When All the Girls Have Gone Read online

  The plants were her idea. Shortly after moving to Seattle she had given the palm to Jocelyn, who had been distinctly ambivalent about accepting the gift. But Charlotte had insisted because it was clear to her that something was needed to soften the sleek, modern interiors of the condo.

  Jocelyn’s home was a sharp reflection of Jocelyn herself—cool and glamorous in the way of a classic black-and-white film. The only touches of real color were the cobalt blue throw pillows and the dramatic cobalt blue wall behind the white leather sofa.

  Jocelyn’s decision to book a monthlong stay at the Caribbean island convent had been startling, to say the least. For one thing, the closest she had ever come to the concept of a retreat was the occasional long weekend at an exclusive spa. But she had been resolute about leaving most of her expensive vacation wardrobe as well as her tech behind. She had departed Seattle with only a backpack. True, the backpack carried a designer label; but, still, it was just a backpack. Jocelyn never traveled light.

  Finished tending to the greenery, Charlotte ran some water in the sinks and flushed the toilets to keep things fresh and then she headed for the door, pausing in the hall to pick up the padded envelope.

  She ripped it open. There was a smaller envelope inside. She could feel the hard shapes of a set of keys—three of them.

  There was also a handwritten note on the back of the little envelope that contained the keys.

  I’m probably just being paranoid here, but you know what they say—even paranoids have enemies—so I’m taking some precautions. In case it turns out that I’ve got a reason to be worried, I wanted to let you know that my copy of the file is in my condo storage locker. As we agreed, I didn’t put any of the information online. Looking forward to buying you a drink to celebrate your return from the tech-free wilderness. Louise.

  There was only one Louise in Jocelyn’s small circle of female acquaintances. Louise Flint worked in the fund-raising office at the foundation where Jocelyn was employed. Louise was well aware that Jocelyn was out of town for an extended period of time. Why would she send Jocelyn a set of keys and a very odd note? It made no sense.

  Charlotte glanced at the time. It was after five thirty, but there was a chance Louise might still be at her desk.

  She called the familiar number and was startled when the receptionist answered.

  “Elizabeth?” she said. “This is Charlotte Sawyer. You’re working late this evening.”

  “Oh, hello, Charlotte.”

  Elizabeth sounded distracted.

  “I’m calling to speak to Louise. Is she available?”

  There was a long, alarming pause.

  “You haven’t heard the news, then,” Elizabeth said.

  “What news? What are you talking about?”

  “I’m so sorry to be the one to tell you. Louise is . . . no longer with us.”

  “You mean she quit?”

  “No, Charlotte, I’m afraid she died.”

  Charlotte clutched the phone. “What? When? How?”

  “I’m not sure exactly when it happened. I understand her housekeeper found the body when she let herself in to do the weekly cleaning.”

  “This is awful. I can’t believe it. What happened?”

  “I don’t know all the details, but there’s a rumor going around that Louise may have . . . taken her own life.”

  “I’m stunned.”

  “We all are. The reason I’m working late is that I’m taking over some of Louise’s work, at least until Jocelyn gets back. With both of them gone, we’re a little overwhelmed, to put it mildly.”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “There isn’t much that can be said at times like this,” Elizabeth said gently. “I know Jocelyn will be shocked when she finds out.”

  “Yes,” Charlotte said.

  Elizabeth lowered her voice. “There is another rumor circulating as well, but I don’t believe it.”

  “What is it?” Charlotte asked.

  “Someone said that Louise had a history of using drugs. Evidently the police suggested that she might have gone back to them.”

  “I’m sure that’s not true. Good-bye, Elizabeth.”

  “Has Jocelyn called, by any chance?”

  “No. She’s off the grid at the retreat, remember?”

  “Yes, but it’s hard to imagine her being completely incommunicado.”

  “I know, but she was determined to do it.”

  “She won’t have any way of knowing what happened to Louise until she leaves that island convent,” Elizabeth said.

  “No.”

  “She’ll be absolutely devastated. She and Louise were so close.”

  “Yes, they were.”

  Charlotte ended the call. For a moment she stood in the center of the elegant room trying to decide what to do next.

  Jocelyn had a small circle of female friends. They were all involved in an investment club. At one time or another, Charlotte had met the four other women in the group, but she did not know any of them well. Jocelyn had not encouraged a closer acquaintance nor had she invited Charlotte to put some of her own money into the club’s investments. You don’t make enough to take the risk, she had said on more than one occasion.

  As stepsisters went, Jocelyn was great. But, like everyone else in the family, she was convinced that Charlotte was naïve, overly trusting and far too quick to assume that people would not actually lie to her—at least not to her face. The Brian Conroy fiasco had merely reinforced those opinions.

  And, really, they had a point, she thought. She should have seen the telltale signs of impending disaster long before Brian dropped the bombshell. Instead she had made excuses for the small, subtle changes in his behavior. She had told herself that it was natural for the groom to get nervous before the wedding.

