It was raining lightly when Charlotte left Rainy Creek Gardens on Monday afternoon. She pulled up the hood of her anorak and hurried home along the familiar route.
Mentally she made a list of what she needed for the meal she planned to serve to Max that evening. It would be the first time she had actually cooked dinner for him. She wanted it to be perfect. The menu included roasted Romanesco and grilled salmon, so she made a quick detour through Pike Place Market to pick up the veggies and the fish.
The early dark of the autumn night was descending fast by the time she got to her apartment tower. The warm light of the streetlamps glowed on the damp pavement and the sidewalks. Raindrops sparkled on the windshields of passing cars.
I love this town, she thought. And I love Max. Everything about Seattle felt like home.
She fumbled with her key fob to open the door and let herself into the lobby. The front desk was vacant. The concierge had gone home for the day.
She took the elevator up to the twelfth floor, got out and went down the hall. She opened the door of her apartment, flipped on the hallway light and went into the kitchen to set the groceries on the counter.
She was about to open the refrigerator when she felt a subtle shift in the atmosphere behind her. Her pulse was suddenly beating very fast and her breathing felt constricted. Too much excitement lately, she thought. My nerves are on edge. I need to meditate.
But instinct overrode the soothing self-talk. She turned quickly and looked out across the breakfast bar into the darkened living room. A figure stirred in the shadows.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” Roxanne Briggs said.
The light from the kitchen gleamed on the gun in her hand.
Charlotte tried to breathe through the panic.
“How did you get in here?” she managed.
“It wasn’t hard. I arrived a couple of hours ago. I didn’t know exactly what time you would be home, you see. I wanted to be here first. I told the nice man at the front desk downstairs that I was your new cleaning lady and that I needed the key to your place.”
Roxanne waved the gun rather casually at a janitorial bucket on the floor of the living room. Charlotte could see some brushes and a mop sticking out of the bucket.
“He believed you?” Charlotte asked.
“He took some convincing because you hadn’t notified him that I was starting today, but everybody trusts a hardworking cleaning lady. Besides, things were quite hectic in the lobby. The afternoon deliveries were coming in. Contractors were asking for keys. It was all a little chaotic. Your concierge gave me the key to get rid of me, I think.”
“Why are you here, Roxanne?”
“I’ve been thinking about things,” Roxanne said. “I finally decided that everything went wrong because of you. You’re the one who got that damned PI involved. Now my son is facing prison because of you.”
“You can’t blame Max or me for a disaster that you helped create,” Charlotte said. “You’re the one who killed Gordon Greenslade, aren’t you?”
“He lied to me,” Roxanne said. The hand holding the gun shook a little. “I kept his secret all those years and in return he promised he would take care of our son.”
“You and Gordon Greenslade were lovers.”
“Back at the start, yes. He told me he loved me at the beginning. Said he would divorce his wife and marry me. I stopped believing that lie years ago.”
“Why, after all that time, did you decide to kill him this past summer?” Charlotte asked.
“Because my son needed to go back to the hospital for rehab again and Gordon refused to pay for it. It costs thousands, you see. Gordon had paid for two treatments, but he refused to pay for a third. He said he didn’t care if I told everyone the truth because he’d met the woman of his dreams—on an online matchmaking site. Can you believe it?”
“I’ve heard people do things like that sometimes.”
“He was obviously having some sort of delayed midlife crisis. I knew that if he was planning to run away from Loring and his responsibilities, he would probably also change his will. I couldn’t risk letting that happen.”
“So you killed him before he had a chance to do that. But he lied about the will, too, didn’t he?”
Tears of fury filled Roxanne’s eyes. “Nolan was never in his will. Gordon left everything to his other son.”
“Trey.”
“That was not right,” Roxanne said. She seemed to regain some control. “My Nolan had an equal claim on the Greenslade money. If he’d had all the advantages that Trey had, Nolan would never have become addicted to drugs.”
“So you shot Gordon Greenslade for nothing. Greenslade left nothing to Nolan.”
“That bastard didn’t leave my son—our son—a dime. He never even acknowledged him.”
The intercom buzzed, startling both of them.
“What’s that?” Roxanne hissed.
“Max Cutler. He’s downstairs. He knows I’m up here. I’d better let him in.”
“No.”
“If I don’t, he’ll get suspicious. Trust me, he’ll get a cop and make a very big scene.”
Roxanne hesitated. “All right. Do it.”
Charlotte went to the intercom. “Max?”
“I’ve got the wine. I’ve also got news.”
“Come on up.” She pressed the lock release. “We’ve got company.”
“Who?”
“Surprise.”
“I’m on my way.”
She looked at Roxanne. “I think you want him to hear the rest of this. You want us to know your side of the story, don’t you?”
Roxanne looked uncertain now. A couple of minutes later, there was a knock on the door. She flinched.
“Open it,” she ordered, the gun shivering in her hand. “Do it.”
Charlotte held her breath and went down the hall. She opened the door. Max stood there. He had the bottle of wine in one hand. He held his gun, concealed against the side of his leg, in the other hand. His eyes were ice-cold.
