“Keep your mouth shut and do what you’re told,” he whispered, holding the gun low, close to his waist, inside his open coat. “We’re going to take a walk.”
He did not notice the phone slip from Laurie’s hand as he directed her back to Tiffany’s house.
72
Laurie searched futilely for a way to escape him. He had his arm linked around hers and was leading her back toward Tiffany’s house. In his free hand, he held a gun pointed directly at her side.
A stranger approached on the sidewalk, the only other person visible on the street, fiddling with his cell phone. Tom’s arm tightened around hers. She wanted to cry out for help, but knew that doing so could get them both killed. She tried to implore the stranger with her eyes as they passed, but the man was distracted by his screen.
She felt all hope leave her body as the stranger continued walking into the distance.
As she expected, Tom marched her to Tiffany’s front porch.
“Knock,” he demanded.
She remembered the sound of the door locking behind her as she left. She had warned Tiffany to call 911 if Tom sought contact with her. As long as Tiffany didn’t open the door, she would probably be safe.
She stared at Tom defiantly.
“Do it,” he hissed.
She pictured her father having to tell Timmy that he had lost another parent to a gunshot. Her son would be an orphan. But if she went inside this house, Tom would kill not only her, but Tiffany, too. At least if Laurie remained here on the porch, Tiffany would be safe.
She did not move. She only hoped Timmy would know that she thought of him at the end and was trying to save a woman’s life.
Tom glared at her, knocked on the door, and stepped to the side, out of sight from the peephole. Laurie heard footsteps approaching the front door. “Tiffany, no!” she yelled. “Don’t—”
But she was too late. The door opened, and Tom pushed Laurie inside, his gun pointed at both of them.
73
You sure I can’t get you a drink while you wait?”
Alex looked at his watch. He had been sitting alone at Marea for fifteen minutes, but he had arrived early. It was only 7:05.
After the wonderful evening they’d had last night, he was certain Laurie would be here shortly.
“Sure. I’ll have a Bombay Sapphire martini with olives, please.”
He would catch up on emails on his phone while he waited.
74
Tom Wakeling was pacing frantically in Tiffany’s living room, gesturing toward various mementos on display. Every time he waved the gun around, Laurie flinched.
“How much is this tiara worth? What about this signed photo with Frank Sinatra?”
Tiffany’s eyes widened. She was shaking with terror. “I have no idea,” she said. “These things meant the world to my grandmother, but I don’t think they’re valuable.”
“What about that bracelet you stole from the museum? It has to be worth a fortune.”
“It’s not, I promise!” Tiffany broke into sobs. “I was telling you the truth that night. It was a cheap souvenir. I gave it to my grandmother.”
“What money or real jewelry have you got here?” Tom demanded.
“There’s two hundred dollars in my wallet. My jewelry is on the dressing table upstairs. It’s all costume.”
Laurie was trying to remain calm, but inside, she was even more terrified than Tiffany. She knew what Tiffany did not. He wasn’t looking for money. He was on the rise at Wakeling Development. Whatever he was planning, it had nothing to do with these knickknacks. Laurie realized that he was going to stage a home invasion gone wrong. He would make it appear as if someone had ransacked the place in a search for valuables, left with a couple of mementos, and killed them both.
“Your plan won’t work,” Laurie muttered.
“Shut your mouth!” he snapped.
“Listen to me. There was another woman here,” Laurie said. “She has a recording of Tiffany talking about the bracelet and about where she was at the time of the murder. The police will know that Tiffany lied about being with you when Virginia went to the roof. If you hurt us, they’ll put two and two together.”
“The tall woman in the blue coat?”
“Yes.”
“Who is she?”
“Jane Martin,” Laurie said, recalling the name Charlotte had planned to use for her undercover work. “She works at my television studio. She tricked Tiffany into believing she was a book publisher asking questions about her grandmother.”
Laurie did not reveal that she also had a copy of the recording in her email. Tom hadn’t seemed to notice when she dropped her cell phone as he grabbed her on the sidewalk. Her only hope was that someone would find it and try calling the home number stored in her phone to return it. Her father would know something was terribly wrong and send police to the spot where the phone was found. On the other hand, maybe no one would find it, or the finder would make no attempt to return it. She shook away the thought. She had to cling to any sliver of hope.
“I saw her leaving when I arrived,” Tom said. “I should have stopped her the second I saw her speaking to you. Call her,” he demanded, picking up the handset of a cordless phone on the end table. “Make up a story to get her to come back here with that recording. If you say one word to indicate something’s wrong, I’ll kill you both.”
Laurie felt her hand tremble as she took the phone. She quickly scanned the other areas of the house visible from this vantage point. She did not see another handset.
This might be her only shot to save them.
75
You sure you don’t want some bread or an appetizer while you wait?”
Alex thought he detected a note of pity in the waitress’s voice.
He checked his watch again. 7:40 P.M. “No, I’m fine, thank you.”
Once the waitress was gone, he rose from the table and maneuvered near the entrance to call Laurie from his cell phone. It rang four times and then went to voice mail. “Just checking in to see if you’re on your way. Let me know if you want me to send Ramon to pick you up.”
Laurie had said she might be on a tight timeline if she ran home first to see Timmy, but he had never known Laurie to be forty minutes late, let alone without a text or a phone call.
He checked his phone once again a few moments later for any new messages from her. Nothing.
If she wasn’t here and hadn’t contacted him, something was wrong.
This time, he didn’t bother leaving his table to make the call. It was too urgent.
Leo picked up almost immediately. “Alex, shouldn’t you be having an extravagant dinner with my daughter?”
“Did she go home after work to see Timmy?” Alex asked.
“No, she said she was going straight to dinner with you.”
“She’s not here, Leo. She must be in some kind of trouble.”
76
Leo put Alex on hold to pull up Find My Friends on his cell phone. Laurie had taught him how to do this so the two of them could find Timmy—or at least his cell phone—at any moment.