Carol Higgins Clark Boxed Set - Volume 1: This eBook collection contains Zapped, Cursed, and Wrecked. (16 page)

C
onrad had decided to drive across Central Park South on their way to Tribeca. The fact that they were passing the Treetops Hotel did not go unnoticed by his daughter. As they crossed the intersection at Sixth Avenue, Alexis screeched, “Daddy! I think I just saw Lorraine!”

“Where?” Conrad’s head almost spun around.

“Back on the corner of Sixth Avenue with some guy. It’s so dark it’s hard to tell. The lights of a passing car made them visible for about a second. They turned and went down Sixth Avenue.”

“Could be,” Conrad said, wondering who the guy was. “She’s staying right there at the Treetops. I can’t imagine why she’d be out for a stroll at this time of night when she’s staying in a luxurious air-conditioned hotel.”

Alexis shrugged. “I’m so glad you’re getting rid of her.”

Conrad patted his daughter’s hand. “Let’s not worry about Lorraine right now. Chip Jones is our concern.”

“I’ve got my eyes peeled,” Becky piped up from the back seat.

“So do I!” Alexis said. “How else would I have spotted that no good—”

“Alexis.”

“Sorry, Dad. But maybe it’s a good sign. If I can spot Lorraine during this blackout, then maybe the wretch who’s with Chip Jones will also be discovered.”

“I certainly hope so.”

“And they both should be locked up.”

A
fter taking Regan’s call, Detective McFadden returned to the interrogation room where twenty-five-year-old Paulette Dobson was sitting at a table, her head in her hands. She was exhausted, upset, but most of all petrified. Small-boned with stringy light brown hair that needed a trim, she had a waifish quality. Her skin and eyes were pale, her features plain.

“I want to help in whatever way I can,” she said yet again, struggling to sit up straight when McFadden reappeared. “I’m so sorry I didn’t report her right away. But she just told me about this the other night.”

Over the course of the evening, Paulette had recounted her history with Georgina. They’d met three years ago when they were both waitresses at a diner outside Atlanta and had gotten friendly during their cigarette breaks. They’d started hanging out at bars and often went shopping together. One day when they were driving home from the mall, Georgina pulled a blouse out of her oversized purse that she had stolen from one of the stores. Paulette couldn’t believe it. Georgina convinced her it was easy, she had to try it herself, and when Paulette was successful at her first attempt, it became a game for them. But when Georgina had several days off in a row, she’d get in her car and go away alone. She’d told Paulette that she was so used to being a loner, there were times when she needed to be by herself. Two nights ago, after a day of heavy shoplifting, and an evening of even heavier drinking, Paulette and Georgina were in Georgina’s apartment admiring all their loot. It was then that Georgina excitedly told Paulette what she did on those trips.

“When she showed me the brand she used to burn the guys’ skin, I felt sick,” Paulette had said.

“You knew she was going on another trip but you didn’t report her until we tracked you down today on the shoplifting charges,” McFadden responded.

“I wanted to! And I would have. But I was so scared. I’ve been a wreck since Saturday night. I’ve barely slept. How can I call the police when Georgina’s got all these clothes we stole in her apartment, some with the security tags still on them?” Paulette paused to catch her breath. “She had this new job. She was so surprised that they hired her because she’d lied so much on her application and résumé. She told me she didn’t have any business experience so she had to make up places she’d supposedly worked at before. Her new company must not have checked out any of it. Anyway, since it was a business trip I was hoping she’d be with the people from her company and wouldn’t do anything bad. But she can be so unpredictable. Sometimes she was so much fun and would be laughing really hard and other times she got really scary and mean. I couldn’t even be sure what she told me about the guys was true, because she can be such a liar, and I had no proof, but now that they’ve found the pictures, I don’t know why she didn’t show them to me.”

“They’ve found pictures, and the young man she is with is in terrible danger.”

“I know,” Paulette whimpered. “It’s my fault. I should have called the police. I knew I’d end up in big trouble, but I was even more scared of Georgina getting revenge. I don’t care about that anymore.” She put her hands up to her face as if to protect herself from pain. “I was also afraid because I’d told her about things that had happened in my life that were very personal. Things that I would never want anyone else to know. You take a big risk when you confide your secrets to people.”

