Chapter 50
CHAPTER
A TERRIFIED NASH HID BEHIND A tree along a lonely road that was nearly a mile from his neighborhood. Two cars had passed, but neither housed Shock. He had heard sirens in the distance as he was running, and knew it would be the police coming in response to Judith’s call.
My daughter called me a monster? How did they force her to do that? Now everyone believes I’m… my own wife…
He tensed as a van drove slowly down the road and then stopped across from where he was hiding.
A voice called out, “Walter?”
Nash ran out from behind the tree, climbed into the passenger seat, and looked at Shock.
“You tossed your phone, right?” said Shock.
“Down a storm drain.”
Shock drove off at a sedate pace and then glanced at the bag Nash had set on the floorboard.
“When did you pack that?”
“Right before we saw Maggie online. I had this feeling of doom.” He unzippered the bag and pulled out the gun and knife. “My dad’s.”
“Smart move.”
“Where are we going?”
“Someplace safe.”
“Shock, you said you saw the video? How so fast?”
“I set a tickler on Maggie’s Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat pages for any activity.”
“Why would you think to do that?”
“I’m in the security business, Walter. A kid disappears, you always check their social media platforms.”
“They must have forced her to say those things. But at least this shows she’s still alive.”
Shock gave him a funny look. “Maybe.”
“What do you mean, maybe?”
“You said Judith called the cops?”
“She believed Maggie,” Nash said simply.
“I was starting to tell her about my working with the FBI and that being the reason that Maggie was taken. But before I could tell her we got a call from a neighbor whose daughter is one of Maggie’s best friends.
She told her mom about the video, and her mother phoned Judith.
Judith then thought I was about to confess to her that Maggie fled because I molested her.
” Nash shook his head. “She’s known me for over twenty years.
I’ve never done anything remotely like that, always been the calm, good guy, and she just believes that of me. ”
“Well, in Judith’s defense, it was her daughter sayin’ it, Walter.”
“I know, I know,” Nash said miserably. He stared out the windshield with a hopeless expression. “How the hell do I get out of this, Shock?”
“We’ll think of a way. But for now I want you to get in the back of the van and pull that blanket over you, just in case the police stop me.”
“Why would they stop you?”
“Because this here is America and I’m a big, scary Black dude drivin’ around in the middle of the night in a van, Walter. Trust me, that’s enough.”
Nash climbed into the back and covered himself with the blanket.
Shock drove on into an ever deepening darkness.
The next evening Judith answered the knock at her front door to see Rhett standing there.
Tears streaming down her face, she hugged him. “Oh, God, Rhett, my whole life has just… disintegrated.”
“I know, I know, babe. I wanted to come last night when you called, but I figured what with the police and all I should give you all some space.”
She nodded and led him inside. They sat in the family room.
“So what did the police say?” asked Rhett.
“They searched all over the area for him, but as of thirty minutes ago they hadn’t found him.”
“Weird that he could just vanish like that.” He put his arm around her quaking shoulders. “Anything you need, just let me know, okay?”
“Okay, Rhett, thank you.”
“Can I make you some tea, coffee?”
“No, I’m fine.”
“I watched the video, Judith. The things Maggie said about Walter. Did you ever suspect?”
She said angrily, “Do you think if I had I wouldn’t have put a stop to it?”
“Right, right, sorry, I didn’t mean that,” Rhett said quickly. “It’s just all so… messed up. Walt just seemed so… normal.”
“I… didn’t believe it, at first. I didn’t want to believe it.”
“What made you change your mind?” asked Rhett.
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I’m a woman. And a mother. And I could not believe that my daughter would ever say those things unless they were true.”
“And Maggie mentioned a Billy Adams. Didn’t I read about him dying?”
Judith dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. “Detective Ramos came by early this morning. He’s working on Maggie’s disappearance.”
“What did he say?”
Judith shuddered. “It’s just unbelievable.”
“What is?”
“Walt’s Range Rover.”
“What about it?”
“Walt told me he had taken it in for service. But the police impounded it.”
“What! Why?”
She looked at him. “It was damaged. And it had paint on it. Paint they matched to Billy Adams’s car. They think Walter ran Billy off the road and killed him because Maggie had told him about what Walt had done to her.”
“Jesus. This is truly unbelievable. Walt a child molester and murderer.”
Judith let out a sob and bent her chest to her thighs.
“Oh, God, I’m so sorry, babe. Let me get you some coffee. Only take a minute.”
Rhett left her there and walked quickly into the kitchen.
He had been to the Nashes’ for dinners and parties, so he knew where everything was.
While the coffee was brewing he popped a pill to calm his nerves.
He opened the door to the garage and saw Judith’s Benz and Maggie’s BMW and then the empty bay where Nash’s Rover would usually be.
He shook his head, closed the door, made the coffees, and returned to the family room.
