Deadly Lies (22 page)

The smell of coffee filled the room. Alex stole a wistful glance at the coffee maker, wedged into the corner of a cupboard. He had little doubt that Mary was not inclined to share. Coffee would only extend their visit.

With a quick wave of her hand, Mary motioned for them to sit at the kitchen table. They complied. Rocky stood guard at her master’s feet, growling softly and showing the tips of his sharp fangs.

“I understand that Lisa and Jerry were a couple in high school. What do you remember about him?” Alex asked, forcing his taut body to relax, adopting a comfortable air.

Mary’s face tightened another notch. Her flinty eyes met his.

“Jerry came from a troubled home. He lived with his uncle in a cabin north of town. He met Lisa in art class during their junior year.” Mary averted her gaze. “I don’t know what else I can tell you. It was a long time ago.”

“They were close?” Luka asked, and Mary’s lips pursed in response.

“It was a high school crush. Of course, everyone thinks that their first love is their last. There’s nothing new there.”

He knew what she meant about first love. There was a time when he thought Abby was the only woman in the world for him. And then there was Jill.

“Why did you leave Winthrop?” Alex asked.

“It’s simple. My husband got a new job in California.”

“How did Jerry take the news?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

The resolute line of her mouth assured Alex his instincts were right. There was more to this story. Prying it out of Mary wouldn’t be easy.

“I think you do. Was Jerry angry when Lisa left? Did he follow her?”

“As far as I know, they never saw each other again after we left Winthrop.”

“Really? I find it hard to believe that a boy who has no one else in the world would let Lisa go so easy.” Alex kept his eyes glued on Mary’s face as he let the silence stretch out between them. Her gaze was razor sharp as an exasperated sigh escaped her parted lips.

“Why are you here, Detective? Lisa’s dead. No good can come of this. Why are you so anxious to dig up the past?”

Rocky’s low growl bumped up a notch.

“Hush, Rocky,” Mary commanded in a voice that was no longer detached.

Rocky flinched and grudgingly obeyed. If a dog was capable of looking pissed, Rocky pulled it off. Alex watched Mary struggle to maintain her icy exterior, a battle she was losing. Her cheeks flushed red, and she fidgeted with the frayed edge of a placemat. Leaning forward, he spoke softly and hoped that by opening up about Natalie, he could tip the tide in his favor.

“Natalie Watson was sixteen years old when she met Jerry Honeywell online. I found her body near a cabin in Winthrop two weeks ago. Here’s a picture of your daughter in high school.” Alex placed a photocopy of the yearbook photo on the table. “This is a picture of Natalie Watson.” With their photos side by side, there was no denying the similarity between the two girls.

Mary’s lips trembled as she studied the photographs. She covered her mouth with a shaky hand.

“I still don’t see what any of this has to do with Lisa.” Her words were blunt, but her tone was less emphatic now.

“I think that learning more about Lisa will help me figure out what makes Jerry tick. I know this is painful. I know you want to leave what happened to Lisa in the past, but I don’t think Natalie will be the last girl he hurts. I think he’s only getting started. I need your help, Mary.”

The sound of the telephone cut the tension in the room. Ignoring it, Mary stared out the kitchen window. She sat so perfectly straight and still, Alex wondered if she heard it at all. He stole a quick glance at Luka. Luka gave an encouraging nod. Mary’s hand left her lips and traveled to her throat. She swallowed hard.

“Can I get you coffee?”

“Sure,” Alex said.

“Please,” Luka agreed.

Rising from the table, Mary crossed the room and poured three cups of coffee. Playing the part of the gracious hostess, she brought out the crystal cream and sugar containers, placing them in the center of the table between the two detectives. She settled back into her chair. Alex resisted the urge to prompt her. At last, she began.

“Lisa and Jerry were joined at the hip. At first, Albert and I thought that it was puppy love and it would pass. We thought about trying to put a stop to their relationship, but knowing Lisa, that would only have made her more determined.”

