Daniel patted her arm. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Markham, but we have to hurry, and only you can help us. You have to tell us the rest.”
Cam ran to the en suite marble bathroom and came back with a glass of water. “It’s okay; you’re okay. Drink this.”
She slowly sipped the water, pulled herself together. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it was so horrible.” She looked up at Cam. “That man didn’t say anything else, only checked to see I was tied tightly. He grabbed my chin and held me still and I’ll never forget what he said, never. ‘I’ll bet you were once as pretty as all the women your husband sleeps with. And now you know he’s as much of a monster as you think I am. He admitted to you that he murdered the woman I loved and I’m going to see he pays for it.’ Then he struck me on the head and I felt my skin split open.” She touched her fingers to the wound. “I never passed out, though. I saw him look down at Theo and kick him again. He looked back at me and laughed. He sounded pleased, happy. ‘You’re far better off without this bastard. Consider it my present to you, that and your life.’
“He never said another word, dragged Theo to the door, and turned off the light. I heard him dragging Theo down the hall, heard him bumping down the stairs, the front door opened, then banged closed.”
“Do you own a third car, besides a Mercedes and a BMW?”
“Wha-what? Yes, a Lexus SUV.”
“Describe it, quickly, Mrs. Markham.”
“It’s white, last year’s model, an LX 750.”
Cam said, “Where can I find the license number?”
“It’s my car and it’s a vanity plate. HOLLY 7.”
Cam called it in.
Daniel said, “Mrs. Markham, did the man say anything about where he was taking your husband?”
She started to shake her head. “Wait—after he hit me on the head I was really woozy, but I remember how he whispered something to Theo, even though I don’t think he could hear him. He whispered something about how he was going to make him suffer where he’d suffered and then settling with him. Something like that.” She closed her eyes tightly, as if it would blot out the words.
Cam heard ambulance sirens, not much time now. She hated to upset Mrs. Markham more, but she had to ask. “Did you know before he told you that your husband had been sleeping with young actresses?”
Mrs. Markham’s shoulders straightened, her chin went up, and she looked Cam full in the face. “Of course I knew. How do you think I got him away from his first wife? I knew what he was, and I really didn’t care, didn’t worry about any of them, until this year, until Connie Morrissey.”
“Why her?”
“Because I knew he put her in his house in the Colony, in Malibu. The way he sometimes said her name, I knew he loved her, because he’d loved me like that once. He changed after she was murdered, he was never himself again. He sold that house in the Colony he loved so much because he couldn’t bear to keep the place where she’d died.” She looked at them, and now tears spilled. “Did he really kill Deborah Connelly? Or did he just say it because he had to?”
“We’ll find out, Mrs. Markham,” Daniel said. “Do you think he took Theo back to Connie’s house in the Colony?”
“No, I don’t think so. Theo doesn’t even have a key anymore. Why would that man take Theo there?”
Cam said slowly, “He wants to make him suffer where he’s suffered. Daniel, and that means he took him to where Deborah died.”
Mrs. Markham ran her tongue over her lips. “Do you think Theo killed Deborah Connelly?”
Yes, of course he did. But to Mrs. Markham Daniel said, “We’re going to find out.”
66
* * *
Daniel passed everything ahead of them driving south on PCH back to Santa Monica, though there was little traffic this time of night. The ocean flew by on Cam’s right as Daniel’s Crown Vic shimmied at a hundred miles an hour past the last of the rugged cliff walls. It was warm, a perfect night, really, but Cam was too revved to pay much attention. She didn’t tell Daniel to slow down. She knew she’d be driving just as fast.
She saw an SUV turning onto the highway from a driveway, managed to swallow a shout of warning as Daniel jerked the Crown Vic sharply right, spinning out onto the gravel and nearly sending them airborne, a dozen feet down to the beach below. He managed to ease the car to a stop and steer back onto the road, hugging the center stripe. Cam looked back to see the SUV stopped dead in the middle of PCH, probably too scared to move. “Well done, Mario.”
He nodded, his hands white from gripping the steering wheel. He sped up, not quite hitting a hundred miles per hour again, but he came close.
“Do you think Markham killed Deborah, Daniel?”
“I think he’d have confessed to murdering his own mother with Doc holding a gun to his head, but yes, it makes sense he murdered her. Do you have doubts?”
“No, not really,” Cam said. “What really makes me mad is that Doc used us, pretended to help so he could find out what we knew, who we were looking at. We told him about Markham and his P.I. and he figured the rest out. Markham took Deborah’s computer and cell phone—how would he know to do that? We never released that detail. Doc knew the killer had to be close to one of the victims, didn’t take him long to realize Markham knew he’d killed Connie. So he figured it had to be Markham who killed Deborah. It’s all about his revenge.
“The M.E. pointed out that Deborah’s murder might have been a copycat. I didn’t want to believe there were two killers, but Doc’s going after Markham proves there were.” Cam banged her fist on the dashboard. “I grieved for Doc, I felt sorry for him. Both of them were playing us.”
Daniel shot her a look. “You were right about one thing, though. Doc didn’t kill Deborah.”
“Some consolation.”
Daniel didn’t say anything.
“What are you thinking?”
He smoothly executed a curve, then said, “I really don’t care if Doc kills Markham. They’re both monsters.” He drew a deep breath. “But it’s Doc I want, Cam. I want to make him pay, for the rest of his miserable life.”
Cam said slowly, “Because he was going to murder Missy.”
“If Blinker hadn’t been stalking her, freaked her out so much she wouldn’t have pulled up stakes and gone to Las Vegas—”