The deepest kill, p.14
The Deepest Kill, page 14
Then he walked away. She had no idea, then or now, what he’d been talking about. As she got older she refused to think of him at all.
But some car crash into an icy river? Maybe, even at four, she had trained her mind not to go there.
Or, someone—like Martin Post—had their stories seriously crossed.
Martin interrupted her thoughts. “Help me find this woman before the media does, and I’ll help you, but either way, I’m going forward. Let the courts work out proper search procedures and chain of custody. There’s nothing you can do about that.”
True. She couldn’t keep the man from spying on his son-in-law, and if said son-in-law would shortly be taken into custody, Martin would have no more opportunity anyway. She said, “If this woman exists, and we find her, you’ll have to tell the FBI agents what you did. It would sabotage their case if it came out later.”
“Fine. As soon as he’s arrested and they search his phone—whichever burner he’s using to talk to her—they’ll find her anyway. But that may take too long—before they started talking about her work schedule, Greg said something about bags. Like, ‘Bags packed?’ I’m not sure. He mumbles sometimes.”
Well, that did put a slightly different cast on things. Maybe he should have led with that. “Anything else? Are you sure? In the past? Had Deborah listened in . . . to . . . your daughter and her husband? Your guests? Business colleagues?
“What? No! I’m not some kind of voyeur. I was desperate, that’s all. And I still think I was within my rights.”
I’m not so sure of the former, Ellie thought, and regarding the latter, you weren’t. But the law would figure that out.
She began looking at the back of the cosmetics again. Kayla kept herself well-stocked; in addition to the half-used items, she had two new lipsticks, a facial buff, and acne cream still in the packaging.
“Think we can track her down with nothing but a first name and an eyeshadow palette?” Martin chuckled, with the kind of rattle one breathed on the way to the gallows.
“Maybe.” She turned over the unwrapped items, the ones still in their plastic packages. Martin watched over her shoulder, his breath moving a few strands of her hair. She usually didn’t like men—anyone, really—getting that close to her, but there was something strangely sexless about Martin. The power he wielded, that of wealth, influence, and unimaginable access, could be terrifying, was terrifying . . . but it wasn’t physical. She didn’t fear what he would do in her presence. She feared what he would do when alone with his electronics.
But right now, she focused on Kayla’s cosmetic supply.
“The same SKU numbers,” Martin said.
Well, he was the smartest guy in the room.
Unlike UPC bar codes, which were assigned by the manufacturer, SKU were designed by the companies selling the products to mark inventory and price. The first six SKU numbers of the four unopened items were the same.
Martin said, “So she’s a loyal shopper to someplace.”
“I’d say Ulta.”
He stared at her, really and truly surprised, a look she hadn’t seen before. Had she actually both scolded and impressed the third-richest man in the country in the same afternoon? You’re on a roll, Ellie. “This new mascara, the bronzer, the purple eyeshadow are Ulta brand. They wouldn’t be sold anywhere except at Ulta stores.”
Martin made another leap. “She works there.”
“Or it’s her favorite store.”
He pulled out his phone. “She was talking about inventory. Yes, that could involve thousands of professions, but it’s worth a try. Deborah, where’s the closest Ulta store?”
Even his phone assistant has his dead wife’s name?
The tinny voice reported an address on 41, the main drag through all of southwest Florida. “Would you like me to call it?” Yes. Yes, he did.
A woman answered, the squeak in her voice making Ellie wonder if she could be old enough to wear makeup, much less sell it. It was a beautiful day at Ulta and how could she help them?
Martin said, “Can I talk to Kayla?”
Ellie held her breath, not sure what to wish for. If Kayla existed, what would Martin do next? Insist on driving over to the Ulta store, drag Kayla out to his Tesla, and take her to the FBI field office? Or to his own black ops site? At this point nothing would surprise her. Martin Post was the wildest of wild cards.
“She’s not in yet.”
Ellie breathed out, unsure whether she felt relief or new apprehension. Or pride. Her deductions had yielded fruit—maybe. Kayla was not an uncommon name.
