“I miss you so much, Jack. I don’t blame you for not wanting to get involved after Patrick died. I understand now. I understand the terrible hurt you must have gone through. I know you felt guilty. I don’t blame you at all. When Patrick died . . . I know part of you died. I tried to reach out to you. But you had retreated into yourself. I can see that now. I was harsh on you. I did blame you. I was wrong. I don’t blame you. I only loved two people in my life. You and Patrick. That’s all there ever was.”
Jack bowed his head and began to sob.
“I just wanted you to know that I’m very scared. I wish you were here with me. I wanted to talk to you about it. I just never got around to it. I was afraid if I called you, they would know. It would lead them to you. And I didn’t want that. But I just wanted you to know all of this in case something happens to me. Until we meet again, Jack. Love you.”
Then the screen went blank.
Fifteen
McNeal gripped the table, losing his grasp on reality. This was getting weirder and darker. The same thoughts had run through him five years ago. The night all the trouble began. Now this had opened up all the hurt and anger he had suppressed. He could feel it building. Slowly.
“You okay to do this?” Peter asked.
Jack grabbed them another couple of cold beers. “She wanted me to know what she knew. So, I need to see it.”
“I’m just trying to protect you. I don’t want you going off the rails.”
Jack took a long gulp of Schlitz. He wondered what the hell he was going to find on the goddamn CD. “Let’s do this.”
“You sure?”
“Do it.”
Peter handed the CD to Jack, who slid it into the side of the laptop. Dozens of Word documents appeared on the screen. He scanned the file names. He printed them all out. Together, Jack and his brother read the contents as the time ticked away.
Slowly a story fell into place . . .
Caroline had been privately investigating the death of a Washington, DC, socialite, Sophie Meyer, the daughter of a wealthy blue blood East Coast family. Meyer had died three years earlier. Found by her cleaner at her DC home, sprawled on the floor of her bedroom, pills strewn over her body.
Jack googled the name Sophie Meyer and countless articles appeared. It showed her at museum openings, Vanity Fair parties, the Met Gala, White House parties, film premieres—anywhere people with money and influence gathered. He didn’t see any pictures of her with her husband, Henry Graff. None at all.
Meyer partying in DC, New York, London, the Hamptons, Milan, the Bahamas, Hong Kong, and everywhere in between. You throw a glamorous party, and she would be there. Dressed impeccably. Powerful connections. Her grandfather had been good friends with a Rockefeller. Her father was one of America’s first billionaires.
“Am I reading this right?” Peter asked. “Maybe I’m fucked up by all this. But this Sophie Meyer woman was found dead of an overdose at her home in Washington, DC, and Caroline is found floating in the Potomac, also in DC? Two separate women? And your late wife was investigating this woman’s death? That’s a red flag if ever there was one.”
Jack scrolled to the next article. “The official version says Sophie Meyer was manically depressed; was addicted to cocaine, amphetamines, barbiturates; had a complicated social life; and had sleeping pills and four other drugs in her system when she died.”
Jack considered. He wondered out loud what the chances were that the woman investigating another woman’s suspicious death would wind up dead too, in suspicious circumstances. The same city. But this was about way more than probability. It was about what Sophie Meyer knew and about what Caroline McNeal knew.
Peter shook his head. “It’s bullshit, Jack. I’m calling it the way I see it.”
“I don’t know.” Jack closed the files. He stared at the screen. He scanned the files before realizing there was one more he hadn’t seen. It was called Encrypted for JM. He clicked it, and the computer prompted him for a six-digit code.
“What the hell is it?” Peter said. “Damn. A fucking code. I can never remember my passwords and goddamn codes.”
Jack held up his hand to calm down his brother. “Let’s work this out. Let’s take our time. Caroline downloaded this to a CD, along with all the other documents about Sophie Meyer.”
“Is it her date of birth?”
Jack tried that, but it came back Password incorrect.
“Damn.”
Jack’s mind was racing. “Hang on, in the video. What was the thing that stuck in my head?” He clicked his fingers, trying to remember. “Yeah. ‘The day I married you.’ That’s what she said.”