No One Left to Tell (34 page)

‘I know she did. I saw that calculating gleam in her eye. It’s pretty common when people fabricate some or all of a story. So let’s play this out. She’s contacted after Crystal’s death, bribed to keep quiet. She took the money. She couldn’t have spent any, because she’s been paying St Leo’s all year and will pay fifteen thousand next year.’

‘I still can’t believe that,’ Paige murmured. ‘It’s just kindergarten. What’s she planning to do in the future?’

‘Apply for scholarships, I guess. Once her money runs out, Caleb would be eligible.’

‘But it doesn’t make
sense
.’ Her brows knit. ‘Why
that
school? My gut says that the fact that Rex McCloud went there somehow connects. I just don’t know how. Yet.’ She rubbed her forehead. ‘Okay, so continuing to play it out . . . She deposits the dough and lives on what? Her part-time job at McDonald’s? Don’t think so. She managed to get her nursing assistant certificate and she pays rent on that place we just left.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I checked her out last week. I was going to talk to her when it was still a pro-bono case for Maria.’

‘You mean Maria and Elena didn’t even pay you?’

‘With what? They were barely making ends meet. That’s why all this took me so long. I could only work when I had downtime from all of Clay’s other cases. Oh, he said he could babysit me tonight. He’ll be at the Peabody by ten.’

Grayson frowned. ‘Great.’

‘I’m just following orders, Counselor,’ she said quietly.

‘I know,’ he said, hating the jealousy that gnawed at him. ‘I don’t have to like it.’

Paige looked out the window. ‘What was Brittany living on after Crystal died?’

He forced his mind back on topic. ‘Not on part-time Mickey D’s and it would be hard to work with a baby. Why would she give us that check register?’

‘I guess we’ll find out when we find her. Maybe she’ll go to work tonight.’

He felt like smacking the steering wheel again but he didn’t. ‘We didn’t ask which nursing home she worked in, assuming she was telling the truth about that.’

‘She’d have listed her employer on the forms she filled out for Caleb’s school, especially if she was applying for financial aid. We could call your Miss Keever again.’

‘I will.’ He scowled when he got voicemail. ‘She may be gone for the day.’

Paige took her laptop from her backpack. ‘Then I’ll call nursing homes till I find her.’

Chapter Thirteen

Wednesday, April 6, 5.00
P.M
.

B
etsy Malone looked a lot older than she really was, Paige thought. The woman who’d partied her twenties away now faced thirty looking more like she was forty. She led them to a small room at the rehab facility where she volunteered.

‘We can talk here,’ she said, closing the door.

‘We’re here to ask you about Rex McCloud,’ Grayson said when they’d sat down.

Betsy’s eyes widened. ‘As it pertains specifically to?’ she asked guardedly.

‘Not your drug arrests,’ he said, and she looked relieved. ‘I wanted to talk about the night of a pool party at which a young woman was murdered. Crystal Jones.’

Betsy’s shoulders seemed to sag. ‘Okay.’

‘What happened the night she was killed?’ Paige asked.

‘I don’t remember much. Rex and I were high. I remember Crystal, a little. I more remember that Rex was pissed because he’d hoped she’d put out, but she left. He had a lot of guys there that night and she was part of his entertainment plan. I didn’t pay a lot of attention to her. I’d just gotten . . . well, I was new and improved.’

‘You’d just gotten your implants,’ Paige said evenly. ‘For your twenty-first birthday. I saw your MySpace page.’

She laughed incredulously. ‘That’s still up? I’ll have to go look for old time’s sake. Yes, I’d just gotten the okay from my doctor to go into the pool.’

‘Did Rex leave the pool that night?’ Grayson asked.

‘A couple of times. I couldn’t believe you guys bought his alibi.’

‘We had a video of the party,’ Grayson said. ‘He didn’t leave the pool all night.’

Betsy shook her head. ‘That’s not possible.’

‘We’ve just discovered that the video wasn’t made the night of the murder. It was a different night,’ Paige said. ‘Before your surgery.’

‘I’m in it?’ Betsy looked away, horrified. ‘What was I doing?’

‘Rex,’ Paige said dryly and Betsy’s cheeks flamed red.

‘Let’s focus on that night in general,’ Grayson interrupted, ‘and not you specifically.’

‘That sounds fine,’ Betsy said, relieved. ‘Please.’

‘Did you see Ramon Muñoz there that night?’ Paige asked.