  She looked at the packet of keys and tried to decide what to do next. After a moment she went to Jocelyn’s desk and rummaged around in the files. It didn’t take long to come up with a phone number for one of the four other women in the club. Emily Kelly worked in the human resources department of a local tech firm.

  She keyed in the number, unaware that she was holding her breath until Emily answered.

  “Who is this?” Emily asked.

  Her voice was brittle with tension.

  “It’s Charlotte, Charlotte Sawyer. Jocelyn’s stepsister. We’ve met a few times.”

  “Of course.” Relief infused Emily’s response. “Sorry, Charlotte. It’s been a tough day.”

  “I’m calling because I just found out that something terrible happened to Louise.”

  “She’s dead.” Emily sounded shaken.

  “Jocelyn will be devastated.”

  “We all are,” Emily said.

  “An accident?”

  There was another long pause. When Emily spoke again, she lowered her voice.

  “I heard she OD’d.”

  “The receptionist at the foundation said the same thing, but I find it very hard to believe.”

  “I know,” Emily said. “Louise was always so careful about drugs because of her own history with them and also because she saw so many drug-related problems at the shelter where she volunteered.”

  “How did you find out about her death?” Charlotte asked.

  “I got a call from Daniel Flint, Louise’s cousin. He said he had a list of some of Louise’s closest friends. He wanted to let us know what had happened.”

  “I remember Jocelyn mentioning that Louise had a cousin here in Seattle and that she was very fond of him. I think he’s attending college somewhere in the area.”

  “Yes, it’s just so tragic. Louise overcame so much—the abuse, the drugs, the streets—and now this.”

  “It’s just awful,” Charlotte said quietly.

  There was another slight pause on the oth
er end of the connection.

  “Was there a particular reason why you were trying to get in touch with Louise?” Emily asked.

  Charlotte looked at the packet containing the set of keys and thought about the urgent note inside. In case it turns out that I’ve got a reason to be worried, I wanted to let you know that my copy of the file is in my condo storage locker.

  “I guess it doesn’t matter now,” she said.

  “No, I suppose not.”

  “It’s going to be a terrible shock for Jocelyn.”

  “Yes, it will.” Emily hesitated. “Have you heard anything from her?”

  “No. She’s still at that island retreat.”

  “It’s just so hard to imagine Jocelyn going totally off the grid like this.”

  “You know how she is. Once she makes up her mind to do something, nothing gets in the way.”

  “So true.”

  Charlotte ended the connection and slipped the phone back into her bag. She reread the note that had come with the keys.

  “Crap,” she whispered.

  What would Jocelyn do if she were standing here with the packet of keys in front of her? she wondered. But she knew the answer to that question. She and Jocelyn were opposites in almost every way. That, of course, made it very easy to predict exactly how Jocelyn would react in any given situation.

  Jocelyn would go straight to Louise’s condo and try to find the file that had obviously been important to her.

  But she wasn’t Jocelyn. She was careful, cautious, risk-averse Charlotte. She drove the speed limit and followed the rules—most of them, at any rate. And she had no right to the file or anything else that belonged to Louise.

  The bottom line, however, was that Louise had entrusted the file to Jocelyn and Jocelyn was not around to collect it.

  It was ridiculous, but she could have sworn she heard a clock ticking in some other dimension.

  Maybe she watched too many crime dramas on television.

  CHAPTER 5

  The last light of the fall afternoon was gone and night had descended by the time Charlotte arrived at the lobby entrance of Louise’s condo tower. The thought of walking home alone in the dark sent a chill through her. For some obscure reason, she suddenly remembered how that attractive man had watched her through the glass doors of the lobby at Rainy Creek Gardens.

  She didn’t like to think of herself as timid; just cautious and careful. Nevertheless, even though it was early in the evening and there were still a fair number of people on the downtown sidewalks, she promised herself that she would call a cab when she left Louise’s building.

  She looked through the lobby windows. There was no one sitting at the reception desk. Evidently the concierge was no longer on duty.

  She had Louise’s keys but she wasn’t a relative or even a close friend. She didn’t feel right letting herself into the dead woman’s personal space. It occurred to her that a member of the family might be in the condo. Unable to come up with a better idea, she used the entry system to call Louise’s suite.

  And nearly fainted from shock when a man answered.

  “Louise Flint’s condo,” he said.

  The voice was deep, masculine and anchored with a cool, rock-solid sense of control and command. It was not the voice of a college-aged young man.

  Her pulse raced. Something was wrong. She could not think of any legitimate reason why a man would be in Louise’s condo.

  “Who is this?” she asked.

  “Max Cutler. And you are?”

  “A friend of Louise’s. Or, rather, my stepsister is a friend of Louise’s, but Jocelyn is out of town and I just heard what happened.”

  She broke off abruptly because the conversation was obviously not going well. It occurred to her that it might not be a good idea to mention the keys.

  “I think we should talk,” Max said.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Because I’m a private investigator.”

  “A private investigator? What is going on?”

