Chapter One Hundred and Two
One Hundred and Two
The pit inside Mary’s stomach began turning into an abyss. How could any of this get any more insane?
‘There are four more photos I’d like to show you before we move on,’ Kendall said, retrieving the four new images from the same envelope and placing them on the table, once again, in a single row. ‘These are a bit of a conundrum to us, and we were wondering if maybe you can help us out.’
Mary’s confused stare moved to the four new photos on the table, while Choi’s analytical eyes moved back to her. She blinked, frowned, bit her bottom lip, then blinked again.
The first photo on the far left was a photo of a CD case – Luke Jenkins’ CD – the same CD that he’d handed her back in Nashville… the same CD that she’d listened to tens of times.
The second photo was also of Luke’s CD case, but the case was open, and it had been picked apart – disk tray pulled from the back cover.
In between the disk tray, which was dark in color, and the back cover, Mary could see what looked to be a computer chip, attached to a small, round battery.
With the disk tray in place – clicked onto the back cover – the chip and battery would be completely hidden away.
‘What is this?’ Mary asked, pointing at the chip.
‘It’s a GPS tracker,’ Choi told her.
Mary’s eyes shot to him. ‘A what?’
‘A GPS tracker,’ he told her again before explaining. ‘It pings out a location signal every few seconds, or minutes… it depends on how it’s programmed. It sends out the exact location of that CD case twenty-four seven.’ Choi shrugged at his partner. ‘It must be a one-of-a-kind CD.’
The abyss inside Mary’s stomach turned into a supermassive black hole, the color draining from her skin.
The next photo along seemed completely random. It showed a page, which had been torn from a newspaper and folded four times.
Mary stared at it for several long seconds before shaking her head and moving on to the last image, which was a picture of the courthouse in Woburn, Massachusetts, where Nelson’s trial had taken place over two years ago.
Inside Mary’s head, thoughts began colliding against each other.
‘Can you help us understand any of this?’ Kendall asked.
Mary pursed her lips, shrugged, then shook her head. ‘Unfortunately, I can’t.’
‘You can’t?’ Choi asked. ‘Or you won’t?’
‘I can’t,’ Mary lied. ‘I don’t know what any of this means.’
Choi held her stare for longer than he needed to. ‘Of course you don’t.’
‘If you don’t know, you don’t know,’ Kendall said, pushing the four conundrum photos to one side before retrieving the same ten photographs that were on the table just moments earlier – Antonia, Gabriela, Jonas, Brian, Tyler, Richard, Carol, Rachel, Kathy, and the couple that Mary had failed to recognize.
He, once again, arranged them in two rows, before adding Luke, Natálie and Betsy to the group.
‘Are you sure you don’t know who these two are?’ Kendall tried again, indicating the couple on the photo that Mary hadn’t recognized.
‘No, I don…’ Mary paused. The familiarity of their faces was still playing in her mind.
Maybe it was the look in the lady’s eyes, or the gentleman’s ears, which clearly stood out.
Mary took a second to search her memory one more time.
It took her a little longer than with Natálie, but she did, eventually, remember them.
‘Oh my god!’ Mary said, her head jerking back from the surprise, her eyes round and wide. ‘I’ve seen them before… yes. I never met them, but I’ve seen them before.’
‘Can you remember where?’ Kendall asked.
‘At an art exhibition,’ Mary revealed. ‘On the same night that I met Quaddra for the first time. They were there, looking at this painting that was nothing more than just a canvas painted black. We were standing right behind them.’
‘And you’re sure that that’s them?’ Choi again.
‘Yes, that’s them.’
‘So,’ Kendall said, nodding at the table. ‘You have crossed paths with everyone in these photographs in the past what? Two years?’
Mary drew in a deep breath as she studied the photos on the table one last time. ‘Give or take… yes.’
Choi ran a hand over his mouth, as if he was smoothing an imaginary goatee. ‘And you’re insisting on saying that you’re not on any medication?’
‘I’m not on any medication.’ Frustration came through in Mary’s voice and in her eyes. ‘Why? Did Quaddra tell you that I was?’
‘Thomas,’ Choi reminded her. ‘His name is Thomas Cameron.’
Mary was through fighting that battle. ‘Whatever. Did he tell you that I was on medication?’
‘He doesn’t even know who you are,’ Choi revealed.
Something lodged itself in Mary’s throat. ‘What?’
‘But I think we do,’ Kendall said, placing what looked to be a manuscript on the table, which must’ve been around one hundred and fifty pages long.
‘What is that?’ Mary’s voice came out shaky.
‘It’s a script for a new production that Mr. Cameron’s company has been working on,’ Choi replied.
