apologize for wanting to know who I deal with.” Max waited until the waiter brought out the appetizers. “Help yourself,” she told Lucy.
They both dished up the small appetizer plates. Max immediately took a bite of the crab specialty, then asked, “Where did you stay in Vail?”
“Sean bought a cabin outside Vail.”
“For the trip?”
“It was my wedding present, he said.” Lucy smiled. It was clear to Max that she and Sean were close—not only based on seeing them together on Thursday, but how she talked about him. Yes they were married, they were newlyweds, but Max had been around enough married people to know that true love was rare.
Or maybe that was Max’s own life clouding her judgment.
She said, “Private security must pay well.”
“It can,” Lucy said. And again, nothing more.
“How did you meet?”
“Why do I sound like I’m being interviewed?”
“I’m curious. Just in general, a curious person. I already promised your husband I wouldn’t write anything about either of you without your express permission.”
Lucy sipped her wine. “And you know that information is power.”
“Why so evasive?”
“Just making an observation.” She took another bite of the crab cakes. “You already know that two of my brothers work with Sean at RCK. Jack works out of Sacramento; Patrick and Sean opened the East Coast office a couple of years ago in Georgetown.”
“But you don’t still live there.”
“When I graduated from the FBI Academy, I was assigned to San Antonio. Sean came with me. He can work from anywhere.”
“And Patrick? He runs the office now?”
“They have a team out there now.”
“So, it took more than one person to replace Sean? He must be good at what he does.”
“He is.”
Their dinner was served, and Max assessed Lucy as they ate. She was comfortable with not talking and she didn’t ask any of her own questions.
“Is there anything you want to know about me?” Max asked.
“Is this a game of you share then expect me to share?”
“No. I’m an open book.”
“That’s true. It was clear after I read your book about Karen Richardson’s disappearance.”
“How so?”
Lucy ate for a moment and Max wondered if she was framing her response in such a way that would give Max less insight into her. Damn, Max was giving herself a headache trying to figure out this woman.
“You’re very matter-of-fact,” Lucy said after a moment.
“I’m a reporter.”
“But you weren’t then, were you? You were a college student taking leave because your best friend disappeared. You were straightforward in your writing, but you were also jaded—you have a slanted way of looking at everything.”
“Everyone does,” Max said. “If someone tells you they’re not biased or unfair, they’re not being completely honest with you or themselves. Everyone slants their perception based on their background, their experiences.”
“In some ways. Experience is a benefit, though. I liked the book—even though the subject matter was tragic—because you had a raw honesty in how you wrote. You simply wanted answers.”
“I still do.”
Lucy nodded. “We’re not all that different then. I just chose law enforcement.”
“Why?”
“A lot of reasons.”
Vague. Too vague. Lucy knew exactly why she wanted to be a cop, she just didn’t want to share with Max. Max didn’t like that, so she pushed. “Because of Justin’s murder?”
“Partly.”
That was the truth. And Lucy knew why she was a cop, she just didn’t want to tell Max and she didn’t want to lie, either. Interesting.
“You graduated from Georgetown.”
“I did.”
“I went to Columbia. Two West Coast girls moving east. How’d you like it?”
“It was … fine.”
“You were on the swim team in college.”
Lucy frowned and looked at her nearly empty plate.
“You knew I looked you up. When I found out you graduated from Georgetown, I googled your name and Georgetown. Came up with a long list of medals you won. Why does that bother you? I’d think you’d be proud of your accomplishments.”
“I am,” Lucy said but she wasn’t looking at Max. She finished her wine. “I don’t suppose you like dessert?”
This was an impossible conversation. Max was never going to learn anything about Lucy if the girl didn’t talk. Even if Lucy asked questions of Max, it would give her insight. “I love dessert,” Max said.
“Great. You want to know something about me? I love chocolate. Madly in love with chocolate. Sean makes the most amazing hot chocolate. Probably why I fell in love with him. That and he always makes sure my favorite double chocolate ice cream is in the freezer.”
The waiter cleared the plates and they ordered dessert and coffee.
Max was resigned to the fact that Lucy was never going to reveal anything more about herself than she wanted.
Her cell phone vibrated. She glanced at the number and frowned, sent it to voice mail.
Nick. She rubbed her eyes. She needed to figure this out, because never in her life had she been so torn about breaking up with someone.
“Is everything okay?” Lucy asked.
She probably meant was everything okay with the case, but Max decided to just spill it. If she was blunt, maybe Lucy would share something—anything. Max felt like she was going through information withdrawal.
“Boyfriend. We have a fundamental disagreement about something and I don’t know that I can live with it.”
“He’s in New York?”
“No, northern California. He’s a detective, I met him last year when I was working a cold case in my hometown. He’s everything I love in a man—good-looking, smart, amazing in bed.”
Lucy averted her eyes, just a bit. Was she blushing? At the mention of sex? Really, that was odd. But interesting.
“But he has an ex-wife and a son. The ex uses her son as a pawn and has Nick twisted into knots. Nick won’t talk to me about it.”
“He could want to spare you the details. Relationships are complicated.”
