Deadly Assets Read online

  “Nothing. Nada. Zilch.” Denise gave an overly-dramatic sigh of frustration. “The Scranton police say they are investigating, but I’m sure they hear teenager and immediately think runaway. Plus, she’s eighteen. Technically an adult, free to come and go as she pleases.”

  “Do her parents think she ran away?”

  “Her parents don’t know what to think. She’s incommunicado, sure, but a runaway?” Denise made a clucking sound. “Doesn’t seem like it. And why now, before her dream competition?”

  Yes, indeed, why now? “I’ve tried to call the parents, but they haven’t returned my calls.”

  “Like I said, Allison, no one blames you.”

  “Blames me for what?”

  “Look, it may seem incriminating. She goes to you, spends a few nights, you do your head stuff with her and the next thing we know, whoosh. She vanishes. But let me be clear. No one blames you.”

  That’s a relief, Allison thought. She could hear the biting sarcasm in her own internal voice. Brutus began licking Allison’s bare feet. Allison pushed him gently away—it tickled—and tucked her legs up under her. She wasn’t getting anywhere with Denise Carr other than a new appreciation for the skill of passive aggressiveness.

  “When she returns home, please let me know,” Allison said.

  “Wait. How did things go, anyway? With the image consulting?”

  Allison debated what to say. Anything positive would sound contrived at this point. She decided to stick with vague.

  “We made progress. She’s a sweet girl. Painfully shy, but then, you know that.”

  “Do you feel like we could have her ready for September?”

  “All things considered, Denise, that’s something we can talk about when she comes home.”

  Denise didn’t respond. From the other room, Allison could hear the low murmur of Jason’s voice as he spoke with someone on his mobile. She listened, feeling a sudden and overwhelming tenderness for her lover. Despite this mess, despite the craziness that had marked the last year, he was here. She still felt the warm, lingering whisper of his fingers against her face.

  Just days ago, he’d asked to move back in. Afraid things were moving too fast, she’d said no. Allison watched Brutus lick the top of one paw with long, lazy strokes. She squeezed her eyes shut. Was she a fool? Perhaps.

  “Did Tammy mention running away, Allison? Or being angry with her parents?”

  Allison blinked, focusing back on the here and now. “Nothing at all about either.”

  “Was she sullen?”

  “I’d characterize her as quiet, but not sullen. Why do you ask?”

  “Oh, I just wondered if she resented working with you. Not that we blame you, of course. Or that assistant of yours. Vaughn.”

  “No, of course not.” Allison un-tucked her legs and stood up. “Look, Denise, be a dear and call me when she returns, okay?”

  “Yes, yes. No worries, Allison. I have your back.”

  Allison hung up, all too happy to end that call. She tried Mrs. Edwards one more time. Still no answer. She left another voicemail.

  Two clients. Two disappearances. Too much of a coincidence?

  Vaughn’s apartment was hot and stuffy, as though the heater was battling it out with the air conditioner—and winning.

  Allison followed Mrs. T, Jamie’s favorite nurse/caretaker, through the living room, past the kitchen and into Jamie’s bedroom. Paralyzed from the neck down since age nineteen when he’d received a bullet meant for Vaughn, Vaughn’s identical twin had been sentenced to life inside these four walls until last spring when Jamie’s research helped nail a killer. The local police force hired him as a consultant and, finally willing to journey outside the apartment, Jamie spent three days a week in the police precinct in a specially-equipped office.

  Now he looked drained. When Allison walked in, she instinctively looked at the large computer monitor by Jamie’s bed. Jamie couldn’t speak. He used a special mouthpiece that caused his words to appear on the screen.

  HELLO, ALLISON. I HOPE YOU’RE FARING BETTER THAN MY BROTHER TODAY.

  Allison smiled her hello. She glanced to the back of the room and saw Vaughn propped on the couch. His tight facial expression said it all.

  “I’m holding up okay, Jamie,” she said. She kissed his forehead before joining Vaughn. She plopped down on the couch and patted Vaughn’s leg. He managed a half-hearted hello. “Unlike this guy.”

  HE BLAMES HIMSELF.

