The False Mirror Page 12

  The forbidden fruit.

  “That was my mother’s favorite painting,” she heard Becky’s voice behind her. “She called it her little Garden of Eden. When I was young, I just called it ‘my garden’.” The nostalgic smile of a childhood memory appeared on her face but was quickly replaced by tears.

  “I can’t believe she’s really gone,” she sobbed. “Why did all this happen to us? We were so happy. . .” her voice trailed off.

  Sharon was gathering the girl into her arms, comforting her for a long time, when they suddenly heard a loud voice rising from the kitchen:

  “Eureka!”

  CHAPTER 38

  Max was still suspicious about the improvement in his treatment. He had managed to extract from Richie that the stolen money was supposed to be returned to Helborgen’s greedy hands very soon – in exchange for his life. Max himself didn’t know where the money was or if it even still existed.

  While he had been working as the accountant of Nick Helborgen’s empire, he had let his greed get a hold of him one too many times. Old Helborgen used to call him “The Houdini of finance” and justified this forced nickname by saying that “These fucking Jews just know their way around money. It’s probably in their greedy genes.”

  Apparently, the racist apple didn’t fall too far from the tree.

  Well, in that case, Nick had been right. Max definitely knew how to work his magic with finances. He had also managed, more than once, to treat himself to a fat secret bonus while submitting a false tax report or laundering money. His system had worked like a well-oiled machine.

  And then he got caught by the Feds.

  He had faced two options: eight years in prison or testifying against Nick and turning a new leaf. This time he chose to do things the right way and to be a good father to his son. Max supplied the FBI with all the ammo he had against old Helborgen but omitted the small fortune he had managed to steal out from under his nose. That was his insurance policy in case something went wrong, for Emily and Brandon.

  After the trial, Nick Helborgen was sent to prison, and Ray took his uncle’s place as head of the biggest crime organization in the state of New York. He’d been assigned the responsibly of bringing back the lost honor of the Helborgen name and had dedicated his life to it. The Webbers, on the other hand, had been forced to give up their name and legacy to get a chance at a new life.

  They had sacrificed everything to turn a new leaf, thousands of miles away from their old home. The Webbers had ceased to exist; out of their ashes had risen a new family. When Becky was born, the “Mitchells” had already been living peacefully in Fairland for three years. She had never known anything else – the life she was supposed to live had been taken away from her even before she was born.

  His daughter didn’t even know she was Jewish, Max thought sadly. Sometimes, he used to tell himself that he was protecting her, saving her from the racism directed toward the Jews. In New York, the Jewish lobby might have been influential and powerful, but Fairland was no New York. Max and Emily weren’t religious. They didn’t speak Hebrew, didn’t keep the Sabbath, and were addicted to fried shrimp. Emily’s mother, on the other hand, was an active and prominent member of the Jewish community in Brooklyn. They used to celebrate all the holidays with her, out of respect, and tried to spare her from their shared love for seafood. Nevertheless, when they sat with her at the dinner table every Friday night, passing the wine glass between them and wishing each other “Shabbat Shalom” –“Good Sabbath” – they knew they couldn’t raise their kids in any other way. Judaism symbolized something greater than faith; it was family in its purest form.

  And then this family had been severed from that world.

  After they had left New York, Emily couldn’t bear the burden of religion; it reminded her too much of her mother and of what she had lost. Rebecca was the one who had given meaning to their Judaism, filling it with vibrancy and life. Without her, their faith was left hollow – and that emptiness was unbearable for Emily.

  Max and Emily thought that if they abandoned their religion, it would be easier for them to forget the life they once had. In hindsight, he realized how wrong they had been. Toward the end of his life, now closer than ever, he found salvation in his former religion.

  After moving to Fairland, Max told his wife about the enormous amount of money he had kept from the eyes of both the mobsters and the Feds. Emily was furious and demanded that he return the money. He could talk to their marshal, Jacob, to take care of it. She didn’t want anybody to have a reason to go after them – and now, suddenly, there were two million reasons.