“It’s not that—trust me. He wants to keep that part of his life separate. I thought I could live with it … but I can’t. Like you said, I’m blunt. I say what I think. I can’t bite my tongue when a manipulative ex-wife uses a child to get her way. And Nick is letting her get away with it. They have joint custody and she’d been fighting in court to gain full custody so she can leave the state with her boyfriend. So far, Nick has a continuance—only because she and her boyfriend aren’t married. But now apparently they’re getting married. And then Nick will be screwed. And my gut is telling me this marriage is a farce—that she’s doing it solely to gain full custody. And the only reason for that would be to screw Nick. I mean if she doesn’t care about this guy, that means she wants to move to force Nick to leave his job and move again. She did it before—her excuse being to be closer to her family. Nick left his job and followed.”
“It sounds like he shares a lot.”
“No, I learned nearly everything from David, my assistant. David has a manipulative ex—this one an ex-girlfriend who’s the mother of his daughter, they never married so David has even fewer rights than Nick—and he and Nick talk more about Nick’s problems than me and Nick.”
“That bothers you.”
“Wouldn’t it bother you if Sean refused to talk about something important to him? Maybe something about his personal life or his family, but he didn’t want you involved at all? Told you it’s an off-limits subject?”
Something flashed across Lucy’s face, then it was gone. Had she and Sean had growing pains? Were they going through something now? Recently? Max’s instincts hummed.
Lucy said, “We have no off-limit subjects.”
Max didn’t believe it. “None?” she said flatly.
“There was a time when both Sean and I would try to keep … secrets, for lack of a better word. I had a case last year that deeply affected me. I developed insomnia, but I kept telling Sean I was fine, that nothing was wrong, but it got to the point where I lied to him about it. Point-blank. And he knew I lied. I’m not a good liar, but I didn’t want to talk about it because I didn’t want to address the fundamental problem.”
Max waited for Lucy to elaborate on what her fundamental problem was, but she didn’t. Instead, she said, “Sean’s done the same thing, ostensibly to spare me emotional pain. It took time, but we worked through all that. We couldn’t possibly have gotten married if we didn’t have complete trust and honesty between us. It’s not who we are. But I’m certainly not one to give relationship advice. I was lucky Sean came into my life when he did. You might consider that Nick is trying to protect you or maybe doesn’t share for reasons even he doesn’t fully understand.”
Max considered what Lucy said, not only about what Nick may or may not be thinking, but that Lucy said more about herself in that one comment than she had in the last two days Max had spent with her.
“Nick knows I’m not a woman who wants or needs to be protected—I’m a big girl, my self-confidence is stronger than most. I’ve asked him to tell me what’s going on, and he won’t. He won’t even elaborate on why he won’t discuss it, other than the subject is off-limits. And it’s driving me crazy.”
“Is it driving you crazy because you’re worried about him and what he’s going through, or because you can’t stand being kept in the dark about anything?”
Max opened then closed her mouth. When had the conversation turned around from her digging for information to Lucy psychoanalyzing her?
“I tried a shrink for ten minutes. It didn’t go over well,” Max said drolly. She finished her wine. The waiter delivered their desserts and coffee.
Lucy took a bite of the chocolate concoction she ordered, the special of the day. “Oh, my God, this is amazing,” Lucy said. “Take a bite.”
Max did and concurred, though she wouldn’t be able to eat more, it was far too rich for her taste.
Max didn’t bring up Nick again and neither did Lucy. But Max couldn’t stop thinking about what Lucy had said—was it simply the not knowing that drove her up a wall or how Nancy’s shenanigans impacted Nick and his relationship with both his son and with Max?
She didn’t know. Maybe a combination of both. Maybe she really was a selfish bitch who needed to know everything about everyone.
Or maybe she just couldn’t stand the fact that Nancy was, essentially, a bully and Nick wasn’t standing up for himself. He wasn’t even using Max as a sounding board. If there was one thing that Max was good at it was weeding through bullshit and getting to the truth.
“Your husband is returning on Sunday?” Max said.
“Most likely.”
“So you’ll be leaving then?”
Lucy put her fork down and sipped her coffee. “I’m not leaving.”
“Don’t you have a job?”
Lucy didn’t respond to the question. Instead she said, “When you get the names of the possible suspects from Andrew tomorrow, we’ll talk to Katella, then to the chief in Santa Barbara and go from there.”
“You’re staying until we find the killer.”
“Aren’t you?”
“Until we find the killer or hit an impassable brick wall. My producer will throw a shit-fit if I’m not making forward progress, but I have some wiggle room.” Max waited as the waiter refilled their coffees. When he left, she said, “Tell me the truth, Lucy. Are you risking your job by staying out here? You said something earlier about not having the vacation time.”
“It’s my job to risk. I’m okay with that.”
Max believed her. Most cops Max knew were willing to risk their lives for others, they were the ones who ran toward trouble, not away from it. But they all played the game. Most wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize their jobs, because they were cops not simply because they wanted to protect the public. It was a job and they had families to support. And with only a few exceptions, the agents Max had worked with in the FBI were even worse—they were bureaucrats as well as cops.
