He’d be so proud of her! She had tested telling him, just bringing up the idea of sending Cate another recording. But he’d been firmly against it. Wait it out, he’d said again, and had looked so tired and sad. Once she’d done what needed to be done, once they locked Dupont in a cell, where she belonged, she’d tell him everything. And she’d double her efforts for that early release. She’d demand one. She knew the Sullivan estate well enough. How foolish of the rich and famous to allow photographers into their homes, or stories to be written about them. And she could study aerial views on the internet to her heart’s content. She knew enough to understand the security—gates, cameras—the positioning of the guest cottage, and its famed wall of glass facing the sea. Despite the cameras, she’d considered getting a boat, trying to get to the peninsula under the cover of night. But she didn’t know how to handle a boat, and she’d certainly set off alarms. She didn’t have enough time to learn how to bypass alarms like they did in the movies. She considered killing one of the staff, and going in their place. But the cameras would spot her, and she didn’t have the code for the gate security. She could force one of the staff to take her through. But the cameras would see two people. Unless she hid in the back seat, with her gun pressed to the back of the seat. But then what would she do with the driver? Couldn’t kill him or her right there, couldn’t let the person go. Then, after reading an article in the Monterey County Weekly highlighting staff of prominent residents of Big Sur, she saw the way. One Lynn Arlow—part-time maid at Sullivan’s Rest—had several quotes in the airy, soft news piece. Buried in the fluffy, Jessica found a few key pieces of information. To help put herself through college (online courses), Arlow worked three and a half days a week at the estate. The article helpfully added Arlow rented a house with three other women in Monterey. A little more research, and Jessica had Arlow’s address. Risky, of course, it would be risky, but Grant was worth any risk. She practiced, researched, studied, timed, traveled for on-site surveillance. She ran through every aspect she could think of, then ran through it again. As the first hints of fall freshened the air, she drove from San Francisco to Monterey, timing her arrival to the early hours of the morning. She parked in a public lot and in the dark, walked the seven blocks to the little house Lynn Arlow shared with her sister, a cousin, and a friend. Picking the trunk lock on the old Volvo posed no real challenge, since she’d practiced religiously. Armed with a penlight and a .32 Smith & Wesson, she climbed into the trunk. To hold off quick panic, she concentrated on the glow of the internal trunk release. Before researching she hadn’t known that safety feature existed—standard for nearly two decades. For comfort, she put her hand on it, but resisted the urge to yank it. She couldn’t smother, she reminded herself. Plenty of air. She had that glow, and her penlight. True, she didn’t like small, dark places, but she could stand it. She would stand it thinking about all the years Grant had survived in prison because of Charlotte Dupont. Closing her eyes, she concentrated on slowing down her rapid breathing. She imagined walking on a beach in Hawaii with Grant, imagined him taking her into his arms under the moonlight with palm trees swaying. Imagined them making love, at last, for the first time. With a smile on her face, she drifted off. She woke with a jolt when the car bumped over a pothole. Panicking in the dark, she forgot where she was, what she meant to do, and for one horrible moment thought herself trapped in some sort of moving coffin. When she remembered, her shaking hand dug for her penlight. In that little beam, she gasped for air, and calm. All at once, it fell over her, the insanity of what she meant to do. The average, ordinary rule follower she’d been reared up inside her and wanted to scream. She had to get out, get out and run, go back to her quiet, solitary life. The idea of being alone again, being nothing again, having no one again, stopped her as she started to yank the release. She could never go back now, never go back to the quiet and solitary. She’d already killed, and knew how it felt—thrilling—to take a life. For love, but for justice, too. And still Charlotte Dupont, the true villain, hadn’t paid the price. She had to see it through. No matter how frightening it all seemed now, she would see it through. Closing her eyes, she thought of Grant. The image of the love, the pride, the gratitude she’d see on his face when she told him steadied and strengthened her. She was someone to write books about now, she reminded herself. And it was time for the next chapter.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE