Running Cold: A Novel, page 21
“Five o’clock.”
“I’ll call you after that. I gotta go.”
And the line went dead.
“Well?” Christa said. “What’s going on? Where is she?”
“I don’t know where she is—she didn’t say.”
“So the police haven’t found her yet?” Suki asked, a little too loud.
“Shh! Suki!” Christa admonished.
“Sorry.”
“What did she want?” Christa asked.
“She asked me to get Jeff’s laptop.”
“Get it and do what with it?”
“I’m not sure,” I replied. “Maybe she’s trying to solve that woman’s murder?”
Because wasn’t that just like her.
CHAPTER 56
Monique
“So what are you saying?” Stafford asked. “That Julie Adler killed both Ceci Rousseau and her husband?”
“I don’t know,” I said. It’s always the spouse was true so often it had become a cliché. But I wasn’t ready to apply it to Julie Adler just yet.
“What do we know about the alleged boyfriend?” I asked Stafford. Even if she was involved with another man, it was still a questionable motive to commit murder. Framing her husband’s death as a suicide meant she wouldn’t get a penny of life insurance, and a man as successful as Jeff Adler would have had a sizable policy, likely in the millions. If she was in love with another man, she could have just divorced him. And possibly gotten alimony too.
Stafford was typing on his computer. “Remy Claude Delatour,” he read. “French Canadian dual citizen, born to a French mother and Canadian father. No criminal record. Home address is listed as the Banff Springs Hotel.”
Julie had a good job in California. So why had she left to work as a hotel maid? And what kind of boyfriend would import his girlfriend to scrub toilets? Something wasn’t clicking.
“What about travel to the United States?” I asked. “If they were a couple, presumably they saw each other periodically. Which would mean one or both of them were crossing the border, at least once in a while.”
“I’ll call immigration.”
“Check exit and entry records for both of them.”
“Copy that.”
Stafford picked up the phone. While he was dialing the number, he asked, “You think that’s why Delatour was cagey with us? Because he was covering for her?”
“Well, he certainly seemed to be covering something.”
While Stafford waited on hold with immigration, I opened the file to look at the pictures of the crime scene. And something odd struck me.
“Do you remember what you said to me when I asked you your first impression of the scene?”
“Something about it being really bloody, I think?”
“You said, ‘It wasn’t quick and painless.’”
“That sounds right.”
“I think that was an important observation. Look at all that blood.” I pointed. “It’s on the curtains, the rug, the coffee table, even all the way in the kitchen.”
“Yes, I remember. And?”
“A .22-caliber bullet to the heart would have killed her instantly. But it didn’t. Why?”
“It missed her heart.”
“Exactly.”
“I’m not sure I’m following, Detective.”
“Julie Weston Adler is an Olympic-biathlon champion.” I turned my screen to face him, so he could see the video I’d found of her hitting a 1.8-inch target from fifty meters away . . . five times in a row.
“So?”
“Julie Weston Adler doesn’t miss.”
CHAPTER 57
Julie
The ski patrol hut was drafty, and my nose was cold and running. There was a space heater next to the desk, but I didn’t dare turn it on. Instead I grabbed two blankets from the pile—one for my shoulders, one for my lap. And another candy bar, which I ate in one swallow.
My conversation with Fang had rattled me. Jeff hadn’t mentioned that there’d been upheaval at the company. Was he embarrassed? Trying to protect me from something? Or maybe he’d tried to tell me, and I’d said something glib, like You got this. I could be insensitive like that. Acknowledging that people sometimes needed a shoulder to lean on scared me, because what if I did too?
I logged on to our bank accounts. The flow of money told a story, and I wanted to know when ours had turned tragic.
I started with Jeff’s business account. I scrolled through his bank statements to see it was flush with cash at the beginning of the year—close to a million dollars. Quantum Solar didn’t have any revenue yet, so as expected, the balance declined every month. By July, the bank balance was down to half a million dollars. Then, in September—the same month he’d fired Fang—Jeff made three chunk withdrawals that completely wiped it out.