“What was it about Jerry that you didn’t like?”

Mary inclined her head, considering the questions.

“We didn’t object to him. Not really. Not at first anyway. It was how serious the relationship seemed. Lisa was so young. They both were. We didn’t want her to get off track, you know?”

“But there was something about Jerry,” Luka pressed.

She nodded wearily. Her eyes shifted from Alex to Luka.

“He was possessive. She started to shut out her other friends. Pretty soon, he was the only one she spent time with. We didn’t think it was healthy. After we aired our concerns to Lisa, Jerry refused to come to our house. It made things worse.”

“How did Lisa take the news of moving?”

“Like any teenager in love would. But we didn’t give her a choice.” Mary’s wistful expression told Alex just how painful talking about Lisa was.

“And Jerry?”

“Jerry became—what’s the word for it?—unhinged.” Mary shifted forward in her chair, her back ramrod straight. She brushed the rim of the coffee cup against her lips before setting it back on the table. “You see, Lisa was pregnant.”

Luka set his coffee cup down with an audible thump. Alex’s gut constricted.

“Jerry knew about the baby?”

Mary’s lips parted in a dry smile, almost a grimace, as she continued.

“He wanted Lisa to run away with him. They cooked up some crazy scheme about getting married and raising the baby together. They were just kids. It wouldn’t have worked, and Lisa would have been ruined, with no college education, no hope for a better life.”

“So you moved?

Mary hesitated. Drawing in a deep breath, she expelled it from her lungs in a slow hiss. Finally she nodded.

“Yes. And then Lisa had an abortion.”

Silence pooled in the kitchen.

“And after that?”

Mary sipped her coffee. Her voice was thick with emotion when she finally spoke. Her shoulders hitched in the smallest of shrugs.

“Well, Lisa was never the same. Oh, she went to college, she studied hard, got good grades. But it was like there was something missing. Lisa lost her spark. Albert thought she just needed time, but she never got it. In her senior year of college, she was riding back to her apartment after work on her bike and was hit by a car. The car didn’t stop. She was left bleeding by the side of the road. We didn’t make it to the hospital in time to say good-bye. Lisa died on the operating table, alone.”

Tears pooled in Mary’s blue eyes, but she refused to let them fall. Clearing her throat, she took another sip of coffee.

“I’m sorry,” Alex said.

The pain reflected in Mary’s blue eyes reminded him of the grief on Joyce Watson’s face. He waited until Mary composed herself before
asking his final question. “Was there anything different about Lisa before she died?”

“Different? How?”

Alex held her steady gaze, and kept his tone deliberately soft. This next part was going to be hard for Mary to hear. After many years, she had finally come to grips with the loss of her daughter. He didn’t want to rip open old wounds. But he had no choice. He had to know.

“Jerry Honeywell got his mechanic’s license in California. He was living in the Bay Area at the time of your daughter’s death.”

Alex could hear a sharp intake of breath as she processed his words. She cast a stony stare into her coffee cup, her fingers clutching it tightly. He could only imagine what thoughts were running through her head.

“You think …”

“It may mean nothing,” Alex offered.

“It may mean everything,” she answered, meeting his eyes at last.

As Alex and Luka made their way back to the car, Alex pondered the similarities between the story of Honeywell’s parents and his painful past with Lisa. For a moment, he put himself in Jerry’s shoes: a pregnant girlfriend with disapproving parents, and an aborted child. In the intervening years between Lisa leaving Winthrop and his move to California, how much had Honeywell learned to hate? Had he come here looking for Lisa? If so, what had he hoped for? Reconciliation? Or revenge?

“There are no eyewitnesses,” Alex said, looking up from the report and over at Luka. “The police didn’t have much to go on. There were no traffic cameras in the area back then. Another motorist saw Lisa on the side of the road and called it in.”