‘If I did, I didn’t know him. I remember thinking afterward that Rex was lucky they’d found the person who did it, that he’d have had a hard time proving his innocence otherwise.’ Betsy paused, frowned. ‘But you didn’t find the right guy, did you?’

‘You don’t seem terribly surprised,’ Grayson commented.

She sighed. ‘I guess because I always wondered if Rex had done it.’

‘You said he left the pool,’ Grayson said. ‘When and why and for how long?’

‘A couple times he went to snort more coke. Once he said he was going to find that “Amber bitch”. That’s how she introduced herself that night. She didn’t go by Crystal.’

‘Was he angry enough to strangle and stab Crystal?’ Grayson asked.

‘I don’t know. He was mad, but Rex had never been violent. More self-destructive. He hated himself, hated his family. They looked all perfect on the outside, but they were one fucked-up tribe. I mean, look at the parties they allowed.’

‘The senator and his wife said they didn’t know about the parties,’ Grayson told her. ‘They said they were asleep that night. Stepdad was, too. Mom was out of town.’

‘Rex said they knew exactly what went on. Of course when he got high he said all kinds of things.’ She shrugged. ‘My folks were absentee, but not like Rex’s parents. When my parents found out about the drugs, they shoved my ass into rehab. Four times. It finally took. Rex wasn’t so lucky. His mom traveled all the time and his stepdad wasn’t involved in his life, really. Rex grew up with his grandparents, mostly.’

Paige found no sympathy for Rex McCloud. ‘How long had you known each other?’

‘Since we were little. Rex was always trying to impress his grandparents, but they just weren’t that into him. Freshman year of high school he started acting out, got expelled. Finally he got shipped away to military school. When he came home and started college, he wanted a good time. He partied hard, looking for it.’

‘You said he had a lot of guys there that night,’ Grayson said. ‘How many?’

‘More than usual. Maybe twice as many.’

Paige took out her notebook. ‘Do you remember any of their names?’

‘I’d never met most of them. There was a guy named Grant. One they called Bear.’ She grimaced. ‘Hairy.’

Paige looked up from her book. ‘A boy named Harry?’

‘No. Bear was hairy. Very. That’s why I remember him.’

‘Grant, Bear, anyone else?’

‘The normal crowd. There was TJ and Brendon and Skippy. And a couple guys from Georgetown that I can’t remember. It was six years ago and I was high. Am I going to be in trouble for lying about Rex’s alibi?’

‘I don’t know,’ Grayson said. ‘Maybe. It would have been so much better if you’d told the truth. A man may have spent six years in prison for a murder he didn’t do.’

Betsy flinched. ‘I’m sorry. I made a lot of mistakes when I was high. I don’t know how to make amends for that.’

‘You can’t,’ Paige said sharply, then felt Grayson’s shoe brush her ankle and she bit her lip to keep from saying more.

‘Is there any more you can tell us?’ Grayson asked.

Betsy wagged her head sadly. ‘No. Nothing about that night.’

Paige thought about Brittany’s envelope. ‘Do you know what a “MAC” is?’

Betsy looked up, confused. ‘Like a computer?’

‘No. Like, “I’m a MAC, Loud and Proud”.’

‘No. I’ve never heard that before. I’m sorry.’

Grayson stood. ‘Thank you for your time, Miss Malone. We appreciate it.’

Paige seethed silently as they walked back to Grayson’s car and she buckled up.

He started the car. ‘Go ahead. Get it out.’

‘It was all “poor, poor Rex” and “poor, poor me”. Born with all the opportunities and she pisses it away. Ramon worked hard, built a life for himself and his family and he’s accused, while they . . . party naked with preppy boys named TJ and Brendon and Bear. And Skippy,’ she spat. ‘What kind of mother names her son Skippy?’

‘Usually a Skippy’s given name is really stuffy and ends with “the fourth”.’ Grayson glanced at her. ‘You didn’t have anything growing up, did you? Materially, I mean.’

‘No, because I had a mother who’d rather shoot herself up than feed me.’ She told herself to
shut up
, but the words kept coming. ‘By the time I was Caleb Jones’s age I was running cons, the cute kid they’d send in first to cry for my mommy. I’d distract the mark while my mother and her bed-buddy
du jour
would steal them blind. If I’d had one millionth of what those assholes shoved up their rich noses, I wouldn’t have gone to bed hungry every night.’ She drew a breath and let it out. ‘I’m sorry. That was total TMI.’

