Madeline Carter - 01 - Mad Money (25 page)

I let my mind go for a minute; tried to free
it of my own conceptions and just associate with facts. Alex had
said that psychopaths used people up. But what if Paul had always
proven useful? What if — and the more I thought about it, the more
sense it made — what if Paul had always had a hand in Ernie’s
success? The shadow. Knowing both of them well didn’t make me
discount this idea.

Knowing who was likely doing the actual
paper moving didn’t make much difference to me. It was Ernie who
was doing the manipulation and Ernie who was, in my professional
estimation, culpable. What he was doing was so beyond insider
trading, I hesitated to even call it that. He was deliberately
manipulating the stock he was — by virtue of having been made
Langton’s CEO — responsible for. And he was manipulating it in a
way that might have a long-term negative effect on the company, its
share price, its value and, if word got out, it could even effect
the overall market, especially in the environment of corporate
suspicion that had been growing since the demise of the bull.

It was becoming clear to me that, while
concerns over my own financial involvement in this were valid and
growing larger with each drop of the share price, I had a moral
obligation to do something. Just what that something might be was
less clear.

If Ernie had been a broker or a dealer, my
course would have been clear. The National Association of
Securities Dealers moves swiftly and mercilessly against
infractors. It has to: there’s so much at stake. However Ernie
wouldn’t be a member: he wasn’t a dealer. And, in this situation,
he wasn’t a trader, either. The Securities Regulation Division
functions on the state level, but LRG was a nationally traded
security, even though the company was based in California. I might
be able to go to the SEC, but with what? A report of a scrap of
paper of unknown authorship with potentially meaningless numbers,
an untraceable and slightly encoded e-mail and the suspicions of a
wife who I was pretty sure would deny everything including our
meeting if pressed. And then there was me on that security tape and
the suspicions that had given birth to. No: with what I had to go
on, the SEC was not a possibility. I needed something more.

Even though I knew my motives were impure —
I wanted information, not just the suave doctor’s company — I
returned Alex’s call just after nine am: I figured he’d be in the
office by now. I was right, though he surprised me by answering the
phone himself: the number on the card he’d given me was his direct
line.

“Hi Doctor Montoya, this is Madeline Carter.
We met at Tyler Beckett’s house the other night.”

“Call me Alex, Madeline. And, of course, I
remember you. In fact, I left a message for you last night.”

He sounded pleased to hear from me and we
scheduled dinner for seven o’clock that night at a seafood place
along the coast near Pacific Palisades, between Malibu and Santa
Monica.

By nine-thirty I figured Tyler and Tasya
would be up and around. I wanted to hear if there had been any
updates about Jennifer overnight, plus I wanted them to hear the
message she’d left for me.

Tyler looked cagey when I asked him where
they’d gotten to the night before. This surprised me, because he’d
seemed so forthright about everything before.

“Uh, you know. Had some errands to run.”

We were in the kitchen, Tyler sitting on a
stool at the counter watching Tasya work. When he said this I noted
that Tasya, madly chopping onions on a cutting board near the sink,
looked up at him with one eyebrow raised, but didn’t say
anything.

“What are you making?” I asked Tasya, more
to fill the void I felt in the room than because I actually wanted
to know.

“Soup, I think. Yes, soup. I feel like
cutting something.” I thought it a good thing she was focusing on
vegetables and not something softer. And when next I looked she
seemed to be pulverizing large clumps of parsley and had a pile of
carrots at her elbow ready for massacre. It was going to be a very
finely cut soup.

“One of the reasons I came up here was to
tell you guys I got a message from Jennifer a couple of days ago.
On my voicemail, but I didn’t clear it until last night,” Tyler had
looked at me hopefully when I started speaking, then looked
disappointed when he realized the message was a couple of days old.
“Sorry, Tyler. I didn’t want it to sound more hopeful than it was,
but there was no other way to say it. And she doesn’t say much on
the message. But I thought you’d want to hear it anyway.”

“We’ll put it on the speakerphone in my
office,” Tyler said, leading the way down the hall. Tasya and I
followed, the other woman wiping her hands on a dishtowel as she
went.

