“Do you know how Charlotte died?”
“Yeah, some accident at that Wildwood ski place,” he said.
“So you do know her then.”
He didn’t respond.
“You’re wrong, you know. It wasn’t an accident.”
“What the hell are you playing at,” he said.
His surprise, while unfeigned, was good. But not convincing enough to win the Oscar.
“Do you want to know how she died?”
“I already told you,” he said.
“The autopsy told a different story. Care to try again?”
“You tell me, you seem to know so much about it.”
He shook his head and picked his drink back up and ingurgitated all of it.
“Alright then,” I said. “She was murdered.”
He spat out some of his drink and it trickled down like a stream of water onto the sofa.
“You’re friggin nuts!” he said.
“Does the large amount of poison that the ME found in her body sound crazy to you?”
“I don’t believe you. No fucking way.”
“So that leaves me with one question.”
“And what’s that?” he said.
“Where were you the day she died?”
“We broke up. She went her way, I went mine,” he said. “None of this is any of your business.”
“And the text messages you sent her the day she died?”
“I don’t know who you are, but I don’t see a badge or a gun so I take it you’re not the police. I’m not saying another word.”
Just because he couldn’t see it, didn’t mean it wasn’t there.
“We’ll see about that.”
He slammed the empty glass down on the table and glared at me.
“Get out!”
I rose from the sofa and looked at Parker and smiled.
“One last question before I go. Hit anyone lately?”
It took a moment for my head to adjust after being forced up against the wall, my neck pinned by the weight of his fingers. I allowed it. He may have controlled his women in the past, but I wasn’t about to give him the same satisfaction. The rancid alcohol on his breath was strong, and his eyes were like huge saucers and looked like they were ready to bulge out of his head. He held me against the wall to let me know he was in control and when he felt confident that he had dominated me, he pulled back and raised his hand to strike. I suppose he thought he was going to teach me a lesson. His mistake. I snaked his arm with my free hand, yanked it backward toward me, and struck above his palm. This left him no choice but to open up his fingers. I slammed the bottom of my hand into his fingers which bent them back almost all the way and then watched him retract in pain.
“You bitch!”
Parker massaged his fingers with his uninjured hand. I opened the door and pulled back my jacket just enough to reveal the gun holstered on my hip and curved my body so I faced him.
“Keep your hands off Daniela, and if I hear you’ve smacked around any other women, broken fingers will be the least of your worries.”
CHAPTER 22
Audrey and I arranged to connect up at Charlotte’s place and Maddie was meeting me there afterwards so we could go talk to the chief. On the way over I placed a quick call to Nick. He didn’t answer, and I wasn’t surprised. I left him a message in which I did my best to downplay the events that occurred the last time we were together. I also gave him a brief idea of what happened at Parker’s but omitted the part where he cinched me in a choke hold against the wall. Since Maddie confirmed foul play, I didn’t want Park City’s finest in the way of me proving Parker did it, and for now, that included Nick––even if he wasn’t talking to me at the moment.
I found the door to Charlotte’s condo unlocked and all the lights on when I arrived but didn’t see anyone in the front room.
“Hello?” I said.
A voice echoed from down the hall.
“In here.”
I followed the sound to the bedroom where Audrey sat in the middle of Charlotte’s bed and flipped through worn pages of an old photo album. She traced her finger across a photograph of a young Charlotte who beamed with joy atop a purple road runner bicycle with a yellow banana seat.
“Reminiscing over all the good times,” she said.
“Well, you were right about what happened to Charlotte.”
She closed the album and tucked it into an oversized handbag on the floor and gave me her full attention.
“What do you mean?”
For the first time since we met, Audrey listened in silence while I relayed the information Maddie gave me. I passed on most of the details but left out the part where Charlotte may have been alert until the end. Audrey had suffered enough.
“I’m not surprised,” she said, when I finished. “You know that feeling you get sometimes in your gut. I’ve had that all along. Maybe now everyone won’t look at me like I’m a deranged lunatic.”
She shook her head back and forth.
“It’s hard to think of what those last moments were like for her. I wonder how much pain she endured and if she suffered; I could kill him, I really could.”
“I haven’t proved it was Parker yet.”
“Isn’t it obvious? He did it,” she said.
“There’s something else,” I said. “Earlier today I confronted Parker, and he got a little aggressive.”
She cupped her hand over her mouth.
“Are you alright?” she said.
“I’m a lot better than he is.”
Audrey raised an eyebrow and shot me a devious wink.
“What did you do?”
“Let’s just say he won’t get much use out of one of his hands for a while,” I said.
We both laughed.
“Serves him right.”
“He had a woman at his place in town last night,” I said. “Things got heated when she wouldn’t consent to sex, and I’m glad I showed up when I did.”
“What happened?”
I explained what transpired between Parker and Daniela. Audrey hung on to my every word like a child clings to the bar on a roller coaster.
“Turns out they dated for about a year.”
She threw both hands up in the air.
“Unbelievable!” she said. “I don’t think anything you say at this point will surprise me.”
“Don’t count on it. The woman said Parker hit her, and on more than one occasion.”
Audrey shook her head back and forth.
“That stupid ass.”
“I think she was one woman in a whole string of them. Earlier in the day, I found him out with a blond woman. I haven’t had the chance to talk to her yet so I’m not certain, but they looked like much more than friends.”
She crunched her hands together the way a person relieves tension on a stress ball.
“I want to wrap my hands around his scrawny little neck and squeeze,” she said.
“I need you to steer clear of him, Audrey. I mean it.”
“You can’t expect me to sit back after all this. He needs to pay for what he’s done.”
“And he will, but I want to make sure it’s done the right way. Besides, we don’t know what he’s capable of.”
She rolled her eyes.
“I’m not my sister, I can handle myself.”
“I don’t doubt that, but let me see this through,” I said.
“I suppose that means you’ll work with the police now, huh?”
I nodded.
“A lot of good that’s going to do,” she said.
It was clear no amount of persuasion would change the idea she formed in her mind about the PCPD so I didn’t attempt it.
“Let me worry about that, okay?” I said.
She considered it for a moment.
“Well, I got this far with your help so I suppose I owe you that much.”
“Now that I know Parker is capable of violent behavior, did you ever notice any bruises on Charlotte?”