Chapter 11 #2
That explained the accent, but Jesse couldn’t deny a stab of surprise.
Little Rock was an eight-hour drive from Canton.
It wasn’t that unusual for students to come from all over the world, especially if they were athletes, but they rarely stayed in the area after they left school.
There wasn’t much around to tempt them to linger.
“And you thought this woman lived there?” She nodded toward the phone.
“Her hair was red instead of brown like I remembered, but she was the spitting image of my next-door neighbor when I was growing up. Sylvie …” His brow furrowed as he searched for the name. “Sylvie Fulton. Yeah, that was it. I could have sworn it was her.”
Sylvie Fulton. Jesse silently repeated the name until she was certain she wouldn’t forget.
“She didn’t recognize you?”
“Naw. She said I made a mistake. Claimed that she’d never been to Little Rock, and then she threatened to call the cops if I didn’t stay away from her.”
“She threatened to call the cops?” Jesse blinked. Even for Victoria, that was dramatic. Unless she had something to hide.
Like the fact that she was actually Sylvie Fulton from Little Rock.
“Yup. Acted as if I’d insulted her.” He glared at the image on her phone. “Whatever. Seemed like a stuck-up bitch.”
“She was.” Jesse gently tugged her wrist out of his grip. She was getting a cramp in her shoulder. “You said Sylvie was your neighbor?”
“If she really was Sylvie, then yeah. She lived next to me for five or six years.”
“What do you remember about her?”
He hesitated, as if realizing her questions weren’t just casual interest in an old picture she’d found.
“What does it matter? I told you, it wasn’t the same woman.”
“Maybe it was,” she insisted. “I think you were right and she was your neighbor. I also think the reason she went full Karen on you was because she didn’t want anyone else to know.”
“Why not?”
“Because she was going by the name of Victoria Ralston when she moved to Canton.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“Weird. Why change her name?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” Jesse confessed.
Dix frowned. “Are you a cop?”
“No. This woman was married to my father, but she left town years ago. I have some paperwork I need her to sign, but I can’t locate her. I’m trying everything to track her down.” Jesse lied easily. “What do you remember about her?”
“Nothing much.” He hunched a shoulder, seemingly satisfied with her explanation. “She lived next door in a crappy trailer that matched our crappy trailer in a crappy trailer park.”
There was an edge in his voice, as if he didn’t have the fondest memories of his time in Little Rock. Was that why he’d stayed in this area instead of heading home when he dropped out?
“Did she live alone?”
“There was some dude there. I don’t know if they were married or not. He sold weed and pills when he could get a supply. Everyone called him Buzz, for obvious reasons.”
Jesse hesitated, doubt pricking her bubble of hope.
She was ready and willing to believe that Victoria had arrived in Canton with a fake name and the hope of landing a husband to take care of her and her daughter.
But it wasn’t as easy to believe that Victoria had once been a woman named Sylvie who lived in a trailer park with a drug-dealing lover called Buzz.
“Did she have any kids?”
“I don’t think so, but it’s hard to say.
” His sharp laugh echoed through the room.
“There were a dozen kids running around the trailer park. Like a pack of wolves. No one knew who they belonged to. Most of the time, no one cared. Especially the parents.” There was a whoosh of air as the door was pulled open and a large man in gray sweats entered the gym and headed straight to the counter.
Without waiting to see if anyone would appear to help him, he mashed his fist on the silver bell with the built-up angst of a teenage girl.
The dude was obviously tweaking on testosterone and steroids. Dix rolled his eyes. “I gotta go.”
“No shit.”
Jesse left the gym, her thoughts buzzing with the possibility that Victoria wasn’t Victoria, but instead a woman named Sylvie Fulton from a trailer park in Little Rock, Arkansas.
She did force herself to take the time to swing by the grocery store, only because she was sick of toast without butter, before returning to Canton at a speed that had the old truck rattling.
Although in fairness, any speed over fifty miles an hour made the truck rattle.