Under other circumstances I would have loved
the chance to look around Tyler’s office. The wall directly behind
his desk was covered with awards and photos of him and other famous
people and there were other types of Hollywood memorabilia on his
desk and on nearby shelves. But today, Jennifer was first on all of
our minds.

He indicated the phone I figured he likely
used handsfree for conference calls. Without a word I dialed into
my voicemail. First we heard the timestamp, then Jennifer’s voice
floated into the room. “Hi Madeline. It’s me. Jennifer. I know it’s
the middle of the night but please pick up the phone I really,
really have to talk to you. I can’t... I can’t leave a number but
I’m not at home. I’ll try you again later.”

“Did it say 2:45 am Tuesday?”

I nodded and Tyler, sitting behind his desk,
put his head into his hands as though the former needed holding
together. “About thirty-six hours ago.” It was a statement and
there was so much left unsaid. And simply nothing I could add.

“For God’s sake, Tyler,” Tasya said from the
doorway behind me. “Look at her, she’s as worried as we are. Tell
her. Maybe she’ll have an idea.”

I looked up expectantly. “Tell me what?”

Ignoring my question, Tyler seemed to be
considering his wife’s words. Finally he looked at her and said,
“What the hell, right?” She shrugged, raising her hands
helplessly.

“All right.” Then to me, “Last night we
didn’t have any errand. Right after you left here I got a call. It
was an automated voice — I couldn’t interact with it — saying there
was a package for me at the bottom of the hill. That I was to look
under the mailbox by the store at PCH and there’d be something
taped to it. I knew it had something to do with Jen. Tasya and I
raced down there and this is all there was.” He placed an envelope
in front of me and when I hesitated, he said, “Go ahead. Open
it.”

Fearing what was inside, I found I didn’t
want to touch the crumpled manilla envelope at all. But Tasya and
Tyler were watching me expectantly.

The envelope itself looked like it had been
through the wringer, almost literally. It was scuffed up and even
torn in spots. The label had clearly been printed on an inkjet
printer because watermarks had caused the ink to smear slightly.
There were no stamps and no return address. “Was it this
damaged-looking when you picked it up?”

“It looked exactly like that, which doesn’t
make any sense to me. It didn’t even have to go through the
mail.”

“And it was taped under the mailbox?”

Tyler nodded. “Just where the phone call
said it would be.”

I pulled the envelope towards me gently and
pulled the flap back. There were three things inside: a photo, a
letter and a sandwich bag containing a hank of hair.

I picked up the bag carefully and looked at
the hair inside closely, though without opening the bag. Tyler
answered my unasked question. “It’s hers. I’m about 95 percent
sure.”

The photo was clearly Jennifer. It was a
Polaroid and she looked frightened, though undamaged, and was
holding a copy of the
LA Times
with yesterday’s date showing
clearly. Behind her you could see a pale, blank wall, a window with
the blinds closed, an electrical outlet: it could have been taken
anywhere.

The ransom note looked straight out of a bad
kidnap movie: like a kid’s art project gone horribly wrong. The
letters that made up the words were cut from magazines and pasted
on a heavy piece of paper. Even the message itself was crude:

“YouR dAUghter hAS beeN KIDnappED. IF yoU
wANt TO see HEr aLIVe in THis LiFE DO NOT cALL tHe PolIcE. AWAiT
FUrThER iNSTRuCtIONS oR tHe KID dIEs GROtEsQUely.”

As soon as I saw it, something twigged.
There was something familiar here I couldn’t quite put my finger
on.

“Did you call the police?”

Tyler shook his head. “And it’s killing me.
All my senses are telling me to call them. There are all kinds of
clues there. Prints and stuff, you know. Maybe they could find
whoever has her.” He looked me in the eye, then, and I blinked at
the raw and naked pain I saw there. “But they said they’d kill her,
Madeline. How can I take that chance?”

For Tyler it was rock and hard place time:
he could jump in either direction, but the view wasn’t going to get
any better. And I couldn’t begin to imagine what I’d do in his
place.

“And you haven’t heard anything since?”

