The Cinderella Murder

43

By the time Dwight Cook slipped his key into the lock of his Westwood bungalow, it was nearly midnight. He and Hathaway had taken REACH’s jet to Los Angeles, but the flight had been delayed by fog in the Bay Area.

Hathaway teased him for hanging on to this modest little house, which Dwight had bought at the end of his junior year, once REACH appeared solid enough as a start-up for him to get a small mortgage. In fact, Hathaway teased him for returning to college at all. Hathaway was so confident in REACH’s potential to pull in major cash that he’d retired from his tenured position.

But Hathaway had always been more financially motivated than Dwight. It sounded overly simple, but Dwight really did enjoy college-not the parties or hanging out in the quad, but the learning. So even after REACH launched, he found a way to finish college. Besides, he had Hathaway to oversee the corporation.

As soon as he locked the door behind him, he opened his laptop and logged in to the surveillance cameras at the Bel Air house. He had not been able to check updates while he was with Hathaway.

He fast-forwarded through hours of tape for a quick overview. The house was empty most of the day. The little boy and his grandpa came home first, followed by some television for the boy and phone calls for Grandpa. Then Jerry and Grace, followed by Laurie and Alex Buckley. It looked like they were wrapping up the night with some kind of game in the den.

He hit PAUSE. Jerry was in the corner by himself while everyone else was playing the game. Laurie seemed to stop and talk to Jerry alone. He rewound to the beginning of their conversation and hit PLAY.

By the time he watched Laurie resume her seat at the game table, Dwight wanted to throw his laptop across the room. When he set out to monitor the activity at the house, he thought it would give him some semblance of control, but this was maddening. What he really wanted was to be in the room with them. If they would only ask him the right questions, he could set them straight.

Susan and Hathaway? The thought made him physically ill. It was also ridiculous. Susan was too blinded by her devotion to that abominable Keith Ratner to notice anyone else.

And the idea that Susan had been the one to develop REACH? The technology that had launched REACH wasn’t Susan’s idea; it wasn’t even Dwight’s-not really. As Hathaway had pointed out, he and Dwight were two halves of a whole. On his own, Dwight might never have conceived such a grand idea. But without Dwight’s programming talent, Hathaway might have gotten bogged down and someone else would have caught up and surpassed him before REACH was off the ground.

It had nothing to do with Susan.

He wanted Susan’s murder solved, but now the people at Under Suspicion were on the completely wrong track, and he couldn’t correct their misconceptions without revealing the fact that he was monitoring their conversations. He was stuck. All he could do was watch and listen and hope. Oh, Susan, he thought wistfully.

He switched his screen over to the We Dive SoCal website. He hoped someone might have tips about new sites for him to explore while he was in Los Angeles, but it looked like he was going to stick with his usual dives: Farnsworth Bank, on the windward side of Catalina, and the oil rigs off of Long Beach.

It was probably good he’d completed these tens of times before. Dwight was at his best when he kept a routine. Eight A.M. wake-up. Coffee. Three-mile jog. Cereal with fruit. Work. The occasional dinner with Hathaway. Reading. Sleep. Repeat.

Ever since Nicole had appeared at REACH with the news that Under Suspicion would be featuring Susan’s case, that routine had been disrupted. Once he found out who killed Susan, his life could return to normal.

And in the meantime, he needed a reprieve in the water. Just three more days before he could dive.