Chapter 36
CHAPTER 36
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 22
“T ake a look at this.” I passed my cell phone to Jeffrey across the greasy Formica tabletop. We’d set up Rex’s Roadkill as our official meeting place.
He palmed the phone, angling its surface at eye level. I said nothing as he watched the shoddy video footage I’d recorded from the side pocket of my purse. It looked like something a child holding an iPhone for the first time might produce. But the sound was perfect.
“Do you think I need to go to the police with this?”
“And tell them what? He accidentally killed your child?” Jeffrey handed the phone back. “It’s incredibly sad, but not criminal.”
“But he set me up.” My back stiffened. “Lied to the police and let the world believe it was me?—”
“Look, I’m not saying Tim isn’t dangerous. I think he is, and there’s no telling what he’ll do now that you’re questioning his handling of your mother’s estate.” He pushed his turkey club sandwich to the side and leaned his forearms on the table. “But you haven’t exactly provided ironclad evidence of a crime.”
I thought of the cops in my living room after I’d witnessed the bleeding woman at the Pine Hill house. If I handed over my odd cell phone recording, I could seem crazy, maybe even vindictive.
“You’re probably right.” I pressed my fingertips to my temples, feeling a tension headache developing.
“We’ll use this, Caroline, but we need more evidence of wrongdoing. Do you recall the law firm who handled your mother’s estate?”
“Yes.” I rubbed my chin as it came to me. “Sloane and Sloane, a practice about forty minutes from here, in the town where I was raised. My mother set everything up through them. I remember it because I once told her it sounded more like a detective agency than a law firm.”
Jeffrey stared at me. “You’re kidding me.”
I looked at him blankly. “About what? Sloane and Sloane? It does sound like a detective agency, right?”
His eyes darted to the sandwich he’d pushed aside moments earlier. He reached for it.
“Yeah, I guess it does.”
I studied him. His demeanor had altered drastically in the last twenty seconds, but I couldn’t make sense of the change.
“Do me a favor, Caroline,” he said as he lifted the turkey club to his lips. “Record your conversation with them on your cell phone, just like you did at Tim’s. We need to pile up as much evidence as we can.”
“What’s wrong?” I blurted out as I watched him bite into the sandwich. Something seemed odd about his behavior, but maybe it was just in my mind. I wasn’t adept at picking up on social cues.
“Could be nothing,” Jeffrey said around a mouthful of meat and bread. “Just be sure to record your visit. And call me right after you leave the law firm.”
* * *
Forty-five minutes later I turned the car into the parking lot next to Sloane and Sloane Law Associates. I stepped out of the car, stretching my legs and smoothing the wrinkles from the front of my slacks.
I made my way to the building, pausing to read the smaller bronze plaque under the firm name: “Brian Sloane, Esq. Stephanie Sloane, Esq.” I’d phoned the law firm and made a hasty appointment as soon as I’d left Jeffrey to his sandwich, recalling the receptionist’s reluctance to schedule anything new on a Friday afternoon. She’d tried to steer me to a time slot next week.
“I must talk with someone now. There is a lot of money at stake,” I’d said. “And since your firm handled my mother’s estate I’d hate to go elsewhere.” Part truth, part lie. I’d hoped I got the balance right.
I had. I was told Brian Sloane had a few minutes to spare that afternoon.
As I stepped inside, I gave the studious-looking woman with tortoise-rimmed glasses and a tidy dark bob behind the reception desk my name, and a few minutes later she ushered me into a richly appointed office with mahogany bookshelves and a tremendous antique desk in the center of the room. My gaze took in the heavy law tomes lining the shelves and the fastidiously neat desktop.
“Good afternoon,” said a slim, dark-haired man with unremarkable features, standing up behind his desk and reaching out to clasp my hand. “I’m Brian Sloane.” He gestured with his other hand for me to sit in one of two leatherbound chairs in front of his desk. “I’m afraid my receptionist didn’t get your name.”
“It’s Caroline,” I said, purposely not revealing my last name. Not yet. Jeffrey’s odd behavior at the greasy spoon had made me wary.
“You said you have business with our firm?”
Glancing from his suit, which looked like it cost more than my monthly mortgage payment, to the cell phone camouflaged in the mesh side pocket of my purse, I was certain it was recording. As I sat, I angled the oversized handbag upward so that it rested against my chest, the mesh pocket facing the desk. “Actually, you handled my mother’s finances while she was alive, and I believe you executed her estate upon her death.” I gave him my mother’s name: Lilith Messier.
