But if Andrew had been involved in murdering his parents, why show up at Grace’s office?
Atoner.
He’d come for the same reasons most conspirators spilclass="underline" racked with guilt, worried about his own skin, or both.
Or worried — no, terrified — because a new threat had arisen from his brother?
And if Roger Wetter Junior, a multiple murderer, had found out his weakling sib was planning to blab to a therapist, he’d be sure to act decisively.
By coming to Grace, Andrew had pasted a target on her back.
She forced herself to reel back the night she preferred to forget, reviewing the details of their time together in the Opus lounge. His story had been a mix of truth and lies.
Not Roger, but yes, an engineer.
Not from San Antonio. But, yes, in L.A. on business. But nothing to do with his work. His was the business of self-preservation.
Thinking herself the director, not an actor, Grace had bought every word.
Had he been that good? Or had she slipped too deep into her own screenplay? All those wonderful lies spun for countless men she’d lured into hunger for her.
She began crying. No sense trying to stop it.
When the tears dried up, she sat in her hotel room emitting dry-eyed growls that tapered to pathetic mewling. Hating her weakness, she slapped herself across the face twice and grew silent. A quickly gulped mini-bottle of vodka from her hotel mini-bar left her parched and hot and jumpy. She drained two bottles of water, deep-breathed for a long time, was finally able to return to her laptop.
More work to do. Three children of Arundel Roi had showed up that night at Stagecoach Ranch.
Chapter 33
Even before her fingers touched the keyboard, Grace had a good notion of what she’d learn about Howell and Ruthann McCoy of Bell Gardens.
Older couple victimized by a fake accident. Seven or fewer years ago, if some twisted reverse birth-order game was at play.
The prime scion of the Fortress Cult rewarding the people who’d taken in him and his siblings with slaughter for monetary gain.
But as the web kicked back an immediate response, Sophie Muller’s cool, erudite voice sounded in Grace’s head.
Ass u me.
Not seven years ago, ten.
Not California.
This obituary showed up in the Enid (Oklahoma) News & Eagle.
The bodies of three people, all believed to be members of a Waukomis family, were discovered this morning in the burned-out wreckage of a house on Reede Road. Preliminary examination indicates that the male and two females who perished were Howell McCoy, 48, his wife, Ruthann, 47, and their only child, a daughter, Samantha, 21. The possible use of an accelerant has led Waukomis PD to call in arson investigators from Enid.
All three victims were found in bed with no signs of a struggle. According to Waukomis investigators, the McCoys and their daughter were deaf, leading to the possibility that they slept through a break-in. The house’s location, on a four-acre lot in a secluded section of town, would shield criminal activity from casual view. A missing five-year-old Ford pickup points to robbery as a possible motive.
The McCoys moved to Oklahoma four years ago from California, settling on a property owned for three generations by Ruthann McCoy’s family. Neighbors report them as pleasant but loners, possibly due to their hearing impairment, with few social ties to the community. Neither the parents nor the daughter were employed and county records indicate that all three residents received disability benefits.
“This is terrifying,” said a neighbor. “Nothing like this happens here, we never even bother locking our doors.”
A follow-up article two weeks later confirmed the arson, with gasoline as the accelerant. The pickup was located a week after the fire, over six hundred miles away, near Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado.
Grace pulled up a map. From Waukomis to the park was a fairly straight westward trip, consistent with eventual return to California.
Samael — or, and Grace had to face it, possibly Samael and Typhon — setting out on a road trip for their first family slaughter?
County benefit checks put the lie to an inheritance motive. Why travel thousands of miles to immolate a shy, inoffensive poor family?
Three deaf people sleeping through a nighttime break-in.
Grace hadn’t picked up on Lily’s hearing impairment. She hadn’t paid much attention to the Roi kids, period.
Looking back, the little girl hadn’t uttered a word. But neither had Ty. The same went for lots of new arrivals at the ranch, children numbed by the foster process or stunned by unfamiliar surroundings.
Lily, hearing-impaired. Ty, choosing not to speak? Both driven to mute submission by their older brother?
The same subservience that had led them to keep silent about Bobby Canova?
A remorseless murderer by early adolescence, Samael/Roger had two decades to hone his craft. For whatever reason, Typhon/Andrew had finally decided to do something about it and had ended up stabbed to death.
She searched the Center Street address that Roger Wetter Junior had listed as his home. The building was the subject of a brief squib in a local paper, due to be revamped for a mixture of commercial and government uses funded in great part by federal grants.
An image search revealed a blocky, six-story structure that looked like an old factory. Nothing residential about it. One of those loft situations? Or had Roger simply lied and his home was somewhere else?
She ran another search on him, came up empty.
But andrew van cortlandt engineer pulled up five hits, all to Asian bridge and dam projects contracted to Schultz-McKiffen, an international construction firm. In each case, Andrew’s name came up as a side detaiclass="underline" He’d been part of a working team of nearly a hundred staffers, one of fourteen structural engineers.
No personal details, no photos. Schultz-McKiffen’s headquarters were in Washington, D.C., with satellite offices in London, Düsseldorf, and Singapore. One hit cited Andrew’s attendance at a meeting in Germany.
Officially living with his parents but a world traveler.
Grace endured more recall of every moment she’d spent with him. She had trouble recasting the earnest, troubled young man as a cold-blooded murderer, even working under the tutelage of his psychopath brother.
But anyone could be fooled and the facts told her not to trust her instincts: His sister had been burned alive a decade ago but he’d been allowed to live until days ago, suggesting some sort of favored status in his brother’s mind. The kind of privilege that came from co-conspiracy.
Using the Tenth Street address of the Van Cortlandts, she tried several real estate sites, found what she was looking for at the third.
The property had been sold for $2.7 million to a family trust representing the interests of William and Bridget Chung. William’s name popped up as president of an Internet start-up company in Venice.
Selling the homestead two years after his parents’ death, Andrew had cashed in big-time.
No reason for the Chungs to know anything about his motives for selling but maybe they — or someone in the neighborhood — would recall something Grace could use.
Tomorrow: Berkeley. Today: Keep it local.
Torrance to Santa Monica was a half-hour hop under ideal conditions. Nothing about L.A. was ideal anymore and it took Grace an hour and eighteen minutes to reach the two-story sage-green Craftsman where Andrew Van Cortlandt had spent his privileged adolescence.