  Max had explained to her that an admission of guilt would force the authorities to bring him to trial and probably send him to prison, under his true identity – which, in fact, would be a death sentence. At that point, they couldn’t have done anything. They couldn’t tell anybody. It was too late.

  Max knew he had hurt Emily once more. It hadn’t been enough that he’d forced her to relinquish her bright future as one of the most important artists of the twenty-first century, separate from her family forever, and forsake her religion, but now he was posing an impossible dilemma: turn her back on her integrity or her husband. Emily chose him, and as a token of eternal gratitude, he had decided to put his fate and fortune in her hands – a fate of two-million-dollars, to be exact. If he disappointed her again, she could take him down. If he betrayed her faith once more, she could take the kids and run. If his greedy habits ever took over, he would be left alone and helpless.

  Ever since he had entrusted the money to Emily, he’d never heard about it again. His inquisitive nature had led him to look for clues, between the bank savings to anonymous donations, but he hadn’t found a thing. They kept living in the same house found for them by the Witness Protection Program; he’d never noticed any expensive or suspicious acquisitions; Emily had never suggested going on extravagant vacations. Sometimes he had wondered if she’d ever done anything with the money or perhaps she just buried it in the backyard.

  So what chance did his sixteen-year-old daughter – who hadn’t even known her real name up until a few days ago – have of finding it? Max heaved a deep sigh of despair. If he could have warned Becky, he would have told her to take the money and run without looking back. He didn’t believe Helborgen would let them live; once he got what he wanted, he and his daughter would be disposable.

  Worse, their mere existence would be intolerable. And then, he would put them and this whole affair to an end.

  CHAPTER 39

  September 18, 2013. Fairland, Oklahoma

  “Eureka!”

  Sharon and Becky ran toward the kitchen and found Jacob wiping his floury hands with the hem of his shirt. On the counter stood a huge tin box filled with flour and next to it a stack of bills, pale from the white powder stuck to it.

  “There are at least ten thousand dollars here. We need to take out all the flour and see how much more is here,” said Jacob.

  Becky was stunned. For years, she had passed the big tinplate box, hidden at the back of the pantry, and hadn’t suspected a thing. In the front cabinet, above the counter, stood a glass jar with flour that her mother used in her daily routine. Becky assumed that when the jar was empty, her mother refilled it with the flour from the tin box at the pantry. She had never dedicated much thought to it. Why should she?

  Jacob lifted the heavy box, “Here goes nothing.”

  The white granules began filling the sink. Sharon and Becky watched the flour fall, trying to spot other things that might fall with it – perhaps a two-million-dollar bond?

  Sharon noticed three more piles of bills peeking out in the flour waterfall, but other than that, there was nothing else.

  “Dammit,” called Jacob.

  “Damn it,” sighed Sharon.

  Forty thousand dollars is quite a lot of money, but it’s nowhere close to two million.

  Sharon was sitting on the sofa in Jacob’s apartment. Leaning back, her head was supp
orted by the padded backrest while her feet were tapping at a steady pace on the coffee table. She was alone; Jacob and Becky had gone to visit Brandon in the hospital. His condition hadn’t changed in the last few days, and he was still in a coma – but it was important to Becky, as well as Jacob, to take advantage of the opportunity to see him.

  Sharon’s forehead wrinkled in disappointment when she revisited the events of the day: the three of them had continued in their search in hopes of finding additional hiding places – besides innocent-looking tin cans – but their efforts yielded nothing. There was no trace of the rest of the money. Could it be that the Mitchells had spent it all, and those four piles of bills were all that remained? Jacob doubted it, not only because he had monitored the family’s financial movements over the years, but also based on his acquaintance with Emily.

  “If the money had been in Max’s hands it would be one thing, but Emily would never have just spent it without some sort of plan. An anonymous donation to a museum, that’s more like it,” Jacob’s voice played in Sharon’s head.