I looked at our joint account. Jeff didn’t want to take a big salary at the expense of the company being able to grow, so for the first nine months of the year, the balance steadily declined. But come October, the account fell off a cliff. In the span of three weeks, he’d withdrawn all the money, again in big chunks.
The last remaining account was our brokerage account. We had vowed not to touch that one. Thanks to some smart investments, it had been growing steadily since January. But, like he’d done with the others, Jeff made a handful of chunk withdrawals toward the end of the year, plunging the balance into single digits.
I thought about what Fang had said, about the process not working and how Jeff was desperate to fix it. I looked at the recipients of all that money he’d spent: consultants, machine shops, industrial-metal supply stores. Jeff’s sudden spending suggested that he threw money at the problem to try to get it fixed.
But then what?
Fang had said that Mackenzie was pressuring Jeff to “fudge the data.” The only way to prove this was to see his correspondence. I needed Jeff’s laptop. And for that I needed Izzy.
I looked at the clock. Izzy wouldn’t be getting to my house in Dos Vientos for several hours. I didn’t want to risk someone from the ski patrol catching me in their office, so I logged off the computer, folded the blankets and put them back on the pile, then slipped back outside.
In the three hours since I’d snuck into the hut, the temperature had dropped precipitously. The thermometer on the side of the building read −14°C . . . but the biting wind told me the cold front wasn’t done with us yet.
I still had twenty dollars, so I decided to spend half of it on a slice of pizza and a hot chocolate. I wasn’t worried about running out of money. It was time that I needed. But I wouldn’t be getting any more of that.
The lodge was a zoo. Rosy-cheeked skiers and riders swarmed the cafeteria, loading their trays with hot food and drinks. I didn’t mind waiting in line. I had the whole afternoon to kill. My head was heavy with exhaustion. The ski patrol hut was cold, but it was nice and toasty in here. I knew it was risky, but that chair by the fire was too tempting. So after I ate, as the throngs of people headed back out into the cold, I curled up on it and gave in to sleep.
CHAPTER 58
Remy
Julie’s friends had left for the airport, but Officer Purdy was still milling around the hotel interviewing employees, hoping one of them had information about where Julie might have gone.
The sun was out and the powder was fresh, so I left Purdy to do his work and went to get my fix. I didn’t want to wait half an hour for the bus—it was noon, the day was already half over—so I grabbed my skis from the storage room and threw them in my truck.
Banff was the most beautiful place on earth after a snowstorm. The sun was a lemon yellow orb against a Côte d’Azur sky. As I drove down streets painted with glistening snow, I got a buoyant feeling in my chest. Money may not buy happiness, but it does buy the next best thing: freedom. And I was about to be as free as the wind.
My Chevy Blazer crunched up the mountain road, which was well traveled and heavy with salt. I passed a few cars on their way down—locals who’d come for first tracks and had to get back to their families or work. Thanks to those departing early birds, I got a parking spot right next to the lodge. It was cold, so I decided to put my ski boots on inside.
I found a bench near the door. As I sat down to take off my shoes, my phone buzzed in my pocket.
“This is Remy.”
“Holy hell, what a mess,” Mackenzie Rousseau huffed into the phone.
“Mac! Where are you?” All around me, people were shuffling about, talking, taking off their coats. I would have stepped outside, but I only had one boot on. So I put a finger to my free ear to block out the noise.
“I’m in California, trying to find a new CEO. They don’t exactly grow on trees.” With Jeff gone, Quantum Solar needed new management. It’s not that I hadn’t thought of that, I’d just assumed it wouldn’t be an insurmountable problem.
“But the deal’s still going to close, right?” I felt a flicker of nervousness that maybe I’d miscalculated.
“Buying a company is not like buying a sandwich, Remy. It’s not just the thing they’re interested in. It’s the team of people who made the thing.”
“Jeff was not a team player,” I reminded him. “You said so yourself.” I hadn’t realized I was shouting until two snowboarders turned to look at me.