‘I figured as much,’ he said evenly. ‘Not the con part, although I’ve heard it before. So what happened?’

‘What do you mean?’

He met her eyes for a moment. ‘How did you become wonderful?’

His question slapped her hard and her eyes filled, humiliating her. She turned to the window, focusing on the pretty trees lining the streets. ‘My grandfather.’

‘He saved you?’

‘Yes. I was eight years old and hadn’t been to school in months. He’d been looking for me, ever since the last time my mother came and took me away.’

‘You stayed with them sometimes?’

‘Yeah. When my mother couldn’t stand the sight of me anymore.’ Her words were bitter, but Grayson didn’t seem to mind. ‘She’d come for me when she “missed me”.’

‘When she needed you to run cons.’

‘Yes. She left me at my grandparents’ one summer and never showed up when school started. My grandmother enrolled me in school. I was . . . happy. Then my mom came one day and got me out of school early. She took me away and months passed. I thought nobody was coming for me, but my grandfather had hired a PI to find her. The PI did and together he and my grandfather came for me. I didn’t see him coming.’

‘You didn’t expect him to come?’

‘No, I physically didn’t see him coming. I was hungry and was rummaging in a garbage can. The neighbors threw away some damn good stuff.’

A muscle twitched in Grayson’s cheek. ‘And then?’

‘He grabbed me in his arms and said, “
Skatten min
”. It means “my treasure” and he used to say that to me when he’d tuck me in. I knew I’d be okay.’

Grayson’s throat worked for a minute before he spoke. ‘He took you home with him?’

‘Yes. He and my grandmother filed for adoption and my mother agreed.’

‘Did you take their name? Holden doesn’t sound very Norwegian.’

‘It’s not. We were Westgaards. My mother married when I was a baby and changed my name too. I always thought I’d change it back when I turned eighteen, but by then I was into martial arts and my name had started to mean something.’

‘You loved your grandparents,’ he murmured, as if to reassure himself.

‘Oh yes. Lord knows I didn’t deserve them half the time. I was a hard-to-handle kid.’

‘Like how?’

‘I got in trouble because I didn’t know how to interact with the normals. Broke my grandparents’ hearts more than once. It was Granddad that got me into karate. He’d heard about this guy on TV who was working wonders with the bad kids. Granddad signed me up. Sold some furniture to pay for my lessons. I guess he saved me again.’

‘I’m sure he thought you were a worthwhile investment.’

She swallowed hard. ‘He lived long enough to see me pull it together. Never saw me win a tournament though. But Gran was there, every time she could be. I know rich kids have their problems too, but to throw so much away for so little . . .’

‘Money can make things too accessible.’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t accept that. You had money and you didn’t party naked in a pool, snorting coke like air. Did you?’

‘Hell no,’ he said, sounding shocked at the thought. ‘My mother would have grounded me for life.’ He paused thoughtfully. ‘Actually, no. It would have broken her heart if I’d gone wild, and I respected her too much to even consider it.’

She felt a pang of longing. He was a good man.
Who you will have to walk away from when this is over
.

‘And
we
didn’t have money,’ he added. ‘We lived with the Carters and
they
had money. They were, and still are, incredibly generous. I was lucky. But you’re right. Rich or poor, people make choices. Bad choices have consequences. At least that’s the way it’s supposed to be. It’s why I do what I do.’

The pang in her heart became a physical pain. Here was the kind of man she’d been waiting for . . . forever. ‘You
were
lucky,’ she said. ‘You had a mother who loved you. Taught you to be a decent man. That’s everything.’

He kept his eyes straight ahead, his body seeming to still. ‘That’s true.’ He was quiet for a long moment. ‘I think it’s time we had a chat with Rex McCloud.’

She blinked, surprised at the abrupt subject change but more by the solemnity with which he said it. ‘You said he’s on house arrest. Where, at the estate?’

‘No. The family owns a building downtown. Mostly offices, a few penthouse condos. Rex is there. No need for the GPS. I know where it is.’

Wednesday, April 6, 6.15
P.M
.

A martini was placed at his elbow. ‘I hope you had a productive day, sir.’

‘I did, actually.’ A few well-placed sets of eyes and ears had informed him that Mr Grayson Smith had taken two rooms at the Peabody Hotel. He’d later been seen leaving with Paige Holden who had left her suitcase behind. Now he knew where she’d be tonight. So far she hadn’t stumbled on anything he couldn’t fix. He needed to make sure that did not change.