‘A script?’ Mary’s stare bounced between the two detectives again. To Mary, the more they talked, the less sense everything made.
‘That’s right,’ Kendall confirmed. ‘A movie script… or maybe a TV series. They’re not sure yet.
And like I said earlier, this is where it goes from crazy to absolutely insane.
’ He indicated the thirteen photos on the table.
‘All these people… who you’ve said you’ve crossed paths with in the past two years – from Antonia, the housemaid, to Betsy, the artist – they are all actors and actresses, working for Thomas Cameron’s production company in LA.
’ He paused to allow Mary to ponder over the implications of what he’d just said before resting his left palm over the manuscript. ‘And they’re the cast for this script.’
Mary could practically feel the ground starting to crack just under her feet.
‘And all the names you gave us…’ Choi said, reading from his notes, ‘… Luke, Betsy, Natálie, Antonia, Gabriella, Jonas, etc… they’re all characters in this script, Mary…
created to fit the story. They aren’t real.
And you named them all. How’s that possible?
’ He reached for the photos and began turning them over.
On the back of each photograph there were two names – the actor or actress’ real name and the character that they were playing in the script.
An actor named Eddie Cowell was playing Luke Jenkins.
Laura Dickens was playing Betsy Fletcher. Manuela Oliver was playing Natálie…
Mary heard the words, but her brain seemed to reject their meaning. ‘Excuse me… what?’
‘We haven’t read the script,’ Kendall added. ‘I’m not much of a reader myself, but at the hospital, Mr. Cameron was kind enough to summarize the whole story for us, which is based on real facts… and the main character, who is not in any of these pictures – she’s real, a real-life dirt bag.’
‘Mr. Cameron never met her,’ Choi took over. ‘He’d never seen any photos of her either because there are none around. Apparently, she’s a real modern-day legend, and that was why Mr. Cameron decided to write this script. Would you like to know what the story is all about?’
The thoughts inside Mary’s head weren’t just colliding with each other anymore – they were crashing and burning.
‘It’s about a con artist,’ Kendall told her. ‘A female con artist who marries rich men before divorcing them two years later and bleeding them dry.’
‘A bit like my ex-wife,’ Choi commented with a forced chuckle. ‘That bitch took everything.’
What in the world is going on here?
‘What a crazy story, don’t you think?’ Kendall asked.
Mary remained quiet.
‘But it gets better,’ Kendall added. ‘In this story, the con artist goes after a millionaire from Boston called…’ he looked at Choi, ‘… drum roll, please.’
Choi used both hands on the table, mimicking a drum roll.
‘Quaddra Buckner,’ Kendall told her. ‘Double D. Is that mad or what? And before you ask – yes, we’ve googled Quaddra Buckner, double “D”. There’s not a single entry. The man doesn’t exist. He’s a fictional character.’
Mary felt faint.
‘The insane part is that I think that Mr. Cameron is right,’ Kendall continued.
‘I do too,’ Choi agreed.
‘What he told us at the hospital,’ Kendall explained, ‘is that he thinks that you are the real-life con woman – the dirt bag that this whole script is based on.’ He placed his left palm on the manuscript again.
‘And somehow you found out about this production… this script… and in a desperate attempt to stop this from becoming a blockbuster that would ruin your life and certainly throw you in prison, you turned up at Mr. Cameron’s house with the sole intention of ending his life. ’
Mary said nothing in return because she knew that there was nothing that she could say.
What she needed to do was find time to think, and she couldn’t do that while she was in that interrogation room with both detectives.
Her last hope of proving that she wasn’t trying to kill Quaddra was Dr. Fox.
She would be there at any minute now with an attorney and the package that Mary had given her.
Once both detectives had talked to Dr. Fox and had a look at the contents of that ‘evidence’ package, Mary was sure that Kendall and Choi would re-evaluate the story that they were told by Quaddra… Thomas… whoever the fuck he really was.
‘I think I’m done talking until my attorney gets here,’ Mary finally said, nodding at the detectives.
‘That would be a wise move,’ Kendall agreed, signaling whoever was on the other side of the two-way mirror to pause both the voice and the video recording.
A couple of seconds later, the door to the interrogation room was pulled open by a middle-aged police officer.
‘The officer will take you back to your cell,’ Kendall said, as he gathered all the photos from the table.
Mary got up to follow the officer, but Choi halted her just as she got to the door. ‘By the way, they’re trying to get Margot Robbie to play Grace-Kelly.’
Mary paused and looked back at him, feeling a panic attack begin to wrap its long fingers around her heart. ‘What did you say?’
‘That Mr. Cameron told us that they were trying to get Margot Robbie, the actress, to play the lead in the production – the con woman – in the script, her name is Grace-Kelly Mitchell.’