Alex pulled up a chair at the end of Luka’s desk and was reviewing the report on Lisa’s accident. He reached for the bag of pastries as his
cell phone rang. The call display showed a local California number. Alex stiffened and then hit the Talk button.

“Dude, I told you not to talk to the guy.”

Alex’s eyes fluttered shut for a second as he recognized the voice of Agent Jacob Wilde from the ATF on the other end of the phone.

“It didn’t go exactly as planned.”

“That’s the fucking understatement of the year. Your boy’s hit the highway.”

“What?”

Bitter disappointment descended on Alex like a lead weight. He rubbed a hand across his eyes.

“Yeah, that’s right. After they left the bar, Honeywell packed up his shit and struck out for parts unknown. I thought you’d want to know.”

“And you just let him go?”

“You heard Stone. He’s not a target.”

“Fuck,” Alex growled, his headache reasserting itself. Exhaustion set in.

“No shit, Batman. Anyway, if I were you, I would hightail it out of town before your little stunt gets reported to Stone. He’s going to go ballistic when he hears you disobeyed his direct orders.”

“I’m not worried about him.”

“You should be. He may be a douche bag, but don’t underestimate his political clout.”

Alex slammed the phone down on Luka’s desk.

“Son of a bitch.”

“What is it?” Luka asked.

“Honeywell’s taken off. He left last night after the scene at the bar.”

Luka pushed back his chair and swore.

“Perfect. He’s got a twelve-hour head start.”

“We don’t even know where he’s going.”

“I wonder if we could get some information on the vehicle he left in.”

“That was Wilde. The ATF isn’t going to help us.”

Alex sighed as he considered the disastrous turn of events. He’d fucked up. It was his fault Honeywell had slipped through their fingers. What would he tell Abby?

How long could Honeywell hide?

“What’s done is done.” Luka’s shrug was philosophical. “I think we should continue to dig into the hit-and-run. Maybe we can find evidence linking him to Lisa’s death and Kayla Miller’s disappearance.”

“What good does it do us if we can’t find Honeywell?”

Alex released a long, slow sigh.

At three in the afternoon, his cell phone rang again. This time he did recognize the number.

It was his boss, Captain Lewis. And Alex definitely did not want to take the call.

CHAPTER THIRTY

J
ill missed Alex. In the aftermath of Jamie’s death and the dissolution of the affair, it was as if the scales had fallen from her eyes. If any anger remained, it was hers alone, she realized as she considered what she had risked for Jamie and what she would have lost in Alex. Vanity. The affair had been borne of vanity, and she vowed not to risk what she had so unwisely again.

Their planes could have crossed in the air as Alex flew back to Seattle and hers landed in San Francisco. It seemed unfair that they couldn’t overlap by at least a night. With Jamie out of the way, their relationship was back on track. Clean. Simple. Just the way she liked it.

Now as she stood center stage in front of hundreds of people, basking in their thunderous applause, she decided life didn’t get much better than this. As one of the featured speakers for the WebNOW conference, she had just given her third demo. The first two were standing room only, and the conference organizers had quickly added a third. She would bet anything that ZyraNet’s stock had risen over the past few hours.

With a gracious nod, Jill surrendered the floor to the moderator of the panel. She threaded her way through the crowded conference center to the bar. She’d been guzzling water all day to help keep her voice in prime condition, and now she was ready to celebrate with something a little stronger.

“Dirty martini with three olives, please,” she said as she caught the bartender’s eye.

With a quick nod, he set to work on her drink, and Jill smoothed her long hair away from her face. Public speaking was a rush. Engineering was a solitary job that typically attracted introverts. Unlike most of her counterparts, she reveled in the opportunity to show off her work. The response to her demo was beyond gratifying. This kind of public recognition was like a drug, and she wanted more.

“Here you go,” the bartender said, bringing her back to earth.

Angling her body toward the bar, she slowly stirred the olives around the glass and savored the high. Glancing up into the mirror behind the bar, she took a sip of her martini.