  She retraced her steps from the moment she entered the house. Perhaps there was some hidden corner she had missed? Maybe she had messed up and unknowingly skipped the key to solving the mystery?

  No, it couldn’t be. She had surveyed this house from top to bottom, and so had Jacob and Becky. If the money were there, they would have found it. It was a rather typical suburban home, well maintained but not extravagant. Sharon hadn’t noticed any luxurious, high-end furniture or anything remarkable in the contents of the house that would suggest that its inhabitants had two million dollars lying around or in the bank. There were no secret rooms or mysterious vaults behind the pictures on the walls, no haute couture in the closets – on the contrary, most of the clothes were purchased at local chains – and the jewelry’s worth didn’t come close to the astronomical amount. In fact, she had to admit, this house seemed as ordinary and mundane as any other.

  So, what the hell was she going to tell Helborgen?

  Sharon felt her head was about to explode. She needed a distraction. And what better way than to start working on the high-profile murder case she’d left behind in New York?

  Her inbox showed a new email from Marnie Abbott, one of the newbies Sharon had recruited to work on the case while she was away. Marnie wrote that, when speaking with the deceased’s best friend, it had been revealed that Tracy was in love with one of her clients.

  Okay, thought Sharon, that was something new, all right: the call girl who had exploited her clients’ privacy in cold-hearted greed had a warm spot in her heart.

  Although Tracy had never revealed his name, it was implied that he was very well known. Unlike the way she had treated her other famous clients, however, she had refused to volunteer even the slightest detail about him. She’d explained to her friend that she didn’t want to jeopardize his career – she must have really cared about him.

  Could it be that this mysterious client was in fact Mr. X, Sharon wondered? She kept reading and learned that a few weeks ago, Tracy had told her friend that this secret client was about to leave his wife for her. Furthermore, she had excitedly revealed that they were planning to elope to Las Vegas. Sharon pondered if this plan had suited Tracy’s mysterious client; it sounded like he had had a lot to lose.

  Great, another nameless, potential suspect.

  The strange thing was that Tracy had made her friend swear not to share this news with anyone. And coming from the tabloid queen, it couldn’t be taken lightly.

  Sharon stretched her arms over her head and moved her neck in a circular motion. So, what did she have so far? A disconnected phone number of the alleged Mr. X and a dubious story about a secret fiancé – a story with questionable credibility, which, at this moment in time, was just hearsay. It wasn’t even clear if this was the same person, but something signaled to Sharon that it probably was.

  And it still wasn’t helping her get any closer to finding him.

  She decided to review Tracy’s Facebook and Instagram accounts in greater detail. She was quite convinced that her rookies had already done so, but, frankly, after the long day she’d had, she couldn’t deal with anything else.

  Her fingers slid along the touch screen, scrolling through the hundreds of photos Tracy had uploaded to her Facebook profile. Sharon read every infantile post written by Tracy and even looked for suspicious friends and followers with names beginning with the letter X, but to no avail. When she started going through the deceased’s Instagram account, her expectations were lower than ever.

  And then, she stopped. She thought she might have found something.

  In one of the photos Tracy had posted on her Instagram last month, she commented:

  Thank you, Xoxo!

  This might have been a standard abbreviation for hugs and kisses, but Tracy had no reason to capitalize the first X – unless she meant to imply a name.

  The photo showed a golden necklace inlaid with three beautiful diamonds, but what really caught her eye was the familiar and distinctive turquoise gift box it came in.

  “Gotcha,” she exclaimed to herself.

  CHAPTER 40

  September 18, 2013. Fairland, Oklahoma

  Sharon didn’t waste any time. She immediately called Rob and updated him with him the good news: they finally had a lead on the identity of Tracy's possible killer. All they had to do was simply present Tiffany & Co with a court order, instructing the famous jewelry chain to release the list of purchases matching Tracy’s necklace from the last three months. That’s all.