“I see,” said Sloane, turning to the laptop to his left. He typed quickly, his fingers flying over the keyboard. “Do you have identification?”
“Yes, I brought my original social security card with my maiden name as well as my license and the new social security card I received after I married.”
He paused, his fingers hovering over the keyboard as he read the screen. I wished the laptop had been angled enough for me to read it as well. He looked up at me and placed his hands on the desk. “May I see the items?”
Keeping my handbag steady, I pulled my wallet out of the center pocket, dug my license and social security cards out, and held them out to him.
Instead of taking them he merely glanced at the cards spread across my palm and nodded. “I only have your husband listed as the contact, so what I can share is relatively little, Mrs. Case, but it hardly matters at this point. All the money has been transferred out of this account.”
I felt a sickening twist in my stomach. “All the... Could you tell me where it’s gone?”
Sloane pursed his lips. “I’m afraid I’ve told you all I know. My sister handled this account and she’s not here. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have another appointment in a few moments. I suggest you ask your husband about the account.” He stood.
I stood as well. “My husband is presently indisposed. That’s why I’m here.” I tried to keep the annoyance out of my tone. This was my mother’s account, not Tim’s. “When will your sister be in the office?”
“I don’t know.” He looked toward the door. “Annie’s on sabbatical.”
A sudden pressure squeezed my chest. “Annie?”
Sloane looked as though he were suppressing a sigh as he glanced at me. “Yes, her nickname. It’s short for Stephanie.”
“Annie Connolly,” I said. Jeffrey’s strange reaction when I’d mentioned the name of the law firm suddenly made sense. “I’ve been looking for her.”
Sloane’s gaze turned sharp. “Why is that?”
“Because she’s missing, isn’t she?”
“Listen, Mrs. Case,” he began, eyebrows lowering and voice steely, “I’ll tell you what I told the others who came here searching for her: I don’t know where she is, okay? She’s an adult, free to go where she likes, do what she chooses. She’s entitled to her privacy. And I am not my sister’s keeper. Now, if you don’t mind, I must insist you leave.”
I stood up, my mind spinning. But one thought trumped the rest. “She’s been gone for more than a month.”
“I’m fully aware of that. She informed me before she left that she’d be gone indefinitely.” He took a deep breath. “Now, if you don’t mind, my patience with you is wearing thin.”
“Fine.” I backed away and turned toward the door, Brian Sloane hot on my heels. I stepped through the doorway and paused, looking back at the lawyer. “I find your lack of curiosity about your sister’s whereabouts stunning. How do you know she’s okay?”
“That is none of your concern,” he said, closing the door in my face. I looked around the waiting room, which was empty except for the woman behind the desk. She gave me a nasty look, her face reddening.
As I walked toward my car, I could feel the receptionist’s glare on the back of my head. I hurried around the front of the Honda, looking back at the building I’d just exited. Sure enough, a pair of heavily rimmed eyeglasses stared out at me from behind the window.
I sat for a moment in my car, readjusting my cell phone and turning over my conversation with Brian Sloane in my head. Stephanie Sloane was Annie Connolly. No wonder my searches for her always came up empty. And her brother mentioned others were looking for Annie. He was clearly angry with me for asking about her. How did all this tie together?
I rubbed a finger over my upper and lower lips to remove the hastily applied lipstick I’d slicked on before stepping into the law firm, thinking it would make me look more professional. There was something else at play, but I couldn’t access what it was. Staring across the empty lot, I pictured Brian Sloane’s angry face as he told me to leave his office. There had been something in his eyes, something in addition to the anger. I glanced at my own eyes in my rearview mirror, seeing the same look harbored in their depths. Fear.
I remembered what Dr. Ellison had told me about anger. How it was an excellent cover-up for fear. Could Brian Sloane have been afraid that something might have happened to his sister? Or did he know exactly where she was? Maybe he was involved in her disappearance—if that’s what it was—or perhaps he’d realized how much danger she could be in. Did my speculations even matter? The guy would never talk to me again.
I cursed my magical ability to alienate others in record time. But then I remembered that Jeffrey had circled back to me, even apologized. For the first time in my life, it occurred to me that maybe the people who’d pulled away from me did so because they’d been the flawed ones. Why did I always assume it was me? After all, my mother had turned away because of her own fragilities. And Tim was in the wrong. He’d lied about Emmy’s accident and could very well be plotting against me. But now I was building a case against him.
Maybe I wasn’t as unlovable as I’d assumed. Perhaps I’d just had the misfortune of having unloving people thrust upon me.