  Allison nodded. “Looks that way.” Clearly Vaughn was going through something. She had never seen her colleague, her rock, her friend, look so down.

  She could understand why. Two missing clients, and Vaughn was the last to have seen both. But last night, Allison asked him to walk through the details of his day, through every excruciating word that had been uttered and every minute gesture made by each of her clients, until they were both cross and exhausted, and still she could see no point at which he’d demonstrated poor judgment.

  Either it had been a day of bad luck, and both women, for their own reasons, had left of their own accord—in which case one or both women would likely return with some plausible story regarding their whereabouts—or foul play was at hand.

  Vaughn said, “I should have gone in there with Francesca.”

  “To the bathroom, Vaughn? Listen to yourself. Francesca is a grown woman. And before you even mention Tammy, let me remind you she’s eighteen. Legally an adult. She works, babysits…and will be headed off to California on her own soon enough. You did nothing wrong for either client. Period.”

  Vaughn nodded, but he didn’t look convinced. The truth was, until they knew who or what caused each woman to disappear, they couldn’t really say whether Vaughn might have prevented it. Or whether she might have. Had she done or said something to trigger a flight response in either client? But as experience taught her, hindsight was not only 20/20—it was absolutely worthless.

  IT’S NOT EVEN BEEN 24 HOURS.

  Vaughn wasn’t looking at his brother’s screen, so Allison read the words to him. Vaughn shook his head. He sat up and glanced over at Jamie. “Gut sense. Something happened to Francesca. I feel it in my bones. And it’s driving me...well, I need to do something.”

  HER FAMILY SEEMS A LITTLE ODD, VAUGHN. SHE’S BEEN COOPED UP IN THAT HOUSE FOR DECADES. MAYBE SHE WANTED HER FREEDOM.

  “No. She was too concerned about the family business to leave.”

  Allison said, “Concerned in what way?”

  “She was clearly anxious. She spent most of the ride with her eyes closed, regulating her breathing.”

  “Probably because she was leaving the Benini property for the first time in years.”

  AGORAPHOBIC?

  “Not necessarily. Her behavior might have been an attempt to calm her anxiety. And anxiety under those circumstances would be a normal reaction.”

  Vaughn said, “But when she talked about Benini Enterprises, there was determination in her voice. Anger. Maybe even a little desperation.”

  IF SHE WAS AGORAPHOBIC, THE DESPERATION COULD HAVE BEEN A REACTION TO LEAVING THE SAFETY OF HER HOME.

  “I don’t know,” Allison said, thinking of the woman she’d spent time with during those first fateful encounters. “I worked with an agoraphobic in graduate school. Although it would be hard to say for sure unless I saw her outside her safe environment, Francesca didn’t exhibit the anxiety levels I would associate with an agoraphobic. To stay there for so long, her disorder would have been quite advanced. There would be more...symptoms.”

  SO WHAT IF HER FEAR WAS CAUSED BY SOMETHING ELSE?

  “You mean what if she was in some kind of danger?” Vaughn asked.

  YES. MAYBE SHE’S BEEN HIDING ALL THESE YEARS.

  Allison looked sharply at Jamie. “If she was in hiding, perhaps coming to me wasn’t just about learning t
he skills she’d need to lead Benini Enterprises.”

  I AM WONDERING ABOUT HER MOTIVATION FOR CONTACTING YOU.

  Vaughn sat up straight. “She could have been escaping to us for safety. Maybe the danger was in her house. Contacting us was a way to get out of the house.”

  ALLISON, DID YOU GET THE SENSE FRANCESCA WAS BEING FORCED TO STAY THERE AGAINST HER WILL?

  Allison considered her stay at the estate. The tension between Francesca and family members. Alex’s scorn over his aunt’s choice to remain a recluse for so long. That large, lonely old house. The odd sense of being lost in time.

  “No, I didn’t get the sense she was forced to stay. She talked about vultures, though,” Allison said. “At the time, I assumed she meant it metaphorically. You know, that without someone manning the ship the sharks would start circling, that sort of thing. But what if she was referring to someone specific?”

  CREDITORS?

  “Or other family members. I keep coming back to her family.”

  Vaughn sat forward. “She was pretty clear that she disliked her family when we talked in the car.”

