And When She Was Good (25 page)

F
RIDAY,
N
OVEMBER 25

B
lack Friday has traditionally been a good day for WFEN. Heloise is not one to indulge in stereotypes, but the women go shop and the men—well, “catch up on a few things at the office” is the usual excuse. Or golf, if the weather is mild, as it is today. Heloise has several customers who use golfing as a cover on a regular basis. “This is cheaper in the long run,” one observed. “And I have a few hours left over to myself.”

She meets with one man, not a true regular but getting there. She remembers his first time; he was so nervous that she almost walked out on him, suspecting that something wasn't right. He was just a guy white-knuckling his way through a terrible marriage for reasons not even he can articulate. “I've never failed at anything,” he said one time in passing. Heloise knows that some people might judge his patronage of WFEN as a failure, but she admires his stoicism, his determination to do what he thinks is right for his kids. Perhaps that's why she finds herself telling him that the business is changing hands. That's the term she decides on at the last minute. It sounds more genteel.

“Will you stay on?”

“No, why would I do that?”

“It's not uncommon. Lot of people with successful start-ups remain as consultants.”

“No, I think a clean break is best.” She digs back in her memory for something Tom said, about the new captain in vice. “The new boss should be able to make the business his own. Her own.” She waffles on the gender, still unclear who is buying her out. She wonders if the girls will continue to wear the GPS devices she designed, if the new owner will use the car service. It's harder to let go than she thought.

She has dropped Scott at Coranne's en route to her appointment, a rare bit of multitasking made necessary by Audrey's absence, and she dallies on the way home, reluctant to return to an empty house. No Scott, not even Audrey, who isn't due back until Saturday. Heloise is so desperate for something to do that she stops by a mall. By late afternoon the mania has abated somewhat. One of Heloise's short-timers, an economics expert who was spending three months at a D.C. think tank, once told her that Black Friday isn't necessarily the busiest shopping day of the year. It's an artificial construct that the media feeds, a myth that might as well be reality. A factoid. She was sorry the economist was just passing through. She always thought she might end up getting some good ideas from him. But his only legacy is her devotion to the Planet Money podcast from National Public Radio.

There's a party on her cul-de-sac, and the usually quiet street is jammed with cars. Heloise was invited, but declined to go. As, she is sure, was expected. It still stings, though, how readily people accept her aloofness. Will she make friends in her new country? That seems more intimidating than learning a new language.

She enters the house through the garage, her eyes struggling to adjust. It's dark. The days have shortened so quickly that she forgets to leave a light on, bullied as she is by Scott and his campaign against wasting energy. She reaches for the hall light, only to trip over what feels like a bunched-up rug. Even alone, Heloise finds it humiliating to stumble, and she scrambles to her feet with the outrage of a child whose dignity has been affronted.

The bunched-up rug is the hem of a big down coat, too warm for the day, but maybe it's the only coat that Sophie owned. For it is Sophie lying in her hallway. Sophie with a bullet hole in her forehead and a vaguely pissed expression to Heloise's eye, as if she cannot believe that it ends this way. Heloise can't either.

She's moving quickly, thinking quickly, her instincts on fire, but she's not fast enough. A man has blocked the door to the garage.

“Terry,” she says.

“She was creating a disturbance,” he says, pointing to Sophie. “You wouldn't want that, I know. Someone banging on your door, yelling and screaming, saying that you'd better let her in. So I did, Hel. Is it okay if I call you Hel? I know that's what your true friends call you. Not Heloise. Not Helen. Hel.”

For one brief moment, Heloise allows herself to hope that Terry is simply so around the bend in his devotion to her—the near breakdown in the kitchen, the way he faced the wall to hide his tears from her—that he has overreacted in a sincere attempt to protect her.

The tears, facing the wall:
He studied the calendar hanging by her desk, saw Scott's sleepover, Audrey's absence. The embrace by the garage door. He watched her enter the code.

So, no. No. This man is going to kill her. Probably killed Bettina and Shelley, too. Sophie is collateral damage, another body at her feet, literally this time.