McFadden was amused that she didn’t even get the irony of what she was saying. But this Paulette was clearly a follower. A naïve follower. Big, bad Georgina had come into her life and taken over.

Now as McFadden sat down again across the table from Paulette, he looked at her kindly. “Georgina’s grandmother lived in New York. That fact didn’t come up until my colleague in New York asked me to find out if you knew anything about her. You didn’t think it was important to mention her when we first started talking tonight?”

Paulette blinked. “No. We’d been talking about what she did to the guys she picked up and her ex-boyfriend, Huck. She was obsessed by him.”

“Did Georgina mention any special places she went with her grandmother on her visits to New York?”

“No. There was only one night when she really talked to me about her grandmother.”

“When was that?”

“It wasn’t long after we met. One night a lady came into the diner. Georgina’s eyes got all watery. I’d never seen her like that before. She rushed into the ladies room, and I followed her to see if she was okay. Turns out that the woman looked so much like Georgina’s grandmother, it was really upsetting for her. She was trying so hard not to cry but she said the sight of that woman brought all her sadness to the surface. I told her I’d take her out for a drink after we got off work. We went to a bar, sat in the corner, and she poured her heart out, as much as someone like Georgina would, about her grandmother. That’s when we got close.”

McFadden waited.

“When Georgina was a baby, her father died. Her mother lived with different guys, and they moved around a lot. Georgina’s paternal grandmother lived in New York City. She said she loved to go visit her, and wanted to live with her, but Georgina’s mother wouldn’t allow it. She still liked to think of herself as a mother even though she pretty much ignored Georgina. But her grandmother doted on her. She took her on trips. They were going on vacation together and that’s when the grandmother died in a car accident. I think Georgina felt responsible. After that night in the bar, Georgina didn’t talk about her grandmother to me again. If I brought the subject up, she brushed me off. It was almost like she was embarrassed that she’d been so open.”

“Was Georgina in the car with her grandmother when she died?”

“No.”

“But they were on vacation together?”

Paulette looked slightly exasperated. “They weren’t
on
vacation together. They were
going
on vacation together. Her grandmother was in a cab on the way to the airport when the accident happened. She was planning to arrive in Miami first and meet Georgina’s flight when it came in. It was before cell phones, so by the time Georgina’s mother heard about the accident, Georgina was in Miami with someone from the airline, waiting for her grandmother to pick her up.”

There was silence in the room for a moment. “One of Georgina’s victims was a young man she met at a comedy club in Miami,” McFadden said.

“That’s right.”

“Did she say why she chose that particular city?”

“No. She told me she drove to places where she knew there were good comedy clubs. Her grandmother loved comedies and they used to go to the movies a lot.”

“If her grandmother died in a cab on the way to the airport, then the accident took place in New York?”

“Yes. She was thrown from the cab and hurled over the side of the highway. Georgina said she was killed instantly.”

“Do you know where in New York this happened?”

“No. She didn’t say. I’ve never been there so the exact location wouldn’t have meant anything to me. The only place I do remember Georgina mentioning is the Lower East Side, where she said her grandmother lived.” Paulette paused. “Do you think where her grandmother died is important?”

“It could very well be. People often place flowers on the side of the road at the spot where loved ones died in car accidents.” He started to get out of his chair. “I’m sure you’ve seen them on your trips to the mall,” he added sharply. “Perhaps Georgina isn’t interested as much in placing flowers at the location where her grandmother died as she is in carrying out her vicious assault there. I’ll phone my colleague in New York. She was under the impression the accident took place out of town.”

“That stupid Huck!” Paulette cried. “I wish we knew where he was so you could talk to him.”

“Why?”

“Georgina said that he had told her he wanted to take her to New York and be with her the first time she visited since her grandmother died. He promised to take her to the accident site. He fed her all the lines, saying he wanted to take care of her and make her happy again. He grew up somewhere near New York, so if anyone knows where the accident took place, it would be him.” She wiped her eyes. “He dumped Georgina for her roommate. It can’t get much worse than that.”

“He grew up near New York?”

“Yes.”

“What was his full name?”

“Huckleberry Darling. Can you imagine? A creep like that has a last name like Darling?”