  “Daniel Flint has asked me to look into Louise’s death, and you’re the first person to come around to her condo while I’ve been here. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  “Hang on, why has Daniel Flint asked you to get involved?”

  “He has questions about the cause of death.”

  “Why aren’t the police asking those questions?”

  “They seem to be satisfied with the answers they found. Daniel Flint is not.”

  And neither am I, Charlotte thought.

  She considered her options.

  “All right,” she said. “But I’m not going upstairs to talk to you. I’ll meet you in the lobby.”

  “I’ll be right down.”

  “I’ll expect some serious identification.”

  “Understood.”

  CHAPTER 6

  He walked out of the elevator a couple of minutes later, holding a leather wallet open in one hand. She could see something that looked like an official license behind a sheet of plastic.

  “Max Cutler,” he said.

  She studied the license closely. She had never actually seen a private investigator’s license in person, but the document appeared authentic. The photo certainly resembled the man standing in front of her, except that the picture was a little less intimidating than the reality.

  Max Cutler looked as if he should have been wearing a law enforcement or military uniform. There was something solid and unyielding about him. Instead he was dressed in khakis, a plain white shirt unfastened at the collar and a slouchy jacket.

  His dark hair was cut short with military-style precision. The style suited the rock-hard planes and angles of his face. It was impossible to read his gold-and-brown eyes.

  Not the handsomest man in Seattle—not by a long stretch, she thought. But probably the one most likely to survive if he went into the gladiators’ ring to confront the best-looking guy.

  There was something cool and reserved about him. It was as if he deliberately kept an invisible barrier between himself and the world. She knew intuitively that this was a man who was not comfortable with the strong emotions of others. He would almost certainly fight to suppress his own passions. Definitely the no-drama type, she concluded.

  She reminded herself that she was there to represent Jocelyn. It wasn’t hard to decide how her stepsister would have handled the situation. Assertively.

  “Licenses can be faked,” she said.

  “Right.” He nodded, once, smiling just a little. “I don’t have any particular reason to trust you, either.”

  “I knew Louise. My stepsister is—was—one of her best friends. Possibly her closest friend.”

  “Where is your stepsister?” Max asked.

  The question sounded a little too casual.

  “That’s none of your business,” she said, going for cool and determined. “At least, not until I know more about you.”

  “I told you, I’m working for Daniel Flint, the cousin of the deceased.” Max took a phone out of his pocket and keyed in a number. “I’ll let you confirm that with him.”

  He spoke briefly into the phone and then handed it to Charlotte. Reluctantly she took it from him.

  “Hello?” she said uneasily. “This is Charlotte Sawyer.”

  “You’re Jocelyn’s sister, right?”

  “Stepsister, yes.”

  “I met Jocelyn once or twice, briefly. I know that she and Louise were very close. I’m Daniel Flint, by the way, and that guy who just handed you the phone is telling you the truth. He’s working for me.”

  “I’m so sorry about Louise,” Charlotte said. “I didn’t know her well, but I liked her and I know that Jocelyn is going to miss her terribly. As you said, they were close. I don’t intend to get in Mr. Cutler’s way and I certainly don’t want to
intrude on your privacy. But the thing is, I’ve got some keys that belonged to Louise. What do you want me to do with them?”

  “Keys to her condo?”

  “And her storage locker.”

  Charlotte was aware that Max was watching her very intently with his sniper’s eyes.

  “I don’t need another set,” Daniel said. “You can give them to Mr. Cutler.”

  “There’s a note with the keys,” Charlotte added. She turned and walked a few steps away from Max and lowered her voice. “Something about a file that Louise wanted Jocelyn to have.”

  “What kind of file?”

  “I’ve got no idea.”

  “Huh.” Daniel thought about that for a moment. “Well, if Louise wanted Jocelyn to have it, that’s fine with me. But make sure that Max Cutler has a chance to look at it first, okay?”

  “All right.” She glanced back over her shoulder and saw that Max was still watching her. “Mr. Cutler tells me you think Louise’s death was suspicious. Do you believe she was murdered?”

  “I’m sure of it,” Daniel said. His voice was grim and resolute.

  She cleared her throat. “Uh, the police—?”

  “They don’t see it that way. I overheard a detective say, ‘Once a junkie, always a junkie.’”

  “Louise was not on drugs,” Charlotte said. She did not realize how fierce she sounded until she saw Max’s eyes narrow ever so slightly. She immediately tried to steady her voice. “Jocelyn would have known if that was the case. She would have done something—maybe staged an intervention.”

  “I’m glad we agree that Louise was not using,” Daniel said. “Talk to Cutler. Please. Maybe you know something that will help him prove that my cousin did not OD either accidentally or on purpose. And she wasn’t hooking, either.”

  Charlotte was outraged. This time she made no attempt to moderate her tone. “The authorities implied that she was a prostitute, as well?”

  “Yes.”

  “Obviously they didn’t know much about Louise.”

  “No. Listen, I’ve got to go. My boss is yelling at me. Please, give Cutler any information you can.”