Judith was sitting with her head pitched back against the sofa and her eyes closed.
“Drink some of the coffee, babe, it’ll be good for you.”
She opened her eyes, thanked him, and took a few sips.
“So, any idea where Walt could have gone?”
“No. I didn’t even know that he had gone until I got off the phone with the police. I looked through the whole house for him. He had to have left on foot. My car and Maggie’s are still here. And the police said they checked Uber and Lyft and the taxi services. He didn’t call any of them.”
“Can they track his phone?”
“They tried. But no luck.”
“On the phone you said you were sitting with him when you watched the video. What did he say?”
“He denied everything, of course. But I think he was about to admit his guilt even before we saw the video.”
“What do you mean?” Rhett asked quickly.
Judith explained about what Nash had been saying before she’d gotten the call from her friend about Maggie’s posting.
“That’s so… weird. He was about to confess but then he denied it all.”
Judith shot him a look. “R-right. I didn’t think about it like that.”
“Well, probably the sudden shock of Maggie exposing him made him defensive.”
“Yes, I guess… that makes sense,” she said uncertainly.
A moment later there was a knock at the door. It was John Ramos and his partner, Carroll Summers. They both looked depressed and angry.
Judith introduced Rhett, and Ramos eyed him curiously.
“So you’re Nash’s boss?” Ramos asked him.
“I am, yes.”
“Any light you can shed on any of this?” asked Summers.
“None. I’m as stunned as everyone else.”
“No signs, no slips of the tongue?” asked Ramos. “No rumors?”
“No, everyone would describe Nash as a consummate professional above suspicion,” replied Rhett. “Including me.”
“It’s often the case,” said Summers. He turned to Judith. “So nothing with any of your daughter’s girlfriends? Any of them ever feel uncomfortable around him?”
“No, never,” said Judith. Her lips trembled. “I feel like a complete idiot.”
Rhett swept an arm around her. “It’s not your fault, Judith, he fooled everyone.” He looked at Ramos. “So he’s also suspected in the death of this other person?”
“Billy Adams,” answered Ramos. “Maggie mentioned him in her video.”
“So you think Nash killed him because she had told him about her father?”
“Seems pretty obvious,” said Summers. “And the paint on Nash’s Range Rover matched Adams’s car.”
“I guess that’s conclusive,” said Rhett.
Ramos said, “He was trying to tell me some cock-and-bull story about fake cops coming into the neighborhood on the night your daughter went missing. He said Adams told him about them. He was trying to convince me that these ‘cops’ had something to do with it. But I think your daughter might have let it slip that she’d told Adams about the molestation, so he had to get rid of him.
He invented this story about the fake cops to cover his tracks. ”
Rhett, who had been told by Nash about the fake cops, paled and said nothing.
Judith said, “Is there any way to track Maggie now that we know she hasn’t been kidnapped?”
“We’re working on it. She filmed the video even though she didn’t have her phone or laptop. She could have purchased another phone or laptop. Did she have her own credit card?”
“Yes, but it’s tied to our account.”
“Can you check and see if a purchase like that occurred?” asked Ramos.
Judith left them for a minute. When she came back she said, “No, no charges on any of the cards she has access to.”
“That is strange,” said Ramos. “I mean, she has to be staying somewhere. And you’re sure none of her friends have seen her?”
“Not the ones who live in the neighborhood. But she has several who are at college over the summer, or who live in different places.”
“We’ll need a list of them with their contact info. She might be with one of them. She could have used their laptop or phone to do the filming and posting.”
Judith looked on her phone and provided that information to them.
Ramos said, “As you know, we searched through your husband’s things last night. And we did a thorough scrub of your daughter’s room.”
“What did you find?” said Judith fearfully.
Summers said, “In a bottom drawer in his closet were a pair of pants, a shirt, and a pair of sneakers. We matched fibers from the clothing to fibers found in your daughter’s bed.”
Judith shuddered and let out a low moan.
“We also found hair fibers there that matched ones we took from your husband’s hairbrush.”
“Damn,” exclaimed Rhett.
Ramos said, “And the imprints from the sneakers were matched to a set we found near where Adams died. Nash probably got out to see that he was dead and left the sole impressions in the dirt.”
Judith dumbly nodded.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Nash,” said Ramos. “But we’ll get him, I promise.”
“I just want my daughter back.”
The detectives curtly nodded and left.
Rhett said, “Look, I have to run an errand real quick, but I’ll bring back dinner. I don’t want you to be alone right now.”
He hugged her, and she gave him a tender kiss on the cheek. “That would be nice, Rhett, thank you.”
“Anything for you, Judith.”
“My rock. My new rock.”
Once outside he sat in his Porsche, took an elongated breath to calm himself, and then called his father.
“I think we have a big fucking problem,” he said.