“Calm down, they still want the tech. We’re too far along for them to back out. They’ve seen all our trade secrets—we could sue them if they renege.”
“You’ll find someone,” I said, lowering my voice. “Someone who can figure out what he couldn’t.” I finished putting on my boots and stood up. I was just about to head for the door when I did a double take. Not ten meters away from me, curled up on a chair by the fireplace, was a woman with honey-colored hair—just like Julie’s.
“What a waste of a life,” Mac said. He sounded tired. Sad, even.
“It wasn’t your fault, Mac.” And that I knew for a fact.
A woman with a baby in a front carrier passed in front of me, blocking my view of Julie’s doppelgänger. I thought I saw Julie everywhere—on the street, on the slopes, in the hallways of the hotel . . .
“I shouldn’t have pressured him to lie,” Mac said. “Our buyer wasn’t going anywhere. I just didn’t feel like ponying up more cash. Not while I was telling Ceci’s lawyers I was broke.”
“You did what you thought was best for the company.” The young mother moved off, and I once again had a clear view of the woman I wanted to be Julie. Of course it wasn’t. Why would she come here? It annoyed me that I couldn’t get her out of my mind.
“I’m flying in tomorrow to collect Ceci’s things,” Mac said. “We can talk more then.”
“I’ll have a suite ready for you,” I said, zipping up my coat. That powder was calling my name. Time to stop chasing ghosts and get out on the slopes.
There was a pause in the conversation. For a second I thought Rousseau had hung up.
“Mac?”
He let out a sigh. “She was a piece of work, but I still can’t believe someone murdered her.”
“Yes, it is shocking.”
“Who am I going to fight with now?”
“Your new CEO?”
“Not a chance. Once the deal closes, I’m out. That CEO is going to be someone else’s problem. You and I are going to collect our money and never look back, you hear me?”
His pronouncement was music to my ears.
“Loud and clear.”
“See you tomorrow,” he said, then hung up.
I stepped out into the sunshine, and that buoyant feeling returned. My future was as bright as the bluebird day. Julie would fight her murder charge, there was no doubt about that. It only took one drop of reasonable doubt for Mac—and me by association—to wind up in the crosshairs.
But if that case never went to trial, the secret of what we’d done would be buried forever. All I had to do was keep the fighter from fighting.
CHAPTER 59
Julie
The heat from the fire lulled me into a light but peaceful sleep. As I snoozed, voices of strangers swirled with memories of the voices of people close to me. I heard Jeff’s voice singing in the shower. I heard Izzy, Christa, and Suki telling me how proud they were to call me friend. I heard Remy expressing desire . . . and then, disappointment. His voice seemed to flutter both in the foreground and the background. At one point in my half sleep, I imagined he was sitting just a few feet from me, putting on his boots to get a fix of fresh powder. Guilt bubbled up and swirled around my heart. I’d been unkind to my old friend. He was inappropriate, but I could have been more forgiving, given our history. I told myself I would apologize the next time we spoke, not knowing what he’d done to me was a thousand times worse than what I’d done to him.
The thunk-thunk of ski boots clunking across the hard floor roused me from my nap. I sat up and glanced at the wall clock. It was just after five. People were heading home. I took a gamble that no one would check the kitchen after it closed for the night, so as the staff wiped down the lunch tables, I slipped into the food pantry to hide behind a pallet of kidney beans. Over the next hour, one by one, the lights went off. And then, silence.
I waited for another twenty minutes, then crept out from my hiding spot. I didn’t think the door was alarmed, but there was nothing I could do about it if it was, so I just pushed it open and hoped for the best.
As I stepped out onto the wraparound deck, the cold seized my body. The moon was a dinner plate in the clear, black sky, and the air was deathly still. I could feel my eyelashes grow heavy with frost. The entrance to the ski patrol hut was twenty meters in front of me. So I snugged my shell around my body and beelined for it.
