Queen of Lies (Empire of Lies 2)

“Hey there, Mike.” Her aunt says, giving me a weak smile. “You did say that I can call you, Mike, right?”

“Michael will suffice.”

“Sorry.” She presses the handkerchief to her own eyes. “Mr. Thatchwood and I were just talking about you.”

“I bet.” I look at her father. “I noticed a commercial from your campaign on TV yesterday…I could’ve sworn Meredith said that you’d dropped out of the race.”

“Well, that was before all of this,” he says. “I decided to stay in to give me something to keep me going, you know?” He lowers his voice. “I’m up in the polls due to people giving me the sympathy vote, so it’s nice that something good will come from this tragedy, right?”

I don’t answer that.

“If you’re ever in need of any investors for your little nightclub, I’d be happy to reach out to some of my top donors and let them know,” he says. “Family has to stick together in these tough times.”

My “little nightclub” brings in millions of dollars every weekend. I resist the urge to roll my eyes. “I’d like you to stop listing her last name as Thatchwood when it’s Anderson. That’s what you can do for me.”

“The press responds better when it’s a known name.” He looks genuine. “I mean, everyone in New York has run across something I own or branded at some point in their lifetime. You only own one club, you know?”

I almost tell him that half of the businesses that he thinks he owns are indirectly tied to me and my brother, but I hold back and say nothing.

Sergeant Ware returns to the room seconds later, armed with a thin manila folder. Avoiding eye contact with us, he takes a seat.

“Last night, my team followed up on a certain bit of evidence,” he says, pulling out pictures of an open trunk. “As you know, strands of hair and blood were found in the back of an abandoned Honda eighty miles outside of the city.”

I still can’t believe it took them this long to find this shit. I parked that car there a month ago.

“We rushed everything to the lab to test it and um…” He swallowed. “It’s a definite match for Meredith’s DNA.”

Her father sucks in a few breaths as if he’s about to have a panic attack, and her aunt starts to cry like the world is ending.

There are no tears falling from her eyes.

“We’re having our crime scene unit run tests on the entire vehicle to see if we can find some fingerprints to run through the system, and the blood we found isn’t enough for alarm yet. There’s still hope we’ll find her alive. We also know that whoever has done this, isn’t as smart as we are, and they probably left something behind.”

I didn’t. I’ve never left anything behind at a staged scene, and at the rate that their investigation is going, I’m twenty years ahead, and I won’t be able to take Meredith to stage two of my plan for another two months.

“Do any of you know if she had any friends in Connecticut?” he asks. “The backseat was littered with Burger King receipts from there.”

I mentally vanish from this conversation and put on my best “utterly devastated and at a loss for words” face. Me coming here is officially a waste of my time, and I decide to call in another tip to The New York Times tonight to accelerate this sloppy, half-assed investigation.

When the sergeant’s lips finally stop moving, he stands up from his seat. “I’ll leave you three alone. If you have any concerns or other questions, I’ll be right across from you in my office.”

For several seconds, neither of us says a word. I look at my watch and try to think of an excuse to leave, but her father beats me to it.

“I’m sorry for your loss, Michael,” he says, reaching over and grabbing my hand. “So very sorry.”

What the fuck? “Meredith hasn’t been confirmed dead. She’s still missing.”

“Yes, well…” He shakes his head. “I’m holding out as much hope as I can, but I’ve always been a bit of a pessimist, I’m afraid.”

“It’s true,” her aunt chimes in. “I’m the one who is trying to keep the hope alive.”

“She really loved you, you know?” He smiled. “Even though we were just now getting closer, you were the first thing she brought up every day we met. With any luck, they’ll find her—dead or alive, I just want closure.”

“I’m sure you do…” I can’t hold a straight face anymore, so I stand to my feet. “Can you two excuse me? I have somewhere I need to be.”

“Absolutely,” they say in unison, and I get the hell out of there.

The moment I make it to the parking lot, I pull out my phone and check on Meredith. She’s no longer in the living room, and all of the other cameras are showing an empty house.