J.T. Ellison - Where All the Dead Lie

She didn’t know what to think. It could be the storm had killed cellular service. Or it could be something much, much worse. She was starting to get completely freaked out by all of this. And there was no place she could go. She was stuck at the castle. If he were in trouble, she couldn’t help him. He was a capable man. He said he was in Atlantic’s offices in Amsterdam, was going to be here soon. She didn’t know how he would manage with the storm. She would have to fend for herself. He was safe, for now at least. She had her own issues she needed to deal with.

She left a message-“Call me”-then clicked off and dialed Lincoln’s phone. She wasn’t surprised when he answered immediately.

“Did you get it?” he asked.

“Yeah. Right here. I don’t know how much time I have.”

“I’ve been thinking about possible passwords. If you were using an alias, and no one knew your real name, what would you use?”

“You’re clever, Lincoln. It’s worth a try.”

Taylor typed the letters, holding her breath.

R-A-C-H-A-E-L-M-A-C-K

The screen saver disappeared, and the desktop background appeared. A beautiful shot of Loch Ness at sunset. Taylor remembered it from their first session.

“We’re in. And you’re amazing.”

“Okay. I emailed you the list of places to look and steps to take if there are barriers. Get to it. Call me if you need any help.”

“Will do, Linc. Thank you so much.”

She hung up with him, set the phone on the desk next to Maddee’s MacBook Air. Opened her own laptop, read through Lincoln’s instructions. Started combing through the doctor’s computer files.

Taylor quickly found the session notes from their two meetings. Taylor scanned through them, deleted the most egregious bits, then emailed them to herself and to Lincoln. Best-case scenario, she would have opened a file-sharing folder on Dropbox and uploaded all the files, but that would take more time than she had. Email wasn’t as secure, but it worked quicker.

She trekked her way through the past few days of files, opening, perusing, sending, then found what she was looking for.

Maddee’s online journal. Surely this would provide them with some answers.

She mailed the folder to Lincoln for him to look through as well, then went to most recent entries, the ones that had been made since she arrived at Dulsie Castle.

What she read turned her cold.

Like a child, Maddee, or Rachael, as Taylor needed to start thinking of her, started each entry the same way.

Dear Diary .

Dear Diary-The bitch has arrived…

Dear Diary-That stupid cunt thinks he actually loves her. She’s here to find out if she loves him, too…

Dear Diary-I can tell Memphis still has feelings for me. I saw the way he looked at me when he introduced his newest slut.

All I can remember is the feel of him under me, my hands so full of him…

Dear Diary-There’s no help for it. She has to go. She wants him, and he wants her. I can’t go through that again. Not again.

Taylor’s phone rang, startling her. It was Lincoln.

“Are you reading this?” she asked.

“Go to December 21, 2008,” he said.

“That’s the day Evan died.” She clicked back onto the dates, happy to get out of the woman’s psychotic head, even if only for a moment.

She read the entry, her mouth dropping open in shock.

Dec. 21, 2008

Dear Diary,

Everyone thinks she’s dead. Now she’s going to feel what it’s like to be in my shoes for a while. The bitch deserves every horrible thing that’s going to happen to her. She should have never doubted me. I tried to help her. Everything we did, hypnosis, medications, it was all working. And then she had to grow a spine, decide to tell Memphis about our sessions. I couldn’t take the chance that he’d find out.

“Lincoln, what the hell?”

“If what I’m reading is right, and not the ravings of a complete lunatic, Evan Highsmythe isn’t dead. She is very much alive.”

“Lincoln, that’s absurd. Evan Highsmythe died in a car accident. The earl identified her body.”

“They didn’t do an autopsy. Why didn’t Memphis identify her?”

Taylor thought back to the conversation she and Memphis had right after she arrived, that night in his study, before everything had spun so far out of control.

“I never got to see her, you know. After the accident. Father wouldn’t let me. He said it would be a very bad idea indeed. She’d gone through the windscreen, was cut to ribbons. He thought I would carry the image with me forever, what she looked like .”

“No, he didn’t. The earl wouldn’t let him. She had extensive facial lacerations.”

“That’s doubt enough for me.”

“But if it wasn’t Evan in the car, who was it?”

“I don’t know. They’ll have to exhume the body, run DNA. Probably some transient passing through. Rachael got her hands on them and used them to her own end. She’s good at that.”

“Christ. That seems awfully risky.”

“You’re dealing with a stone-cold psychopath, Taylor. Risks are her specialty.”

“Okay. Assume that you’re right, that this is all a huge cover-up. That Rachael managed to wreck the car with some one else in it, spirit Evan away. So where is Evan now? Her death was splashed across the covers of every newspaper in the country. It would be difficult to hide her. Her face would be recognized.”

“Look at what she says in the entry. ‘Now Evan is going to feel what it’s like to be in my shoes for a while.’ Rachael was locked away for seven years.”

“Committed. So you think Evan has been committed somewhere?”

“In an insane asylum. That would be the perfect punishment.”

“Oh, my God, Lincoln. I can’t believe Rachael would be able to manage it.”

“Look at her past, Taylor. Rachael succeeded by manipulating others to do her work for her. It’s possible. And with a doctor’s license, she could fake the papers. She’s a master forger, family signatures would be nothing to her. We just need to find out where she put her.”

Evan’s suicide note. Could Maddee have written it? Could she have sent the email from Memphis’s account, too?

A voice rang out from the hallway. “Taylor? You should come to lunch. We’ve been waiting for you.”

Rachael.

She had the electronic code to the family’s private quarters after all.

The Highsmythes had let the wolf into the chicken coop.

Taylor’s voice was mouse quiet. “Lincoln. She’s at my door.”

“Did you send me all the files?”

“Yes.”

“Then find a way to get her computer back into her bag, and don’t let her know we’re on to her. I’ll get looking for places Evan might be.”

“You know what name to look under, right?”

“Yes. Rachael Mack.”

“Right. Do me a favor and get Baldwin. I’ve been trying to reach him without luck. He’s supposed to be heading here, so he may be en route. Find him and let him know what’s happening. Talk to you in a bit.”

“Taylor. Watch yourself.”

“I will.”

Rachael was knocking on the door now. Hard. Taylor slapped the laptop shut. Looked at it critically. It was so thin… She stood and put the computer down the front of her jeans, sending a mental thank-you to Steve Jobs’s design team. The heavy wool sweater she wore covered both the laptop and the gun at the small of her back perfectly.

She went to the door and opened it. Rachael had a huge, winning smile on her face. If she knew something was up, she was one hell of an actress.

“Hiya. Hey there. How you feeling? Trixie said you were up and about. Want to come down and have lunch? You can meet Roland-properly, this time. I’m afraid he was a bit put out that I was so trashed last night. Then we couldn’t get down the drive. The truck kept sliding off to the side of the road. He’d forgotten the chains. So we gave up, hiked back up to the house. We had to stay here last night. He wasn’t all that thrilled, let me tell you. The kids are home with the nanny, and God knows what sort of trouble they’ve managed to get into.”