He shook his head again. “Nothing,” he
indicated the phone, “and I’ve been glued to this thing since we
picked it up. And I figure, if I just bide my time they’ll contact
me again and come up with a figure. I’ve got money, Madeline. And I
can get my hands on more if it’s not enough. I just wish they’d
contact me. I hate all this sitting here. Waiting.” And then, more
quietly, “and I just pray to God they don’t hurt her.”

And then the familiarity hit me: the note
looked just as Emily had described the letter that had been sent to
Langton: letters cut from magazines, crude, like a ransom note on a
television show. It wasn’t that I thought the two disappearances
were connected, except, maybe, in one way.

“Tyler,” I said, not really knowing how to
bring it up, “considering what they told me at school is it, you
know, possible that Jennifer might have arranged this herself?”

He looked at me, first startled then with
growing anger. “Are you suggesting that my only child might be
playing some sort of horrible game with me?”

I wouldn’t have put it that way, but...
“It’s a possibility, Tyler. She’s seventeen. She was kicked out of
school the day before she disappeared. I’m sorry but, yes, I guess
that’s exactly what I’m suggesting.”

“Tyler, stop it,” said Tasya. “What Madeline
is saying is very possible, and you know it. Jennifer has been so
angry lately. It’s not Madeline’s fault: she’s only pointing out
another possibility. We must keep our minds open.”

His anger seemed to flare out, like a candle
extinguished. “I’m sorry, Madeline. It
is
a possibility. I
guess, at this stage, I
hope
it’s a possibility. Here’s the
problem though: it doesn’t change anything on my end. Not unless I
know. I have to proceed as though she’s in the utmost danger. I
have
to.”

I hated leaving them, but there was nothing
more I could contribute. I asked them to let me know if they heard
anything and especially if they thought of anything I could do to
help, though I couldn’t imagine what that might be.

Though the weather was warm enough, my
apartment felt bleak. I kept thinking of Jennifer’s message and
what it might have meant. More importantly, what might be different
if I’d been home and able to answer. What if. It made me think of
Jack. I looked at the time: eleven. It would be two o’clock in the
afternoon in New Jersey. There was a good chance Sarah would be
home, preparing to go pick the kids up from school.

She sounded delighted and slightly amazed to
hear from me.

“I’m only on the other end of the country,
Sarah. Not the moon,” I chided her.

“I know. It’s just odd. I was thinking about
you so hard this afternoon: it’s like I called you telepathically.
And you answered!”

I laughed. For all the talk of telepathy, it
was good to hear her grounded voice.

“How are you getting along?”

She hesitated. “You know, I cope. You just
do one day at a time. Some days are better than others. You?”

“Oh Sarah, I don’t even know where to begin.
Remember when I told you I hoped to find a quieter lifestyle? A
simpler pace?”

“Sure.”

“It hasn’t happened. I don’t even know if I
can tell you all that has.” Then, before I could even think about
it, I did. I told her everything that had happened since I moved to
L.A.

“It sounds pretty hairy out there,” she said
when I was done.

“It
does
, doesn’t it? It’s starting
to feel like...” I hesitated. This wasn’t a thought I’d even
articulated to myself before. “Like stuff is following me, or
something.”

“Oh pish, Carter. That’s just silly and you
know it.” I did, but it made me feel better hearing it from her.
And being called Carter. That was a New York name. A work name. It
made me feel more like my old self: in charge and in control.
“Sometimes things just happen. Coincidence. Sometimes they’re good
coincidences. Sometimes they’re not. You know.”

Though she couldn’t see me, I nodded. She
was right.

“But tell me again, the name of the old
boyfriend you ran into.”

“Ernie. Ernest Carmichael Billings.
Why?”

“Dunno. It twigged something. I’ll have to
think about it, but I’ll let you know if I remember what it is I’ve
forgotten. Meanwhile, are you ever going to come back here to
visit? The kids would love to see you.”

We chatted for a while. Rose had lost
another tooth, Nigel was doing better in math. “They seem so OK,
Madeline. I know that should make me happy and it does — it does,
really — but sometimes I want them to be more broken. Like me. And
sometimes I’m afraid they’ve forgotten Jack altogether.”