Alter Ego

43

“Do you believe him?” Stride asked Cab. “You and your mother know Mo Casperson better than any of us.”

Cab sipped his three-in-the-morning coffee and made a sour face. “Jack knows you have a rock-solid case against him. If he had evidence against Dean, I think he’d give it to us. If he’s pointing the finger at Mo instead, she’s probably been his contact all along.”

“I met Mo,” Maggie added. “I have no trouble imagining her as ruthless enough to hire a killer. I watched her tear into Tarla’s reputation at just a hint that she might go public about what Dean did to her. I think Mo would do whatever it takes to keep Dean propped up.”

Stride got up from the conference table and went to the vending machine, where he bought himself a can of Coke. It was his third since midnight. “Even if Mo was the one behind the murders, I have a hard time picturing Dean as completely out of the loop. He had to know what was going on.”

“I agree,” Cab replied, “although I’m not sure if you’ll be able to prove it.”

“Mo may have tried to compartmentalize him,” Maggie said, “so she’d be the one to take the fall if things went south. Or maybe she just didn’t think Dean had the stones to make the tough calls.”

“We won’t know until we talk to her,” Stride said.

Cab smiled. “Well, Lala and the Naples Police are on their way to Captiva to give Mo a little wake-up call.”

Stride focused on Serena, who was pacing back and forth in the conference room. She hadn’t joined the discussion. She still had restless energy driving her forward despite the late hour. One part of the investigation was done, but one part was still open, and the clock was ticking. Aimee Bowe was still missing.

“Serena, how’s Cat?” Maggie called.

Serena stopped in the middle of the room. “She’s spending the night at St. Mary’s for observation. Physically, she’s okay. The drugs just need to get out of her system.”

Cab spoke in a quiet voice. No one had wanted to bring up what really had happened between Dean and Cat. “Forgive me for asking, but was she actually—?”

“No. We got there in time.” Serena shook her head and glanced across the room at Stride. “Another thirty seconds and I think our lives as we know them would have been over.”

Stride said nothing. He knew what she meant. If they hadn’t arrived in time — if Dean Casperson had gone through with the rape and Stride had found them afterward — he wasn’t sure he would have been able to stop himself from pulling the trigger when he put his gun to Casperson’s head. As it was, it had been a close call. He could still feel the violence in his veins.

“I’m worried about what comes next for Cat,” Stride said. “The media focus on her is going to be ferocious. I don’t know if she’s ready for this. The whole world is going to know who she is. Her past will be in every magazine. Then there’s the trial, too. If the county attorney can’t do a plea bargain, Casperson’s attorneys will try to shred her on the stand.”

“Cat’s tough,” Maggie reminded him.

“What she did took guts,” Cab added. “She succeeded where everyone else failed. She took Dean Casperson down all by herself.”

Stride caught Serena’s eye. That was Cat, full of contradictions. He wanted to lock her in her room and keep her safe, he wanted to scream at her for being so stupid, and he wanted to tell her how proud he was that she would sacrifice herself to right a wrong that had been going on for decades.

Serena sat down at the conference table. “Meanwhile, we still don’t know where Aimee Bowe is.”

“I don’t think Jungle Jack was involved,” Maggie told her. “We asked him about Aimee after he started talking, and he said he and Mo didn’t have anything to do with it. I think he’s telling the truth on this one.”

“I agree,” Serena replied. “I don’t see what Dean, Mo, or Jack would gain by staging a sick copycat of what happened eleven years ago.”

“Except Aimee echoed the movie script when she made the audiotape,” Stride pointed out. “Why do that if whoever took her had nothing to do with the movie? What’s the message?”

Serena shook her head. “Aimee told me Art didn’t do it. Maybe she’s giving us a clue about who did.”

The room was silent for a while. Then Maggie spoke carefully, as if she knew she was on shaky ground. “Serena, you weren’t around here back then. You didn’t know Art. We dotted every ‘i’ and crossed every ‘t’ on that investigation.”

“I’m not saying you didn’t. You still could have missed something. It happens.” She got out of the chair and slipped on her winter coat. “I’m going to the hospital to check on Cat. Then I’m heading home to go over the Leipold case files.”

Stride nodded. “I’ll be there soon, too.”

Serena left the room, her face grim.

Cab’s phone started ringing, and he left the room to take the call. Stride and Maggie were alone, but the past was in the room with them. They’d spent hours in a room like this eleven years earlier, when they were tying Art Leipold to the murders. They stared at each across the table.

“Do you think Serena could be right?” Stride asked.

“About Art? No. Either it’s a stalker or it’s a copycat.”

“I wonder,” he mused. “I don’t like to think about it, but is it possible we were played back then? Did someone hate Art Leipold enough to set him up?”

“Do you have someone in mind?”

Stride frowned. He did have someone in mind, and he didn’t like where his thoughts were taking him. There was only one man who was linked to both Art Leipold and the movie.

Before he could say anything more, Cab came back into the room.

“Mo knew we were coming,” he told them. “Someone tipped her off about Cat’s video and Jack’s arrest.”

“What do you mean?” Maggie asked.

“That was Lala on the phone. When they got to Casperson’s estate in Captiva, Mo was already gone. The staff doesn’t know when she’s coming back. If she knows we’ve got Jack in custody, she knows we’re coming after her, too. And she’s got the resources to hide anywhere in the world.”