  The detective instantly recognized the distinct shade of turquoise that had become the trademark of the prestigious brand. After all, her favorite movie was Breakfast at Tiffany’s, she smiled to herself. She prayed that Tracy’s secret admirer had paid in a traceable manner such as credit card or check – anything but cash.

  With her luck, of course, it would be cash.

  On the other hand, this necklace must have cost thousands of dollars – a pretty large sum to be carrying around in one’s wallet – so there was still some chance. Perhaps it was possible that by the time she got back to New York, she would have the real name of this mysterious Mr. X.

  The ring of her cell phone broke her train of thought. The screen showed Chris’s name.

  “I’m so glad you called,” answered Sharon, sensing how the corners of her mouth curled upwards into a wide smile.

  “So, I’m not interrupting you and the marshal while you’re saving the world?” He might have been joking, but Sharon could detect a slight note of jealousy in his voice.

  “The marshal and his niece are out on errands; I’m all alone now.”

  “Let me guess, you’re working on the Tracy Navarro case?”

  “You know me so well . . .”

  “Even when you’re thousands of miles from home, you still can’t get New York out of your head, huh?”

  “That’s my city,” she replied proudly.

  “Carrie Bradshaw, NYPD style.”

  Sharon laughed until her voice trailed away. “I miss you.”

  “I miss you, too.” His words were muffled by the sound of a key in the lock. Sharon’s eyes targeted the door.

  “I should go. I’ll call you later.”

  “Your marshal is back?”

  “The marshal and his niece are back.” She wanted to make that clear.

  “Well, okay,” he said resignedly. “Good night, Bradshaw.”

  Sharon bit her lips to keep from smiling. “Goodnight, Mr. Big.”

  Jacob closed the door behind him. “Mr. Big?” he asked.

  Sharon let out a coy smile and kept quiet. Suddenly she noticed that Jacob was standing alone. “Where’s Becky?” she asked, craning her neck to look behind his shoulder.

  “Oh, she is staying over at Justin’s.” He looked away with evident discomfort.

  Sharon felt the warmth of a blush climbing up her cheeks but quickly pulled herself together, “Did hell freeze over, and I wa
sn’t told? I was getting the impression that you’re more of the overprotective type.” She sent him a teasing grin.

  “She’s a teenager in love; I didn’t stand a chance.” This time Jacob looked straight at her and immediately smiled, “Besides, she made sure to remind me that this apartment is barely big enough for one person, let alone three.” He detached his gaze and walked over to the kitchen. “Coffee?”

  “I have never turned down a good cup of coffee, and I sure ain’t gonna start now.”

  ***

  Sharon was lying on the loveseat in Jacob’s apartment, staring at the celling. She couldn’t sleep even though it was already past three in the morning. She hoped that all the wine she’d drunk would help her, but apparently her conscience had other plans.

  But nothing happened, Sharon repeated to herself. Unfortunately, as the brilliant detective she was, she knew too damn well how to read between the lines.

  After the first cup of coffee, the two decided to have a soothing glass of wine before going to sleep. Somehow, between one sip and another, they finished the entire bottle. Their conversation, which had started out as a professional discussion of their progress regarding the mobster Ray Helborgen, turned personal rather quickly and continued into the wee hours of the morning.

  They were already sitting within inches of each other when suddenly Jacob said, “Sharon Davis, I swear, you are the most beautiful cop I’ve ever seen.”

  Sharon pierced him with her turquoise eyes, “Thanks, but I believe that’s the wine speaking, not you.”

  “Not at all. I have thought so from the moment you pointed your gun at me, or to be exact, right after you read off your badge number, and I realized you weren’t a hitman for the Mafia.” He chuckled awkwardly and shrugged.

  Sharon felt her cheeks blazing. She combed her fingers through her long hair and a few strands fell, like a golden waterfall, covering her eyes.