The door to the hut was locked, but my axe kick was up to the task. If I didn’t find anything in the next few hours that could exonerate me, I would turn myself in and let the legal process play itself out. I was fairly confident prosecutors wouldn’t be able to convict me of murder. Any “evidence” they’d found had to be circumstantial, given that I didn’t do it. My name would be dragged through the mud, and I might face charges for evading arrest. But I couldn’t keep running. If I didn’t learn anything from the files on that encrypted server that would implicate someone else, it was game over.
I sat down at the desk and fired up the computer. It was nearly seven. Izzy should have had time to go to my house and grab Jeff’s laptop. So I picked up the handset and dialed her number, thankful that it was one of the few I knew by heart.
“Julie!” she said after one ring. “How are you?”
“Ready for this to be over.”
“I’m sure.”
Her betrayal pulled at my heart. If she was two-faced for sleeping with my husband, I was equally two-faced for not calling her on it. But now was not the time for confessions.
“Did you go to my house?” I asked.
“Yes. But I don’t have good news.”
“You couldn’t find the laptop?” I didn’t mean to sound incredulous, but when I’d left, it was right there on his desk.
“I couldn’t get in the house, Jules. It was swarming with police. There were four cars out front when I got there. I tried to tell them I was your Realtor and had your permission to enter, but they wouldn’t let me in.”
I tried to process what Izzy was saying. Why would police be at my house? Were they looking for evidence to connect me to Ceci’s murder? Or did they suspect, as I did, that Jeff’s death was not a suicide?
To get answers, I needed access to Jeff’s confidential correspondence. Without that laptop, I had no way to log in. I’d hit a wall. I took a deep breath before speaking to keep my voice from cracking.
“OK, thanks for trying.”
“What’s going on, Julie? Why are there police at your house?”
“I’m not sure. It’s possible they think the murder in Banff and Jeff’s death are connected.”
“Is that what you think?”
“I don’t know, maybe. Without Jeff’s laptop, I have no way of knowing.”
“I’m so sorry. I wish there was something more I could do,” she said.
“You’ve done enough already.” Maybe it was frustration. Or fear. But I couldn’t keep the anger out of my voice.
There was a beat of silence. For a second I thought she’d hung up.
“How long have you known?” she asked. And I had to hand it to her for not playing dumb.
“Since the gondola ride. But I suspected before that. I knew there was someone. I just didn’t know it was you.” And there it was. Out in the open.
“I was going to tell you. But then he died, and it felt cruel. Julie, I’m so sorry.” I had thought this confrontation would hurt like hell. But I felt strangely . . . relieved.
I wanted to own my part in it—tell her I’d been a shitty wife and had brought it upon myself. But I knew she’d push back. So I just said, “I know you are.”
“I love you, Julie,” she said. “The last thing I ever wanted to do was hurt you.” And I believed her. Because people hurt the ones they love. I’d learned that at sixteen.
“I lied to you too,” I said. “About why I came to Banff. We were broke, Izzy. I took a job as a maid.”
“I know,” Izzy said. “The police told us. But that’s hardly in the same league as what I did.” Someday I would tell her I understood that she didn’t do it to me . . . that it wasn’t really about me at all. She had a moment of weakness. She made mistakes. Like we all do.
“Can we just put it behind us?” I asked. And I heard her exhale with relief. I’d had a lot of practice moving on from things that hurt. A bad lap, a bad race, a bad childhood.
“If we could, I’d be so grateful.”
I told her I loved her, too, and we said our goodbyes. There might be more to say, but now wasn’t the time. If the police were monitoring Izzy’s phone, they would find me, and soon. I had to figure out how to get on that server. I put my head in my hands and pressed my palms into my forehead. Think, Julie, think!
I couldn’t access any of Jeff’s devices, that was clear. But what about mine? Jeff had set up the dual authentication three ways: an email to an account with a password I didn’t know, a text to his phone, or a text to mine. I didn’t have my phone with me when I got arrested. If it was still in my room, I could have the passcode sent to my number, then use it to access the encrypted files.