Once back at the Tap Room, she put away the groceries before settling at the kitchen table and opening her laptop. Then, barely daring to breathe, she typed in the name Sylvie Fulton.
A second later she had a dozen hits. She clicked on the first link, her heart racing as she read the headline from a local Little Rock paper dated January 2003.
Sylvie Fulton weds Larry Maitland in private ceremony
There was a short paragraph that focused on Larry Maitland, who was a local entrepreneur with several rental properties and apartment complexes spread around Little Rock, and at the end a brief mention of Sylvie Fulton, who wore a white Vera Wang pantsuit during the courthouse wedding. There wasn’t even a photo.
Jesse rolled her eyes. Trust the paper to focus on the man, who obviously had some money, while reducing the bride to a pantsuit. Not that it mattered. She was more interested in the fact that there was no picture or mention of a reception. If Larry was so successful, why not flaunt his wealth?
Was it possible that Victoria had arranged a fake wedding? Jesse pursed her lips. That didn’t seem likely. Not at the courthouse. So maybe they’d been in a hurry. But why?
Jesse abruptly clicked her tongue, mentally subtracting Tegan’s age from the date of the article. Yes. That was it. Sylvie Fulton was pregnant with Larry Maitland’s baby. That could explain the quiet wedding.
Clicking out of the article, she pulled up the next link, her brows arching as a large image filled the screen.
Jesse could see a faded brick building in the background with a wide, sweeping staircase that was lined with a crowd of people, along with the professional cameras used by television stations.
At the top of the steps was a podium, where a dark-haired woman with large sunglasses was speaking into a clump of microphones.
She was holding a small child who had a tangle of brown curls and her thumb stuck in her mouth.
Jesse leaned toward the computer, as if it would help her make out the fuzzy features of the woman behind the microphones. Was it Victoria? It was possible. The shape of the face was the same, along with a similar body type, although in the photo the woman was wrapped in an expensive fur coat.
Her attention moved to the story beneath the image.
Sylvie Maitland, widow of Lawrence “Larry” Maitland, holding daughter Brooke as she addresses questions from the press outside the Little Rock Courthouse.
According to police reports, fifty-five-year-old Larry Maitland was discovered deceased last week in one of his rental properties with a gunshot wound to the head.
The property was empty at the time, and there was no evidence of foul play.
The police haven’t offered an official cause of death, although they stated that suicide isn’t being ruled out.
According to his widow, Sylvie Maitland, her husband was being investigated for tax evasion, money laundering, and conspiracy to commit fraud.
She also admitted that they were on the verge of bankruptcy.
Sylvie ended the press conference with a request for privacy for her and her daughter as they try to cope during this difficult time.
Jesse reached the end of the article and clicked out, eagerly moving to the next link.
It was a similar news article about Larry Maitland, only this one emphasized his shady dealings, and the fact that there was a large amount of money missing from his accounts that couldn’t be traced.
She rolled her eyes at the swift transformation from hometown success story to being labeled a slum lord, a tax evader, and even hinting at laundering cash for drug dealers.
It didn’t take long after his suicide for the vultures to start circling.
She shook her head, refusing to be distracted.
She finally had what felt like a genuine lead.
If this was Victoria—still a big if—she now knew that her stepmother had gone from living with a low-level thug in a trailer park to a high-level thug who’d ended up with a bullet in his head.
She also knew that there was a lot of missing cash that could keep a woman and her daughter in comfort for a few years.
Unfortunately, the links led to similar articles that focused on the dead husband, barely mentioning Sylvie except to say she’d left town without further comment. And one that mentioned the property and bank accounts had been seized by the government.
Jesse turned her attention to social media, using both Sylvie Fulton and Sylvie Maitland, and even Brooke Maitland. There were a dozen matches, but none of them could be Victoria. She tried Victoria Maitland and Vickie Fulton and every other combo she could think of, only to draw a blank.
Dammit.