“Oh. When will she be in?”
“Let me see—I know she’s on today. Chantel, when is Kayla gonna get here? T—two? She starts at two. But anyone here can help you. Were you calling about a specific product or—”
“Thank you,” Martin said, and disconnected. An expression of triumph straightened his lips, what passed for him, in this new stage of his life, as a smile. “Let’s go.”
“Martin! What are you going to do?” She followed—chased, more accurately—him out of the bathroom.
Where she ran straight into Agent Tyler.
Chapter 23
To Ellie’s great relief, Martin realized the difficulties of locating and apprehending the home-wrecking Kayla by himself and brought the agents into his confidence. Either that or he feared Ellie would promptly betray his plans. A pre-emptive strike instead would put him on the right side of the two agents. He emphasized how vital Greg’s mistress would be to their case and how she had to be collected immediately and with care.
This conversation also had to be done with care. Greg himself stood ten feet away, and not yet under arrest.
Michael Tyler gave them a quick recap. He and Luis had gently informed Greg of the search to be undertaken. Greg had not argued too strenuously but insisted that he be present. His consent was not needed since they had a warrant, but in his desire to appear cooperative he also did not summon a lawyer. Investigators never knew how long the non-lawyer stage would last; it was like trying to estimate how long you could play ball under cloudy skies before they opened and rained you out. You had to keep swinging while you could.
Greg seemed more nervous than Ellie had seen him thus far. With no female in sight—other than her—he let the cool bad boy image slip and bounced on the balls of his feet, chewing at a cuticle. He watched with alarm over the shoulder of a young man in a shirt and tie as the guy typed on one of his, Greg’s, laptops. “The future of our country is in this room . . . and hey, you can’t look at that. It’s proprietary.”
When the man completely ignored him, he appealed to his father-in-law. “Martin. Do you really want to give them access to that? What if one of them’s a plant for EntreRobotics? Or the Chinese?”
“Mr. Anderson—” Michael began.
Martin Post looked at his daughter’s husband as if he had never seen him before. Ellie thought he might forfeit the missile defense system a hundred times over if it got him to who killed Ashley . . . but his intellect gave protest. “They’re not seizing or copying the hard drives. Only examining for anything relevant to Ashley.”
“Why would there be info in my stuff relevant to Ashley? I came here to get away from—” He stopped, but too late. Martin glared.
Michael Tyler made a diplomatic suggestion. “Let’s wait outside. We can discuss—that other matter.”
He expertly herded the irate father-in-law out into the hallway, leaving his partner inside with Greg and the other agents. Ellie followed, hoping that they would stay in the overwarm but at least shaded passageway rather than emerge on to the blistering pavement. The heat remained brutal. Ellie had considered throwing a lab coat over her tee to give a slightly more professional appearance, but it was just too bloody hot. The FBI agents had no such leeway, she supposed, and their faces showed a slick sheen above the knotted ties and suit jackets. She only felt sorry for men and their fashion requirements on such hot days . . . and that they couldn’t wear high-heeled pumps.
Then a new arrival interrupted her thoughts.
A woman entered the hallway, from the opposite entrance than Ellie had used. Amazing hair in glossy black, well past her shoulders. Huge blue eyes topped expertly contoured cheekbones. She wore a black skirt and jacket with a white blouse over stylishly comfortable shoes. Her left lapel bore a pink name tag. It did not surprise Ellie to read Kayla.
She did not seem concerned at the people in the hallway, only tossed a smile at Michael and Ellie and made to walk around them. But then, behind Michael’s towering form, she saw Martin Post.
And stopped dead. Her face slackened in shock, and recognition.
She tried to recover. “Excuse me.” She moved to slip by Ellie, ignoring the door to Greg’s unit, no doubt planning to stop at a different door. There she would pretend to have forgotten her key, and make a discreet exit with no intention of returning.
Martin said, “Kayla?”
Michael said, “Ma’am—we’re going to need to talk to you.”