McFadden hurriedly left the room and called Regan.

R
egan’s search party wasn’t far from One Police Plaza when McFadden called back and filled her in. “…and Paulette is sure that this guy Huck Darling would know where the accident happened. She said that Georgina could never track him down. Lucky for him, I guess. How many Huckleberry Darlings can there be in this world?”

“One is all we need,” Regan answered. When she hung up, she called the head of security at the Gates Hotel. “Cal, it turns out Georgina’s grandmother’s accident happened here in New York City.”

“It did?” he asked, surprise in his voice.

“Yes.”

“I had a job in California for a couple of years. I heard about the accident but as I told you, I thought it was when she was on vacation.”

“Actually she was in a cab on the way to the airport,
going
on vacation. Do you by any chance remember what her name was? We could do a search on the Internet and see if there was anything written about the accident. If Georgina is twenty-seven now, and she was twelve when her grandmother died, it would have been fifteen years ago.”

“I don’t know what her name was. Not even her real first name. Everyone called her Alice.”

“Why?”

“She loved
The Honeymooners
show and had the same kind of personality as Ralph Kramden’s wife. There was a television on the wall in the corner behind the bar, usually tuned to a sports station. At the same time every night she’d change the channel to catch one of the old reruns. Once she started to switch stations when we were watching a big basketball game that had gone into overtime. The guys at the bar went into such an uproar that she switched it back. It was so funny. I think she was just playing with us. Our team lost, and she couldn’t have been happier. She was something else. We had some good times with her.”

For a moment Regan imagined what it must have been like when the twelve-year-old Georgina, anxiously waiting for her larger-than-life, beloved grandmother to pick her up at the Miami Airport, was told that she had been killed. Killed on a highway in New York City. “Maybe Alice had the same last name as Georgina,” Regan said. “She was Georgina’s father’s mother.”

“They could have the same last name, but I doubt it. Alice joked that after having been married three times, she’d sworn off men.”

“Okay, Cal. If you think of someone who might know where the accident took place, or what Alice’s real name was, please call them. I have a strong hunch that Georgina might very well visit the scene of the accident tonight. The detective in Atlanta feels the same way.”

“I’ll see if I can get in touch with a couple of my buddies from back then.”

When Regan hung up, she called Jack. “We’re right near your office. I’d like to come up for a few minutes. I have new information from the detective in Atlanta. We need to regroup.”

“Sure. I’ll tell the security guard downstairs you’re coming. Wally’s here in my office along with other people who want to meet you and help with the search for Chip Jones.”

Six minutes later, Regan and her crew were hurrying down the hall to Jack’s office. Kit was keeping up on her crutches, Billy at her side.

Regan said a quick hello to the detectives working at their desks in the outer area. “How’s it going?” she asked.

“Okay, Regan. We’ve got officers all over the city on the alert for Chip Jones.”

Regan nodded. “Thanks.”

In Jack’s corner office, the gallery owners were bursting with good will. “We were blessed tonight,” Zora said intensely, as she and Leon rushed to meet Regan. “Now we want to help you.” She grabbed Regan’s hand and stared soulfully into her eyes. Leon grabbed Regan’s other hand and waved it back and forth.

“Thank you.” Regan said, nodding her head and extricating herself as politely as possible from their grasp. She leaned over Jack’s desk to give him a quick hug. Both knew what the other was thinking.

More introductions were made as Kit and Melanie and Billy entered the room. A seat was quickly produced for Kit. When Regan shook Arthur’s hand, she thought it felt unusually sweaty. His demeanor didn’t suggest that of someone being feted for his heroism. Maybe he’s just shy, she thought. Wally seemed like the same old Wally, except for his swollen nose.

“I know Jack has told you what’s going on,” Regan began. “We have people searching the city for Chip Jones and this woman Georgina.” She quickly told them what she knew about Georgina’s past, her ex-boyfriend, Huck Darling, and her grandmother’s accident. “I’d like for us to cover the highways leading from the city to the three major airports. Other groups are looking in places like Central Park and Tribeca. Georgina could be anywhere, but I have the strong feeling that wherever the accident happened, is where she went tonight. I could be completely in left field, but for now this is what I’d like to focus on. But before we leave I want to see if we can quickly track down any information about Huck Darling. It would be a miracle if we could get in touch with him.”