“I thought I'd have more time,” she says.

“Don't we all? Let's go down to your office. We have some paperwork to do before we can finish up here.”

She thinks about making a run for the front door, but it's locked, that strange suburban notion of security. Double-lock the front door but leave the kitchen door open, assuming that a code will be enough to protect you and your loved ones. One, in Heloise's case.

She opens the basement door and descends into the room that she once valued for being a soundproof fortress. She has no doubt that she's going to be tortured. Bettina and Shelley were lucky after all.

Y
et Terry wasn't being droll when he referenced paperwork. He sits Heloise at her desk, then puts a sheaf of papers in front of her. A will.
Her
will. She skims it. Her entire estate is to be left to Scott, but the trustee will be Ofelia Ocampo of Rochester, New York.

“Who is this?” she asks.

“Val's wife. Common-law, but they have three kids together. Where do you think he went when he went out of town back in the day?”

“Business,” she says. “I thought it was business.”

“That's what he wanted you to think. But this is where the money goes, every month. As long as you were providing income to Val, he let you live. When the money goes, you do, too. Oldest kid is a junior in high school. He's thinking about college. Sign at the Post-its.” He gestures with the gun at the neat flaps sticking out, marked “Sign here.”

“No.”

“Look at it this way: If you sign, there's a will. No nasty questions. You'll be killed in a home invasion. I'm changing up again. I never wanted anyone to connect Shelley and Bettina—except you, of course. I'm not sure how the thing with the girl upstairs will play out—she worked for you, right?—but I can't risk moving her body. Maybe I'll put out some wineglasses, a bottle, make it look as if you were preparing for a friend's visit.”

“Who are you?”

“Val's brother. Also his lawyer.”

“I know Val's lawyer.”

“You know his criminal lawyer. I take care of everything else.”

“You look nothing like him.”

“Foster brother. I'd tell you the story, only—I know Val never did, and I respect that. Suffice it to say we didn't have a very nice life when we were young. But Val took care of me, and now I take care of him.”

“Why did you—take up with me?”

“After Shelley threatened to parlay her participation in Val's business into a Get Out of Jail Free card, Val didn't trust anyone. Not even you, love. That's why he had me leave that photo, put you in play. He also asked me to befriend you and keep an eye on you. Learning about Scott was a bonus. And, of course, the moment I told him about Scott, he knew you were the one who did him all those years ago. Broke his fucking heart, Hel. It killed him, too, that I never got to meet the kid. He was dying to hear everything about him.”

So he had known all along. Her big confession was all for naught. Except—it had felt powerful to her, changed her, put her on the road to becoming someone new. Or so she thought.

“Val doesn't think he's getting a new trial, does he?”

“He'll have his criminal attorney make the motions, sure. But he understands that the ballistics evidence is pretty overwhelming. Even if all the witnesses are dead.”

“So why kill them?”

“Why not? Each one betrayed him.”

“Not Bettina.”

“Oh, her. Well, that was for you, darling. We thought it would keep you in the pocket, make it clear that Val could get to people—and that he plays a very long game. The thing is, you are a good earner. You've provided for Val's family all these years. Shelley did, too, but never at your level, and not at all for the past year.”

“Didn't Val have any money on hand when he was arrested? He didn't live that large.”

“When the cops hit him, it was a bad time. He had used most of his cash for a big score, and then George II took off with the product. Now,
that
was a smart fucker.”

Heloise remembers how George II once implied he was smarter than she was, how she had doubted it. Now she has to agree with Terry. He was a smart fucker.

“So he set you up, improving on the model he developed for Shelley. It was great. Only Shelley gets popped. And then you decide you want to go legit. That's the one thing he didn't see coming. He was willing to forgive you as long as Ofelia was provided for. She's the love of his life.”

“Nice to know.”

“Sweet. Lives to serve her man. They were teenage sweethearts. She writes him every day. Every goddamn day, Hel. By hand. In this day and age. Can you imagine?”

