Page 51 of Her Dark Lies
THURSDAY
“Though she be but little, she is fierce.”
—William Shakespeare,A Midsummer Night’s Dream
31
Hide and Seek
Karmen rubs her eyes and leans back in her chair. She’s been up all night chasing down the identity of the man who broke into Claire and Jack’s house in Nashville. The fake ID—for it was a fake ID, of that she’s now certain—wasn’t well backstopped. Amateur hour. A case of identity theft and good papers, good enough to get a credit card, a driver’s license, and a rental car, but that was about it. The Nashville police will be responsible for investigating further, though this sort of identity theft, alongside personal property crimes, aren’t exactly lighting fires under the boys and girls in blue these days.
The deceased’s fingerprints, though, are something else entirely. The Nashville police finally made their match official and sent along the files at three in the morning. The man cooling in the Forensic Medical morgue drawer in Nashville is named Shane McGowan.
And Claire Hunter knows him. Intimately.
McGowan came up in Karmen’s exceedingly thorough background check of Claire, the first thing she’d done when Jackson made it clear he was seriously considering marrying the girl. In her report, the family had been warned—Claire dated a boy in high school who went on to land himself in jail on several occasions, finally taking up residence in San Quentin. Though it could be an embarrassing media story should it get out the wrong way, it was deemed a nonissue. Claire couldn’t be held accountable for bad judgment as a fifteen-year-old, and McGowan wasn’t set for parole for another ten years. A crisis management plan was attached to the file in case of problems surfacing down the road, and the file archived. They’d cross the bridge of Shane McGowan when—if—he got parole, or the media found the connection and chose to make something of it. Karmen was good at her job, though. She could usually make these sorts of spurious stories go away.
But... McGowan got bumped up the ladder when the state of California early released a bevy of nonviolent drug offenders, and Karmen had missed it.
That wasn’t a firing offense. That he’d made his way to Nashville, somehow managed to bypass Compton Security, enter the home of a family member, and nearly kill them?
Karmen might as well prepare her resignation, because when she tells Ana and Brice Compton about her little fuckup, she’s going to be kicked out the door without a second thought. Unless she can find the truth, and fast.
They’re lucky McGowan is dead, lucky Malcolm is willingly taking the fall. This is Malcolm and Gideon’s purview, after all, personal protection of Jackson Compton. The Nashville police have been handled—the ex-lover getting out of jail and making a visit to right old wrongs theory held water for them. There was a threat, it was neutralized in standard operating procedure, and the police won’t dig any deeper into who pulled the trigger.
Assuming video doesn’t surface. The cameras planted in the house create their own problem. Who is behind this? McGowan? Someone else? Does video or still shots exist of Monday night? And if the answer is yes, what do they show? Are they damaging?
Karmen doesn’t know how she’s going to manage that part yet. She still has to talk with Claire, tell her the identity of the intruder.
Tell the girl who she killed.
Karmen’s office in the Villa is equipped with a small kitchen. She slices an apple, gets a glass of water. The big brunch for the wedding guests is today; she will not be there. Which is fine. She doesn’t expect to be a part of the family. She’s responsible for protecting them. Protecting Brice, primarily, though her personal protection days are over. Now she runs everything security related, and it will be her head on a spike if this isn’t handled perfectly.
Sustenance onboarded, she sits back at the desktop and starts pulling the video files of the people she interviewed when she did Claire’s background check.
She clicks on the files, one after another, looking for the interview that mentions Claire’s troubled past. The file she’s looking for is labeled K_Elderfield. She’d hit the mother lode with Claire’s best friend, Katie Elderfield. None of the other interviewees revealed much, but Katie was a treasure trove.
Karmen pulls the transcript of the interview, too. She reads along as she listens, highlighting the relevant sections. She speeds through the interview to the spot she wants and hits play.
Elderfield:Her dad, Dr. Hunter, was a pediatrician, a nice guy, too. We all went to him as kids. I used to love doctor’s appointments, no matter how wretched I felt. He had superhero Band-Aids and lollipop rings and his sweet nurses called me honey and darlin’. When I had a sore throat, he sanctioned ice cream in bed, and when I needed a shot, he’d put an ice cube against my skin first so I wouldn’t feel the needle. When it was clear I wasn’t going to be the tallest girl in my class, he tweaked my nose and told me all the best things come in little packages. And then he insisted my parents enroll me in martial arts so I could always defend myself. He thought it was too easy for smaller women to become victims of violent crimes. He convinced them I needed to be able to fight off an attacker.
Harris:That comes in handy. I took martial arts, too.
Elderfield:And you’re even shorter than me. [Laughs] I assume you already know about the scandal?
Harris:Why don’t we pretend I don’t know anything.
Elderfield:This is all private, right?
Harris:Absolutely. For my eyes and ears only, assuming there’s nothing we need to explore further. I can’t imagine there is. Claire seems like a very nice girl.
Elderfield:She is. She’s a good girl. Always has been. Well, except for that little while... Claire’s mother—she drank a lot, by the way—was having an affair with one of the English teachers, Mr. Henry. I don’t know how it got out, but it did, and the Hunters got into a messy, nasty custody case. It felt like everyone in Nashville knew about it. It was so public, like, inthe Tennesseanpublic. I always felt so bad for them.
Harris:Sounds hard.
Elderfield:Totally. Before the divorce, Claire was larger than life. She was a smart girl, and a damn good artist, too. She could draw, paint, sculpt, the works. It was a no-brainer that she’d end up a professional artist of some kind. She had that tortured creative streak running through her, carried around Camus like he was a god, quoted Nietzsche and Kierkegaard, dragged everyone who would go to a Virginia Woolf play at the Belcourt Theater one year, and to the Frist for the modern art exhibits. She liked all that stuff. She painted this massive, throw-paint-at-the-canvas Jackson Pollock–esque piece for the talent show one year—live, on stage, in front of the whole school. She was a rising star, the darling of all the teachers.
Harris:That’s pretty cool. She sounds like a fun friend.