  VAUGHN, DID SHE SAY ANYTHING ELSE IN THE CAR THAT MAY SEEM IMPORTANT NOW?

  “She talked about growing up in Italy, about a cruel grandmother and an overly-passive mother. I told Allison all of this. Francesca was sent to boarding school at five years old, by her grandmother.”

  Allison pondered that. Five years old. A childhood spent at a school, away from family, away from home. How would that affect a person?

  HOW ABOUT AFTER SHE FINISHED SCHOOL? DID SHE GIVE YOU ANY CLUE ABOUT HER LIFE AS A YOUNG ADULT?

  “No,” Vaughn said, agitated. “Actually, maybe she did, in a roundabout sort of way. I’d forgotten about that. She talked about Seligman’s experiments.”

  “Learned helplessness?” Allison said, recalling the research from her days as a graduate student in psychology. She’d thought the trials cruel then. Now, just thinking of them in the context of her client made her legs feel weak.

  Vaughn nodded. “Compared herself to those animals.”

  THAT COULD MEAN ANYTHING.

  “She said life was unfair,” Vaughn said. “That she’d learned to endure and to stop trying to change things.”

  MELODRAMATIC?

  “No. If anything, understated.” Vaughn looked at Allison. “You met her. Francesca seem the dramatic type?”

  “Not really. More like quietly enduring.” Allison remembered their conversation in the library, the way Francesca evaded questions about her family life and her past. “Although at one point, she said some would view her as dramatic. She didn’t say how or why. Told me she’d share more when we met.”

  They all sat in silence for a moment. Vaughn was the first to break the spell. He stood up and headed toward the door.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I need to do something.”

  “But what?”

  “I’m going to look for her.”

  “Vaughn, she could be anywhere by now.”

  “Then what do you suggest? I can’t just sit here. She disappeared on my watch. I feel like a caged animal.”

  A caged animal…like Francesca?

  Maybe that was it, something they could both do. It was a Saturday. Allison could cancel the few weekend plans she had scheduled.

  “How about we head north for the weekend, Vaughn? I’ll ask Jason if he wants to join us. We can stop in Scranton and talk with Tammy’s parents, if they’ll see us. And then go up to Ithaca, to the Benini estate. We still have Francesca’s suitcases anyway. And I’d like another opportunity to meet the family. Ask some questions. Try to figure out whether Francesca really was a willing houseguest for all those years.” Or a caged animal, waiting for escape, Allison thought.

  Vaughn’s eyes searched hers. His jaw clenched, then unclenched. He nodded. Allison understood his need for action. She wasn’t sure what they were doing would help, but it seemed more productive than sitting here.

  Vaughn walked toward Jamie’s wheelchair. Allison knew he wished his brother could join them, and while Vaughn had made strides in increasing Jamie’s mobility, the equipment Jamie needed for everyday survival still made overnight travel nearly impossible without adequate planning.

  “Mrs. T will be here for the weekend, Jamie. Will you be okay?”

  I’LL BE FINE. ANYWAY, SOMEONE SHOULD LOOK INTO FRANCESCA’S PAST AND BENINI ENTERPRISES. I’LL EMAIL YOU WHATEVER INFORMATION I CAN FIND.

  Vaughn squeezed his brother’s shoulder—a gesture Jamie could see but not feel. “That would help.”

  Vaughn and Allison were out the door of Jamie’s bedroom when they heard a loud, shrill shriek. Vaughn turned, panicked. But Jamie still had something to say and had gotten their attention the only way he could.

  Allison read the words on the computer screen.

  PLEASE BE CAREFUL. IF—BIG IF—FOUL PLAY WAS INVOLVED, SOME BAD PEOPLE MAY RESENT YOUR INVOLVEMENT.

  Allison, another set of murders still weighing heavily on her mind, didn’t need reminding. “We’ll be careful, Jamie.” She walked back in and hugged him. His body felt so frail, like her mother’s. “You be careful, too.”

  But even as she made her way back out to her car, Allison couldn’t shake the feeling of foreboding Jamie’s words had awakened. She prayed there wasn’t a killer out there this time.

  Because if there was, her client’s fate had already been decided.