“Why isn't she on the visitors list?”

“Because she thinks Val is overseas and can't return to the United States or he'll be picked up on a bogus murder charge. Far as Ofelia and the kids know, Val is a legitimate businessman caught up in a conspiracy. Being Filipina, she doesn't find that so incredible.”

“So where does she send his letters?”

“She gives them to me.”

“But how do you—?”

“Ofelia's not like you. She doesn't ask so many fucking questions.”

Heloise stares at the document in front of her. The horrible thing is that Terry is making sense. The will means that Scott will be protected, to a certain extent. He'll get her money, he'll never know about his mother's other life. Of course, Scott's not going to like having to live in Rochester, New York, with three half siblings about whom he knows nothing, but . . . he'll have a family. And Ofelia does sound nice, if dim. The oldest kid is going to college. She must be doing something right. Heck, she's had three kids with Val and he treats her like a goddess. She may be smarter than Heloise as well.

Think,
she wills herself.
You can outthink anyone, given time.

“How did you find Bettina?”

“That day I met you for lunch, when I was late? I put a tracking device on your car. I couldn't be sure that you knew where Bettina lived. But if you did know, I had a hunch you'd go to her eventually, which is why I left that photo at the crime scene. Only decent thing you really did, trying to warn her—and it got her killed. That's ironic, isn't it?”

“It is,” she agrees, thinking of another irony, one that can work for her. “There's a problem with this plan. I have another will, the kind you download from the Internet. Never got around to doing it proper, with a lawyer, but it's legally binding. They'll find it when they go through my files, and that will screw up everything. The estate will end up in probate, and Scott will be sent to my mom or my sister, because I didn't earmark a guardian.”

“Val said your mom was dead.”

“I lied.”

Terry laughs. “Yeah, you're not much of one for family ties, are you? You know, Val was always a little scared of you. He said, in the end, that you were meaner than he was, that you had no loyalty to anyone.”

“The will is in the top drawer. The locks are tricky—let me do it.”

He lets her stand but presses close behind her, the gun in her back. She reaches in. “Shit—I must have put it between two folders, not in a hanging folder, and it's slipped through. I can't— Your arms are longer, can you reach?”

He comes around, keeping his eyes on her, believing her to be the real threat to him. He twists his body so he's facing her, the gun in his left hand, his right hand reaching behind him, his gaze never leaving her face.

“It's really down there,” Heloise says. “Sweep your hands along the bottom.”

“Why does it—” he begins, but Heloise has lunged forward and turned the dummy key, hip-checking him so he falls deeper into the drawer. She can't believe that her office, soundproof as it's supposed to be, can contain the scream Terry makes as the industrial paper shredder engages his fingertips. Only his fingertips, alas—she had hoped it would swallow him whole, or at least take him up to the elbow joint—but he manages to wrest his hand back in some adrenaline-charged bit of bravado. Instinctively, however, he cradles the wounded hand, so the gun is no longer pointing at her. That's her opportunity, and she takes it, bolting for the door. If she could, it would be better to force him out and lock herself in, but the wound has made him monstrous. She doesn't want any contact with his maimed hand, which is geysering blood everywhere.

Terry comes after her, shockingly fast, fueled on pain, in so much pain he's beyond it. He is screaming even as he shouts terrible threats about what he will do when he gets her. She has no doubt. She takes the steps two at a time, only to stumble once again over Sophie. Terry, in turn, trips as well and tries to grab Heloise's ankle as she crawls and kicks, but he has the gun in his left hand and his right hand can't maintain a grip. She heaves herself back up and heads for the unlocked kitchen door, but she has to stop to hit the code at the garage, and that wastes much of her advantage. He catches up to her again, hits her across the face with the gun, but using his left hand makes the blow less effective than it might otherwise have been. Still, Terry has the advantage of having killed before. He knows what's required and knows that he's up to it. Heloise is only beginning to discover how ready she is to kill someone, and she's not sure what it's going to take in terms of time and determination.