Arthur, who was a quivering wreck, started to speak. At first nothing would come out of his mouth. Meeting Jack Reilly was stressful enough. But he couldn’t believe that Regan Reilly, the woman standing right next to him, was the person he’d locked out on a rooftop tonight. I have to function without falling apart, he told himself. Maybe if I help out with two criminal cases tonight, I’ll get a lesser prison sentence for breaking and entering.

Regan looked at him. “Did you want to say something?”

“I’m—I’m—I’m a computer person.”

Wally got irritated. “So what, Arthur, she doesn’t care about that now.”

“Let him talk, Wally,” Regan said.

“What I mean is, I’ve managed to track down friends of friends through the Internet. Honestly, I love it. Those search engines are great, but if you can’t find something easily, I know how to keep looking. I’m sorry. I’m sure there are plenty of people in this building who could do a better job of it. I just thought…”

“We can use all the help we can get,” Regan said.

“If anyone can do it Arthur can,” Zora cried, as if she’d known him for a lifetime. “Thanks to him we have our sculptures back.”

“Me, too.” Wally said indignantly.

“Of course you, too, I’m so sorry,” Zora gushed. “But Arthur grabbed the backpack full of our precious babies.”

Another loon, Regan thought as Jack got up from his desk. “Arthur, sit right here at my computer. It’s all yours.”

Arthur jumped up and hurried over. “You said his name was Huck Darling and that he grew up somewhere around New York City? He’d be in his late twenties?”

“Yes, and Huck is short for Huckleberry.”

Arthur raised his eyebrows. “That can only be good for us,” he muttered as he sat down in front of the keyboard. Regan noticed an instant change in his bearing. As his fingers started flying over the keyboard, he looked confident and in control. Let’s hope he finds something, she thought, then turned to Melanie. “Would you call Dexter and see if Georgina put the name of a college on her job application? I know she lied about previous employment, but we need to help Arthur with any leads we can. Paulette didn’t know the name of the college, and Georgina dropped out anyway. But if she did list the college where she met Huck, and it’s his alma mater, it might help.”

“Sure, Regan.” Melanie pulled out her cell phone, pressed in Dexter’s number, and stepped outside the office.

“Regan, I’ll drive anywhere you want looking for them,” Wally offered, feeling left out that Arthur was getting all the attention. “East, west, north, south…”

“I appreciate that, Wally,” Regan answered. She turned to the map on Jack’s wall. “Let’s take a look at this. It covers the entire city of New York,” she began.

A moment later, Melanie burst back into the room. “Dexter spoke with our company president a little while ago. He’s so mad. Among other lies, Georgina made up the name of the college on her application. Dexter is in so much trouble. I can’t believe he hired her without checking on
anything!”

“Thanks, Melanie,” Regan said. Dexter will be filling out his own job applications soon, she thought. “We were just about to go over this map and decide what highways—”

“Oh, my Darling!” Arthur whooped. “Oh, my Darling!”

“Arthur, what is it?” Regan asked.

“Georgina is really going to have a fit when she hears this one!”

“What?”

“He’s right here! Huck Darling just moved to New York City. I found the records. He purchased an apartment at the Schwab House on Seventy-fourth Street and West End Avenue. He must have some serious dough.”

“Is there a phone number?” Regan asked quickly.

“There’s no listing.”

“Does he have a cell phone?” Wally asked.

Arthur looked aghast. “What do you want from me, Wally? I’m not Ma Bell.”

Wally shrugged.

Regan looked at Jack. “Let’s go up there now,” she said urgently.

“We’ll ride in my car with Kit, Billy, and Melanie,” Jack answered. “Wally and Arthur and Leon and Zora can ride in Wally’s car.” He turned to them. “Meet us up there?”

But he didn’t wait for an answer from anyone.

Within seconds, Jack’s office was empty.

They were all racing to get to the Upper West Side of Manhattan as soon as possible, hoping against hope that Huckleberry Darling would be in residence.

He’s our only chance, Regan thought anxiously as the police vehicle, siren blaring and lights flashing, sped through a pitch-black Manhattan.