CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Mac shoved abruptly back from the desk, running her fingers through her hair. For a moment Veronica thought she was about to cry. Then she realized her friend’s grimace was one of bitter triumph, almost of satisfaction.
She’s not surprised. The thought hit her with the certainty of an irrefutable fact. Mac may not have expected to see Sinclair’s name on that list—but she wasn’t shocked either.
Which meant Mac had been keeping tabs on her birth family.
Veronica didn’t know why she was surprised by that. It was no less than she would have done herself. But they’d never talked about it—not since high school. Not since Veronica discovered that Mac had been switched at birth with their classmate Madison Sinclair, the poster child for spoiled ’09ers. The mistake hadn’t been discovered until both girls were four—at which point both families decided to keep the children they’d raised as their own. A hefty hospital settlement had allowed the Sinclairs to get richer; it gave the Mackenzies seed money to start a Jet Ski business that failed in less than three years.
“Well, it’s not exactly news that Charles Sinclair is a dog,” Mac said. She stood from her desk and went to the kitchenette. Instead of opening the fridge as Veronica expected, she pulled the bottle of whiskey down from the cabinet overhead. She sloshed some into the bottom of a coffee mug, took a sip, then poured a little more.
“What are you telling me?” Veronica asked cautiously.
“Just that I, um, may have looked in on the Sinclairs a few times over the years.” Mac looked studiously through the dark window, avoiding Veronica’s eyes.
Meaning, Veronica knew, that Mac had hacked into their personal information—their e-mail, their bank accounts, their medical histories.
“Charles and Ellen were in marriage counseling for a while. I didn’t, like, try to get access to the notes. But, you know, you kind of assume.”
“Mac…”
“I know. I’m pathetic.” She ran the fingers of her free hand through her hair again. When they came away, locks of her short hair stood on end, giving her a slightly mad look. “I’ve never…bothered them or anything. I just wanted to know what their lives looked like.” She gave a jagged laugh. “I mean, I only know the big stuff. Like, they went to Argentina last year on vacation. They took Lauren, my…Madison’s sister. She was home on break from Sarah Lawrence. Um, and Ellen, she had a breast cancer scare a few years ago. But it turned out to be benign, so she’s okay.”
She took another slug from the mug. “As for Charles—I mean, I assumed he was screwing around. Ellen’s away from home a lot. She does this charity thing, working with low-income women who have ideas for small businesses. It’s pretty cool, actually. She’s done a TED Talk and everything.” She shook her head as if trying to clear it. “Like I said, I assumed he was a cheater. But nothing would have led me to believe he was a…” She trailed off, unable to say the word. When she spoke again, her voice was steady and sober, cracking only near the end.
“You know, my dad’s been in a dead-end job for twenty-plus years, and he’d wallpaper the house with pictures of Dale Earnhardt if my mom would let him. But he treats my mom like a goddess. He’d never cheat on her. And he’d never, never hurt a woman. I know that. So fuck Charles Sinclair.”
Veronica stood up and walked over to Mac. She wasn’t sure if she should take the whiskey away from her or pour her another cup. In the end, she just leaned against the counter next to her.
“Look, we don’t know anything for sure yet,” she said. “Charles might not have anything to do with it. I mean…did he check into the Grand the night of the attack? Does he show up anywhere on camera? Does he have any kind of motive for this? We need to dig a little deeper before we jump to conclusions.”
Mac tossed back the rest of the whiskey. Then she put the cup in the sink and brought the bottle back to the desk, where she sat it next to her computer and resettled into her chair, her eyes alight with new determination.
“So let’s dig,” she said.
—
Charles Sinclair had stayed at the Neptune Grand seven times in the past six months, each time for a single night. Each time, he racked up quite a room service tab, ordering bottles of Krug, plates of chocolate-covered strawberries, oysters on the half shell, caviar. Mac was able to match each visit with a trip Ellen Sinclair had taken out of town. But he hadn’t stayed at the hotel the night of the attack. His name wasn’t on the guest list, and none of his credit cards had been used. And there was no sign of him on any of the security footage.
“Maybe he has a secret way in—the same way Grace was taken out.” Veronica leaned back in the office chair she’d pulled up beside Mac’s, staring at the ceiling. “Or maybe Grace wasn’t attacked at the Neptune Grand at all. Maybe she got out of the hotel somehow and met him off-site.”
Mac rubbed her face, exhausted. “But then, why suddenly attack her after all those months of feeding her caviar? It doesn’t make sense.”
Veronica hesitated. It was possible Sinclair had been abusing Grace all along, that the attack was the final escalation. Or maybe he’d decided the girl was a liability—if she’d threatened to go public, for instance. Which would also explain her steadfast refusal to name him. If his goal had been to silence her, he’d succeeded.
Not that she wanted to say any of that out loud. “First things first. We can answer at least some of those questions if we get a DNA sample.”
“Easy enough,” Mac said quietly. “We just swab me, right? That was enough with Ramirez’s son.”
Mac’s jaw was tight, her eyes narrow. She’s taking this personally, Veronica thought uneasily.
“It might come to that,” Veronica said. “But I think I have a better idea.”