“Who?” he asked quietly.
“Roxanne Briggs,” Charlotte said, careful to keep her voice pitched in a normal tone. “She’s telling me how everything went wrong.”
He mouthed, “Armed?”
She nodded, then turned and led the way down the hall. Max put the pistol into the pocket of his jacket. He kept his hand wrapped around the grip, making it look casual.
“Hello, Roxanne,” he said. He acted as if he did not notice the gun in her hand. “Are you okay?”
“Don’t move,” Roxanne said nervously. “I swear, if you move, I’ll shoot.”
“I won’t move,” Max said.
“Roxanne was just telling me that she was desperate to raise cash for another round of expensive rehab for her son,” Charlotte said. “You were right—Nolan is Gordon Greenslade’s son.”
“I shot that lying son of a bitch because years ago he promised to leave my son his fair share of the Greenslade money,” Roxanne said hoarsely.
“Obviously he lied about that,” Max said. “Is that why you decided to sell the contents of the old evidence box? To get enough money to send Nolan back to rehab?”
“I had no choice,” Roxanne whispered. “Egan had been slowly bleeding Gordon for years by threatening to let that evidence box suddenly get discovered—maybe in a closet at the old police station or some such nonsense. But the truth was, he’d hidden it in our basement.”
“Gordon Greenslade paid blackmail all those years to protect Trey?” Charlotte said.
“No.” Roxanne shook her head. “Gordon Greenslade didn’t give a damn about either one of his sons. But he did care about his family’s reputation in Loring. Or, at least, he did, until he went crazy and decided to run off with that woman he met online.”
“Did your husband know that you k
illed Gordon Greenslade?” Charlotte asked.
“No, of course not. Egan never gave me credit for having the guts to do something like that. Besides, he didn’t know I had a motive.”
“You mean Egan never suspected that Nolan was Gordon’s son?” Max asked.
“No.” Roxanne smiled a thin, cold smile. “I’m a woman of my word. I promised Gordon that I would keep quiet so long as he made sure that Nolan was in his will. The only times I asked Gordon for money were when Nolan needed treatment. Egan refused to pay for rehab, so I went to Gordon for the money. He gave it to me the first two times. Everyone, including Egan, assumed both occasions were acts of charity. Gordon was very big on charity if it made him look good to the community.”
“Trey continued to pay blackmail after his father’s death, didn’t he?” Charlotte said.
“Yes. Egan contacted him—anonymously—and Trey paid up the first couple of times. But I knew that Trey was far more dangerous than his father.”
“Did Egan know that Trey had escalated from rape to murder?” Max asked.
“Of course,” Roxanne said. “I’ll say one thing for Egan—he was a pretty good cop. He kept an eye on Trey over the years. Whenever there was a new rape case with elements that were similar to the Jocelyn Pruett case, he made notes. Egan figured out right away that Trey had switched from blindfolds to drugs to keep his victims from being able to identify him. Recently Egan was also certain that Trey had started murdering the women he raped.”
“Trey started escalating after his father was killed, didn’t he?” Max said.
“Yes.” Roxanne frowned. “It’s weird, but on some deep level I think Trey was afraid of his father. Once Gordon was dead, though, it was as if someone had taken a lid off a boiling pot.”
“Did Egan know that the evidence box he tried to sell to Trey was filled with magazines and books?”
“No.” Roxanne looked disgusted. “The fool never bothered to check. Why would he? He was in a terrible rush to leave that day. He went down into the basement, grabbed the box and stowed it in the SUV. The box felt full because after I removed the evidence I stuffed it with the magazines and books. I resealed it exactly the same way that Egan had the last time he opened it to add some data about Trey’s latest crimes.”
“You were afraid of Trey Greenslade, even though you knew he could have paid the most for the evidence,” Max said. “So you tried to contact Jocelyn Pruett. But you got Louise Flint instead.”
“It’s not like there were a lot of potential buyers,” Roxanne said. “Yes, Louise Flint took my call. She said Jocelyn was out of town for a month. She said she was Jocelyn’s best friend and that she knew Jocelyn would want her to buy whatever I was selling. I told her I needed ten thousand dollars. She said she could get her hands on that much money and meet me in a few hours.”
“Ten thousand would have covered another round of rehab for Nolan,” Max said.
“Yes. I met Flint at a fast-food restaurant just outside of Loring. She gave me the money and I gave her the package containing the contents of the evidence box. That should have been the end of it. But it wasn’t. Everything went wrong.”
She started to weep. In a moment she was engulfed in great, wracking sobs. She never even noticed when Max crossed the room and gently took the gun from her hand.
Charlotte went forward and touched Roxanne’s shoulder. Blinded by tears, Roxanne turned toward her. Charlotte put her arms around her. Roxanne cried harder.
Max watched quietly for a time. He did not speak again until Roxanne began to grow calm.
“One thing we’ve been wondering,” Charlotte said. “How did Trey Greenslade learn so quickly that Louise Flint had gone to Loring to pick up the evidence box? He found out that same day and, with Madison Benson’s help, murdered her that night.”