Just then the other outside door opened and a man entered. Even with most of his form lost to the flash of blinding sunlight, Ellie caught the swing of the shaggy hair.
“Mi—Agent Tyler,” she hissed. “That’s the reporter who came into my garage last night. Bruce Dunning.”
The door clanged again, and two more entered the long but narrow hallway behind Dunning. The FBI agent’s head swung left, then right, then settled on Kayla. “Miss—”
“Parker,” she supplied.
“You came here to see Greg Anderson, didn’t you?”
She had been expecting the question, of course . . . that didn’t mean she knew how to answer it. “Um—”
He kept his voice low. “If I could beg your indulgence, ma’am, all of us should leave right now and that includes you. Unless you want your picture on every newscast tonight.”
Ellie would guess the woman’s age at about twenty-two, but right then she could have been a scared high schooler. She took one look at the approaching reporters, Dunning already lifting a camera to his face, turned her back, and fled down the hallway. The three people behind her would shield her figure from photos, Ellie reflected as she followed, Michael’s hand lightly on the center of her back. In his other hand he held his phone, whispering an update to Luis, warning him not to open the unit’s door. It locked automatically, Ellie remembered. The search warrant domain would remain intact.
But what on earth was going to happen once they reached that door at the end of the hall?
The reporters were shouting questions, reasonable inquiries but not ones Martin would answer.
“Mr. Post! What are you doing here?”
“Dr. Carr! Was Ashley murdered? How does the ME feel about the Locard consulting?”
“Agent Tyler! Is a storage unit related to her death? Are you arresting Post? Are you arresting Anderson?”
“What’s it going to take to tell us the truth about Ashley’s death?”
Kayla Parker burst though the exterior door as if the hounds of hell were at her heels, but wearing wedge sandals she couldn’t outrun her boyfriend’s father-in-law. Martin, one step behind her, grabbed her arm, but she leapt into the driver’s seat of a sky-blue, four-door Kia. He had to snatch his hand back before she could slam it in the door, and instead jumped into the backseat.
Ellie slowed enough to turn to Michael.
“Get in.” He gestured toward the passenger seat, and folded himself into the backseat with surprising agility for such a large man.
She hesitated.
“You always hesitate,” Esteban told her once. She heard his voice now as if he were in the room. “That’s what cripples you.”
Her shuffling between extended family did not end on her eighteenth birthday. Loving, well-meaning aunts and uncles refused to abandon her. During college breaks she caught a bus south to Los Angeles to bunk with her mother’s cousin Tommy and his wife Valeria and their sons. It worked out. Valeria loved having another female in the house, and taught Ellie conversational Spanish and how to make flan. Mateo and Esteban brought her along to all their favorite spots, touristy and locals-only alike. But any spot with Esteban became her immediate favorite.
Dark eyes that saw far too much, hair that always seemed just-so-appealingly tousled. Slender but wiry. Intelligent but cool. A measured tone to a calm voice that both soothed and irritated. Trying to figure out the exact biological relationship between second cousins, whether any sort of pairing would be problematic, helped her to pass genetics but created many sleepless nights.
She had finally concluded that pairing would be biologically permissible but emotionally inadvisable.
Perhaps she had just been too hesitant.
He had said this in the course of a poker game, but as always with Esteban, his words had a deeper meaning beyond her waffling over a two-chip ante while holding a pair of fours. Esteban and Mateo played poker as if it were a blood sport, a fight to the death in a theoretical realm where you could die as many times as you wanted and still be reborn with the next deal. “Life is short,” he told her. “Take chances.”
Ellie yanked on the car’s handle.
Kayla hit the accelerator before Ellie was fully inside . . . uncomfortably, since she’d dropped down onto the rhinestone letters of Kayla’s Balenciaga handbag, a pink hardbound notebook, two pens, an industrial-sized insulated water bottle, and a pair of sunglasses, mercifully unbroken. As she tried to adjust all this to one side, Michael asked Kayla how she’d gotten into the facility.
