Promise You Won't Tell? (24 page)

“That must have been very hard on her. Did her mood improve when you returned her panties?”

I smile.

She smiles.

“See? This is why I like you so much,” I say. “Who else talks like this?”

“Thanks. As you talked with Erica, I suppose she confided in you about Mitch and his activities?”

“She told me what she knew, which wasn’t much. Nothing for you to worry about. She said three months ago Mitch claimed to enjoy taping himself having sex with other women. He even admitted he was seeing someone else and wondered if Erica would consider a threesome.”

“Did she?”

“No, but she pretended to be interested, so she could find out who the other woman was.”

“Clever.”

“So Mitch got all excited, and gave Erica a CD showing him having sex with the other woman. She asked if she could keep the CD because it really turned her on. Erica never confronted the other woman, but she did send her the CD.”

“So Erica kept seeing Mitch even though he’d been dating another woman?”

“I know. Crazy, right?”

She shrugs.

I say, “Guess who the other woman was?”

“How would I know?”

“Please. Say it.”

She looks around again. Then stands, and says, “I need to use the restroom. Want to freshen up?”

“I do.”

We enter the restroom and wait till the lady who’s in there finishes washing her hands. Then I place a small wedge into the door jamb, turn toward Riley, and raise my blouse to my neck. I turn in a circle. Then lower my blouse, raise my skirt to my waist, and make a circle. Then she looks through my handbag.

“You’re
armed
?” she says.

“It’s not as exciting as it sounds,” I say. “I nearly shot Fanny by mistake on Friday.”

She laughs. “Jesus, Dani.”

“I know.”

When she’s satisfied I’m not wearing a wire, she says, “You wanted me to guess who Mitch filmed himself having sex with?”

“Uh huh.”

“Parker Page.”

“Bingo!”

She laughs. “Funny.”

“One thing I’ve got to know,” I say.

“What’s that?”

“You’re too smart to take a chance on having two teenage boys in that room with you. They’d been drinking. You must have had a backup. But I can’t figure out who it was.”

“Think about it.”

“I have. There were eight boys in the basement, plus Kelli, and the two other girls she invited to the slumber party, Jennie Cox and Cammi Churra. And Parker, who had to be picked up by midnight. So who’s left to mind the store?”

“Think about it.”

“There’s no one left.”

“Think about it, Dani. What’s the centerpiece of your timing issues?”

“That so much had to happen in such a small window of time.”

“And who was central to that?”

“Parker.”

She shakes her head. “Before Parker.”

“Kelli.”

“Jesus, Dani. Before Kelli.”

I’m ashamed it takes me so long. But when it hits, it hits hard.

“I don’t believe it!” I say.

She smiles. “
I’m
certainly not going to say it!”

I say, “Kelli’s mom. Lydia Underhill! Can I get a Bingo?”

“Not from me,” she says, laughing.

“How the hell?”

“That’s all I’m going to say.”

“You haven’t said
anything
! How could she be your ally? How could she have possibly known if you’d need help when they were alone in the room with you?”

“Think about it.”

“Not this again!”

“Where’s the one place Lydia could have been that would allow her to protect me, if neccesary?”

“Holy shit! Mitch’s bedroom! She watched the whole thing live. She coordinated with Parker, and Kelli, and she did it because she also hated Mitch.”

I shake my head. “That was brilliant of you guys to have her attorney threaten me at the beginning of my investigation. It threw me off completely.”

I think about it some more and say, “Wait. Did she kill Mitch?”

Riley says nothing.

I say, “She’d get next to nothing in a divorce. Same thing if he wound up in prison. But if he
died
…”

My mind races to the natural conclusions. “This all happened three months ago. Parker received the video from Erica, watched it and realized Mitch had filmed them having sex in Kelli’s room. Parker knew the only way that could have happened is if Mitch had been filming his stepdaughter, Kelli.

“Parker must have freaked out. She’d been sleeping with Kelli’s stepfather, who’d been filming Kelli. She told you about it, and the two of you broke the news to Kelli, who wondered if Mitch filmed himself raping her last year. She broke into Mitch’s room not last week, but three months ago! Found the videos. Watched them, including her own rape. She couldn’t keep the secret any longer, so she told her mom, and showed her the video.

“Kelli, Parker, and Lydia all wanted Mitch put away, but Kelli and Lydia didn’t want to lose the lifestyle, and Kelli and Parker didn’t want the police and everyone else in the world to see videos of them naked, having sex. Meanwhile, you had an intense desire to fund your charity. You also had some killer information regarding Ethan’s phony birth certificate.

“You used your body to fund your charity, and they agreed to help because they wanted Mitch punished, or dead.”

“You have a vivid imagination, Dani,” she says. “I’ve always admired you for that.”

“And I admire how you put all this together. I’m not upset over what you did to Ethan. The kid’s a slime. The video proved it. He deserved to take a hit to his piggybank. Yes, you set him up, just like I do with my decoy work. But no one forced him to touch you. And you did ask him to stop. And he didn’t.”

“You wouldn’t rather see him in jail? See justice done?”

“Justice
was
done. This is how you beat people like Ethan and Gavin. You take away their power, and their money. They’ll get it back in other ways, but at least you come out ahead, and the kids you’ll help through your charity.”

“Thanks Dani. I really appreciate that.”

“What about the job? Wouldn’t it be fun for you, Kelli, and Parker to work with me someday?”

“I honestly don’t see that in our futures, although you might be interested to know Parker and Kelli have changed their majors to Nonprofit Management and Social Entrepreneurship, respectively.”

“So you
did
offer them jobs!”

“That’s all I’m going to say.”

“You’ll miss the rush, you know.”

“You think?”

“I would,” I say.

“We’ll stay busy. If we do our jobs right, we could change the world.”

“You make it sound so much more noble than getting all dressed up to catch cheating husbands.”

“We all serve in our own way,” she says.

“Are you sure you’re seventeen?”

She smiles. “I’m going to miss your flattery.”

“I picked out a name for us,” I say. “I was going to get matching t-shirts.”

“Tell me.”

“Brace yourself.”

“Okay.”

“
Dani’s Decoys!
”

She smiles. “You’ll have to carry on without us. I’m sure we’d have fun, but our donors would never approve. Nevertheless, if you
do
make the shirts, we’ll wear them proudly.”

With that, she gives me a big hug, removes the wedge from the door, places it on the counter, and walks out.

I don’t blame Riley for not taking me up on my job offer. Being a decoy is far less prestigious than being the administrator of a major charity. Not to mention she can immediately start paying herself a substantial salary and fund all sorts of humanitarian projects. Like Gavin said, there are lots of organizations, including private schools, who’ll provide matching funds for contributions up to a certain amount. When she makes Gavin’s contribution public, it will be an irresistible story. It’ll open the floodgates, and donor money will fly through the door. She’ll get national exposure for it, and I’m not talking about the photos that have already been purged from the internet. Riley knows a multi-million dollar charity, properly administered, can generate a lifetime of income for her, while allowing her to do good deeds.

I’m not thrilled about my handling of what Dillon calls our pro-porno case. We did some things I’m not proud of, including breaking and entering, theft, and of course, I lied about watching the video, which I have since destroyed. I will say this was a very unique case, and I was emotionally vested in it. Still, I’m very, very sorry for the lies I told, the mistakes I made, and the laws I broke, or caused to be broken. I solemnly promise I won’t break any laws from here on out, now, and forever more.

Of course, I made that very same promise after finishing my last case, too…

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Call Me!
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Dani Ripper

…is the pseudonym for New York Times Best-Selling Author John Locke.

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