  Seven

  Allison and Vaughn were on the road by two o’clock that afternoon. The sky had darkened to the color of overripe plums and small lightning explosions lit up the distant horizon. Allison drove, the coolness of her Volvo’s interior a marked contrast to the suffocating humidity outside.

  Next to her, Vaughn was quiet. Jason couldn’t go—he was preparing for a trial—so it was just the two of them. Although Allison still had not heard back from Tammy’s family, the Edwards’ residence was their first destination. They arrived at 4:30 p.m., accompanied by the storms that had been threatening for hours. Allison parallel parked in front of Tammy’s home and climbed out of her car, careful to avoid the raging river next to the curb.

  “Full house,” Allison said, pointing to the three cars in the driveway—a full-size van, a smaller sedan and a Cadillac that Allison recognized as belonging to Tammy’s manager, Denise Carr.

  Vaughn led the way up the steps and onto the broad porch. He knocked twice. Almost immediately, a man opened the door. He was tall and hulking, with thinning reddish hair, a neat mustache and a curdled expression on his face. He stood in the doorway for a few moments before opening the screen door to let them in.

  “Is it Tammy?” a voice called from somewhere in the back of the house.

  “No, Jane. I’m sorry, it’s not. It’s that image consultant. And her driver.”

  The man nodded at Allison and Vaughn and, without another word, turned to walk toward the voice. They followed him inside, entering what appeared to be the family’s living room. An L-shaped brown couch stood against the wall to the left, on top of stained beige carpeting, its fibers long past their prime. To the right, a large entertainment center, its wood nicked and scarred, housed an old-fashioned television and a VCR.

  Next to the entertainment center stood a rocking chair. Scattered toys lay claim to the center of the room, all seven or eight feet of it. Legos, blocks, plastic baby books and small green soldiers arranged in elaborate army battles.

  Behind the living room was the dining room. No table, just more toys, a desk with an old computer and a sewing machine on a card table. The carpet, in noticeable contrast to the living room rug, was a navy blue shag. Allison and Vaughn glanced at one another before following Tony Edwards through both rooms and into the kitchen beyond. There, two women, one large-boned and brunette, the other, Denise, petite and blonde, sat at an oval wooden ta
ble. A baby gurgled contentedly from its nest in the brunette woman’s arms.

  “Allison.” Denise Carr stood and shook Allison’s hand, then Vaughn’s. “We were just talking about you.” Denise turned toward the other woman. “This is Jane Edwards, Tammy’s mother. And you met Tony.”

  Jane nodded but didn’t stand. Her eyes were swollen and red-rimmed. Allison felt her stomach clench at the sight of this mother’s pain.

  “We don’t want to intrude,” Allison said. “We were just hoping...well, we were hoping that Tammy had come home.”

  Jane shook her head. She placed her cheek against her daughter’s downy head and started to sob.

  “Not yet, but she will,” Tony mumbled. He knelt next to his wife and patted her back awkwardly. “Jane’s having a hard time. Lizzy here is only three months old, so Jane’s still pretty hormonal.”

  Jane gave him a caustic look. He stood, removing his hand from her back. Hastily he said, “Not that she doesn’t have a right to be upset. Tammy’s never done this before. Leave, I mean.”

  “Do you want to sit?” Denise asked Allison and Vaughn.

  “Oh yeah,” Tony said. “Sorry.” He pulled a chair from against a wall and pushed it toward Allison. He slid another chair from underneath the table, wiped crumbs from the seat, and handed it to Vaughn.

  Denise said, “Is there anything else you can tell us, Vaughn, about what happened when you dropped her off?”

  Vaughn shook his head. “Nothing, I’m sure, that Allison hasn’t already told you.”

  “Once more, so Tammy’s parents can hear it themselves?”

  So Vaughn recounted the entire trip, from the time they left Villanova, to Tammy’s “bye” when he left her Scranton home.

  “Hmmm,” Denise muttered. “Was she texting anyone while you were driving?”

  “No. She never even took out her phone. Maybe you can use her cell to find her.”

  Denise glanced at Jane before shaking her head. “Tried that.” She frowned. “Was anyone here when you arrived?”