“Through the back entrance. Why are you people in my car?” Kayla sped through the uniform rows of storage units, each one looking exactly like the other, without hesitation. She had obviously been there many times.
“Could you go through that entrance now? I realize this is not our standard operating procedure, Miss Parker, but this is not a standard moment.”
“But why are you in my car?”
Michael kept his voice calm because no one was. Ellie had had the same training. When the victim/witness/suspect is uptight, keep the voice steady, focus on specifics, and take your time. “I assumed you would not care to speak to the media at this point in time, and frankly we would prefer you did not as well. But that is, of course, up to you.”
“But why—”
“You wouldn’t want us talking to them either,” Martin interjected. “Or I’d have to tell them that you’re the piece on the side my son-in-law was cheating on my pregnant daughter with.”
“Mr. Post—” Michael began.
“Just stating a fact.”
Ellie turned to look at the driver. She had a grim set to her jaw and her knuckles had turned white on the steering wheel. She was so very young.
Kayla braked hard at the gate that led to a back street, and they waited in silence for the electric eye to activate it. “Where am I going? Am I dropping you some—”
Michael spoke. “Could you take us to Riverside Drive and Fourth, please?”
Kayla leapt through the gate but stopped at the road, nonplussed.
Ellie said, “Go to Goodlette-Frank Road.”
The car moved again. Michael was undoubtedly directing the woman to the Naples Police Department. He and Luis had been working out of it since the FBI did not have a field office in Naples—only an hour plus up 75 to Fort Myers, or two hours east to Miami.
But she didn’t say so. He’d been right, these were extremely nonstandard operating procedures, and she had no idea what Michael would do with either Kayla or Martin Post and did not want to interfere.
Kayla burst out, “Where is Greg?”
“He’s with my partner,” Michael said, “going over some things.”
“He’s inside your little love nest,” Martin said, “while the feds search everything he’s got.”
Kayla tapped the brakes for a stop sign and glanced over at Ellie, her face a mask of appeal, either for confirmation or moral support. Ellie couldn’t give much of either.
“Mr. Post—” Michael began. “Miss Parker is being kind enough to provide limo service for us—”
Martin grasped the driver’s seat back, fingers digging into the upholstery, shaking it in agitation. “Did you help him? Did you help him murder my daughter?”
“No!”
“Mr. Post!”
Kayla’s face screwed up and her voice seemed to disintegrate into shards of pain. “He didn’t! He couldn’t have. I know he couldn’t have!”
Michael said, “It’s probably best if you don’t say anything more, Miss Parker, until—”
She stopped at a red light and let out a sob. “I know he didn’t, because he was with me!”
Chapter 24
“It wasn’t my fault, I swear! I had no idea he was married!” Kayla told them the whole story between choking cries and the usual stop-and-go traffic between the too-numerous traffic lights on 41. The strengthening wind whined softly as it skimmed along the windshield, adding to the noise. Ellie buckled up, not at all confident that the driver could see the road properly through her tears.
Michael said, “Miss Parker, it would really be better if you waited until I read you your—”
“It was a party. An OakTree party, actually.”
Martin let go of the seat back but leaned forward, as far as the seat belt would let him, as if he wanted to catch every word, every detail, every nuance.
“At the Ritz-Carlton. You were unveiling a new phone or something, and my girlfriend dragged me there because somehow she thought you might give away some free or at least a coupon. I went along for the appetizers and champagne.” She sniffed, and looked even more acutely miserable than she already had. “So we dressed up real cute and—I guess we sort of crashed it. Sorry.”
Ellie saw Martin Post blink. Even he didn’t know what to say to that.
“Anyway I started talking to this guy about the sushi, and he said his name was Greg, and he worked at OakTree. He didn’t say anything about being married, didn’t wear a ring—I had no idea he was related to you.” She checked the rearview mirror to see the fuming billionaire. “I don’t pay a lot of attention to high-tech stuff. I can’t afford it, and don’t know how to use it anyway. And it’s not like his picture was all over BuzzFeed or something.”