Lucy was the furthest thing from a bureaucrat.
“That said,” Lucy continued, “I’m confident that the name of the killer is in those employment files. We just have to figure it out sooner rather than later. Did you find out if Peter Caldwell was buried with a stuffed toy?”
“I left John a message. He wasn’t happy that I was continuing the investigation.”
“He wasn’t? Or his wife?”
“He wasn’t happy because it upset his wife. He’s going through hell and all he wants is to make everything easier for Blair. My involvement is unsettling to her, even though I assured them both that my focus was on the first three victims.”
“You don’t like her.”
“Never did. Doesn’t make her a killer.”
“Andrew can get the information.”
“Would he?”
“Yes,” Lucy said without hesitation. “But I want him to do it right.”
“I don’t know what you mean by that.”
“If there was no stuffed animal, that means Justin’s killer didn’t kill Peter Caldwell. Which means that Blair Caldwell is more than likely guilty, yet she planned this by studying the murder of my nephew. She used the pain and suffering of three other boys to inflict pain and suffering on her own child and her husband. Yet you said yourself that she has a top defense lawyer and he must think that the evidence is weak otherwise they would have pled out.”
“Not all guilty people will plead. Most think they can game the system or that they’re smarter than the jury.”
“True, but Peter’s murder was methodical. You said it had all the same elements as Justin’s murder—all the same public elements. Though Andrew’s affair was made public during the investigation, it wouldn’t be something a copycat would consider part of the MO. It wasn’t publicized in the Porter case, not widely. You said you believed John when he told you he wasn’t having an affair.”
“I did, but he could have been lying.”
“Do you think he was lying? This is important, Max. You have good instincts. What do they tell you?”
Max considered everything she’d learned during her investigation into Peter Caldwell’s murder. She hadn’t learned much about the murder itself that wasn’t already public information, but she had learned a lot about John and Blair and how the people around them perceived them.
“I don’t believe he has ever been unfaithful to his wife. But there’s another key point—the first three murders the husband was with his mistress during the murder and the wife was working. The Caldwells were at a party in the same neighborhood where they lived. They were seen by dozens, if not hundreds, of people. If John had disappeared long enough to have sex with someone, even if they screwed up against the wall in the bathroom, someone would have noticed he was missing. And Blair was at the same party. If John was having an affair, he would be far more discreet. And honestly, a quick fling isn’t his style.”
“I am positive,” Lucy said, “that the affair is the primary motivation for this killer.”
“You think Blair’s guilty.”
“I didn’t say that. I haven’t seen the evidence. I’m suspicious. I also want to know if John found the information about Justin’s murder on his own or if Blair steered him to it.”
“He told me he found it when he was doing research into like crimes. He was desperate to help the defense.”
“He could have, but my guess is that Blair knew about Justin’s murder, and most likely Tommy Porter as well because it’s also unsolved. Porter’s affair wasn’t as widely reported in the press.”
That was true—Max had read every press clip on the murder and the affair was only mentioned in one article, almost in passing, and in the context of the father’s alibi.
“And Chris Donovan?” Max asked.
“Another similar crime, but she wouldn’t have concerned herself with it because he was convicted. If she had read the trial transcripts, she would have known about the stuffed animal.”
“You really do think she’s guilty,” Max said.
Lucy didn’t comment. Max found both what she said—and what she didn’t say—intriguing.
“I’ll talk to Andrew,” Lucy said. “If John returns your call, let me know what he says. Otherwise, we’ll get the information another way. And if my suspicions are right, fair warning—I’m going to have Andrew suggest that the prosecution bring in my brother Dillon as an expert witness. Because if there is any reasonable doubt, the jury won’t convict Blair Caldwell—no one wants to believe a mother can kill her son in cold blood. It’s a difficult case to prosecute unless they have hard evidence.”
“You’re far more familiar with these cases than your brother.”
“I can’t testify as an expert witness—I’m a forensic psychologist, Dillon is a psychiatrist—a medical doctor—who has testified dozens of times. He has the credentials. And trust me on this, if he believes she’s guilty and goes on that stand, the jury will believe she’s guilty.”
Max didn’t doubt it for a minute. She couldn’t wait to meet Dillon Kincaid in person, though he might not be as friendly as his sister.
Lucy ate almost the entire chocolate mousse before she pushed it away. “When does the trial start?”
“Week from Monday.”
“Ten days. We’ll have to work double-time to have answers by then. If she’s guilty, we can’t let her get away with it.”
“We? It’s not us, Lucy, it’s the system—the prosecution had better have a good case.”
But Max’s comment fell on deaf ears, and she learned more about Lucy in that moment than she had in the last two days.
Lucy Kincaid took the world on her shoulders, as if she were solely responsible for putting every bad guy in prison. She didn’t even know Blair Caldwell, she wasn’t involved in the Peter Caldwell investigation, yet she wanted Blair to be punished to the fullest extent of the law. Maybe that wasn’t unusual—most people wanted criminals to be caught. But this was … different.
We can’t let her get away with it.
Interesting.