Roxanne raised her head from Charlotte’s shoulder. “I told you there weren’t a lot of potential buyers for that box of evidence.”
“Right,” Charlotte said. “There were only two—Trey Greenslade and my stepsister.”
“There was a third,” Roxanne said. “I called her first.”
“You contacted Trey’s grandmother—Marian Greenslade, didn’t you?” Max said quietly.
“Yes.” Roxanne wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her flannel shirt. “I went to see her. I approached her as one mother to another. I thought she would pay to protect her son’s good name—the good name of the family—especially now that Trey was in line to take charge of Loring-Greenslade. Everyone knew that Trey was her favorite grandson.”
“But you guessed wrong,” Max said.
“Marian Greenslade told me to go to hell. I warned her that if she didn’t come through with the money, I would offer the evidence to the victim, Jocelyn Pruett.”
“Marian Greenslade called your bluff,” Charlotte said.
It was Max who answered.
“Yes, she did,” he said. “That was my news. Walsh just called with an update on Trey Greenslade’s story. Turns out that right after Roxanne left her, Marian Greenslade got on the phone to her grandson. She told Trey to clean up the mess he and his father had made or else he would not get control of Loring-Greenslade.”
CHAPTER 69
After the police left with Roxanne Briggs, Charlotte contemplated the brilliant green Romanesco and the fresh wild salmon. She decided she no longer felt like cooking. She opened a bottle of wine and sent out for pizza instead.
When the pizza arrived, she and Max sat at the dining bar and talked.
“What do you think will happen to her?” Charlotte asked.
“They’re going to hold her for the Loring police,” Max said. He ate a bite of pizza. “They’ve got her on a suicide watch. I talked to Walsh for a few minutes. He’s driving into Seattle with an officer to pick her up tomorrow and escort her back to Loring.”
“You were right back at the start when you said that once we knew the triggering event, everything else would fall into place.”
He nodded and drank some more wine. “That’s how it usually works.”
“Do you miss being married?”
He paused in midchew, startled by the question. She didn’t blame him. She’d had to work up her nerve to broach the subject and in the end she hadn’t come up with a particularly elegant segue.
“What I miss is what I used to think marriage would be like,” he said.
Walking on eggshells, she thought. Well, so was she.
She smiled. “In other words, you’re a romantic.”
He gave a crack of laughter, effectively restoring a sense of reality to the conversation.
“Sorry, but you’re way off base there,” he said. “When I said I miss what I thought marriage would be like, you need to understand I’m talking about the boring parts. I would rather have a tuna fish sandwich and a beer at home than go out to dinner. I’m not the cocktail party type. I’m not good with a lot of emotional drama.”
“Understandable.”
He started to take another bite of pizza and paused. “It is?”
“Sure. In your work I’m sure you see a lot of drama, and I imagine that very little of it is joyful. There is also bound to be a fair amount of frustration involved in what you do.”
“That, too,” he agreed. “Someone hires you to find answers and then gets upset with the answers.”
“But you go looking for the answers anyway.”
“Yeah. Sounds like the classic definition of insanity, doesn’t it? Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”
She leaned forward and helped herself to a slice of pizza. “So why did you become a profiler in the first place and why have you opened your own investigation business now?”
“Probably because I’m good at it. I don’t seem to be good at anything else.”
She munched some pizza. �
��And probably because you aren’t interested in doing anything else.”
“There is that,” he agreed. He contemplated her with an unreadable look. “Speaking of my small business, you might be interested to know that I hired a receptionist.”
“Is she cute? Blond? A redhead? Do I need to be jealous?”
“Probably not. The new receptionist is Anson.”
“Ah.” She gave that some thought. “Great idea.”
“He needs a job and I need someone to handle things when I’m out of the office. Seems like a win-win.”
She smiled. “Definitely.”
“I’m going to need a new office, too. It looks like I’ll be getting a partner.”
“Really? Who?”
“One of my foster brothers—Cabot Sutter. I talked to him today. He’s been a police chief down in Oregon for a while now. Stuff has happened. He’s looking for a change. Thinks he might like to try Seattle and the PI business.”
Charlotte smiled. “In other words, you are about to double the size of your business—triple it, if you count adding the new receptionist.”
“That does not guarantee that the number of clients will double or triple,” Max warned.
“It will,” she said, serenely sure of herself. “So, what with all those big business plans you’ve got going, I guess you probably won’t have a lot of time to miss being married—or to miss what you thought marriage would be like.”
He pushed his plate aside and folded his arms on the table. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but, ace detective that I am, I have the feeling that I am not quite following the thread of this conversation.”
She gulped some wine, lowered the glass and met his eyes across the table. “I was just wondering if you think that, at some point in the future, you might want to consider getting married again.”
“I have been considering it since the day I walked out of the elevator in Louise Flint’s condo building and saw you.”
She almost stopped breathing. “Really?”
“Really. What about you? Ready to consider marriage again?”
Her heart was so full she was afraid she might cry. “Yes. Yes, I would absolutely consider marrying you. I mean, it’s way too soon for either of us to be sure, of course.”