It was like the woman could appear and disappear out of thin air.
How? And why? And did that mean she was out there somewhere with a new name and a new husband, as Jesse had always hoped? More importantly, if she was out there, would she have had reason to return and kill her former husband? Her fake former husband, Jesse silently added.
Shoving away from the table, Jesse stretched her back and wandered toward the sink to get a drink of water. It was only late afternoon, but it felt as if it’d been a long day. She could use something stronger than water.
Debating whether to grab a beer out of the fridge, she was distracted by a faint sound. What was that? She turned toward the open door, cocking her head as if it would help her hear. A second later, the same sound echoed through the building.
The rap, rap, rap followed by a five-second silence before another rap.
Her father’s knock. A breath hissed through her clenched teeth as Jesse grabbed a butcher knife off the counter and headed downstairs. Enough was enough. She was done screwing around with whoever was tormenting her.
Jogging down the stairs, she crossed the foyer and glanced out the back window. No one. She unlocked the door, pulling it open to look up and down the empty alley. Swearing in frustration, she slammed the door shut and locked it. Whoever was knocking had disappeared. Again.
She turned back, intending to head upstairs, when the unmistakable scent of her father’s cologne wafted through the air. She froze, her heart squeezing as fear trickled down her spine. Was the intruder in the bar? How? The doors were locked.
Cautiously, she glanced around, her gaze at last lingering on the door to the cellar, which wasn’t fully latched. As if someone had tried to sneak down there without making a sound. Jesse hesitated before she moved forward, pulling open the door and staring down at the darkness.
It was stupid, so stupid, but she had to know.
Pulling out her phone from her back pocket, she switched on the camera, holding it in front of her as she inched her way down the steep steps.
“Hello? I know you’re down there,” she called out, wrinkling her nose as the smell of cologne hit her. It was like someone had dumped an entire bottle nearby. “I’ve called the sheriff, plus, I’m recording this. It’s going out live to the world,” she lied, reaching the bottom step. “Show yourself.”
Silence greeted her demands. A thick, heavy silence that revealed she was alone in the cellar.
Turning in a slow circle, she used the light from her phone to scan the cramped space.
Nothing. She started to lower her hand when she noticed that the safe in the wall was wide open. And that everything inside was gone.
Was that why the intruder had snuck into the bar? To steal the contents of the safe?
But why? There really wasn’t anything worth taking. No money or jewels or gold coins. And why alert her to their presence with the knock? And why the cologne? Did they think she was stupid enough to believe her father’s ghost had returned to take a few legal papers?
Jesse shuddered, hating the feeling that there was some master puppeteer out there, pulling her strings and laughing at her blind stupidity. Why couldn’t she guess who was behind this? There were so many clues. Why couldn’t she put them together?
Shutting the safe, she climbed the stairs. She wasn’t going to solve anything in the dusty cellar. Besides, the shadowy darkness with the choking stench of cologne was giving her the heebie-jeebies. She wanted out in the fresh air to clear her mind.
She was at the top of the steps when she felt a rush of air.
As if there was a sudden breeze swirling through the bar.
Then, without warning, the door to the cellar was abruptly slammed shut, nearly smacking her in the face.
With a shriek of shock, Jesse spun away, knocked off-balance.
Pressing her back against the wall, she hissed as the bricks scraped her skin and the knife clattered down the stairs, but she at least saved herself from a broken neck.
That was the only good thing, she discovered, as she reached out to grab the knob, her heart racing as it refused to budge.
“Dammit,” she rasped, pounding her fist against the wooden door. “This isn’t funny. Let me out. Do you hear? Let me out!”
She continued to pound until her knuckles were bruised and her arm ached, despite the fact she knew it was a wasted effort.
Someone had gone to a lot of effort to lure her into this trap.
She had no idea why, or what they hoped to achieve.
Or even if it was the same person who stole her father’s belongings from the safe.
But she did know whoever had locked her in wasn’t letting her out.