Chapter 23

23

Colleen's surprise visitor was tallish and blonde and around fifty. Her salon-textured bob had platinum highlights and her middle-aged pear-like shape was expertly hidden in a well-tailored captain's blazer, silk blouse and linen pants. Even without the designer crocodile shoulder bag, everything about her—her hair, her natural yet glowed up makeup, her nails, the self-assured yet serene expression on her face—exuded wealth.

"Okay," Colleen said to her where she had sat her at the desk. "Go over it again a little slower this time, Ms. Cushing."

"Please call me Jodi," she said.

"Okay, Jodi, so you're the wife of the Beckford College president, Martin Cushing?"

"Yes," she said. "And you're here to find out about Olivia, right?"

"Yes, I am," Colleen said.

"And you work for the law firm Alston Brantwood?"

"That's right."

"They're good," Jodi Cushing said as if to herself. "National tier one. I looked them up. I need you to get me a meeting with your top people. Because I'm going to need help, a lot of legal help. Maybe a safe house. I will definitely need security."

Colleen felt the hair on the back of her neck go up.

"Whoa, slow down, Jodi. Why would you need security?"

Jodi's self-assured expression suddenly vanished. Her face went white as she stared down at the carpet. A moment later she lifted the shoulder bag into her lap and snapped open the Yves Saint Laurent logo clasp and produced an iPhone. When she handed it over, Colleen could see that a video was queued up on the screen. It was a grainy black-and-white video. The image showed the driveway of a house. The date line in the top right corner Colleen noticed immediately was October 11, the night of Olivia's death.

"That's the exterior of my house," she said. "Press Play."

Colleen watched as out from the front door came some people. There were four men walking with Olivia Ramos. Two of them seemed to be holding her up. Olivia was covering her face with her hands. Blood was dripping out from between her fingers, dripping off her chin.

"Wait. That's—"

"The director of campus security, Roy Travers. And with him is the Beckford Town police chief, Phillip Garner. The other two men are bodyguards."

"Bodyguards?" Colleen said as she looked on wide-eyed and gobsmacked as the four men put the injured Olivia into an enormous SUV.

"Oh, my goodness," Coleen whispered as she played the video a second time.

The college incident report as well as the local news stories covering the death said that Olivia had spent some time that night at a local college bar and then at around 11 p.m. had gone back to her dorm where she OD'd on fentanyl.

Colleen couldn't stop shaking her head.

No wonder they were giving her the runaround! No wonder!

"Olivia was at your house the night she died?" Colleen said.

Jodi's eyes were just as wide as she stared back at Colleen and nodded.

"Why? Why was she there?"

"I'm not positive," Jodi said. "I was staying over at my daughter's house, babysitting that night. But I know one thing. It has something to do with my husband's friend, Frank Stone. Those men are his bodyguards and that Rolls-Royce is Frank Stone's car. He's the one who got my husband the job here at the college ten years ago. They were roommates in college, at the University of Virginia Law School. They're very close friends."

"Frank Stone?" Colleen said. "He's a billionaire, right? The Wall Street guy?"

Jodi nodded.

"Yes, he's one of the richest men in Connecticut if not the world. He's the founder of a Greenwich hedge fund that is connected with the big defense firms and the intelligence services. He's incredibly connected. A very powerful and dangerous man. He scares the hell out of me. Always has."

"What involvement did Olivia have with him?"

Jodi shook her head.

"I've been trying to figure that out. The only connection I can come up with was the incident with Olivia and the article in the school paper."

"What happened?" Colleen said.

"A year ago, there was a scandal," Jodi said. "My husband Martin attended a fundraiser down in Greenwich for a charity that Frank runs. The country club where it was held historically didn't allow in minorities, and Olivia had gotten hold of a picture of my husband giving a speech there and published it in the school paper. A bunch of the students wanted to get my husband fired then. But it didn't happen. My husband made an apology and denounced the club and it blew over."

"Why would a prominent businessman be concerned with a story written by a college kid in a school newspaper?" Colleen said.

Jodi shrugged. She pointed to her phone. At the SUV behind the van.

"All I know is that is Frank Stone's car and those are his bodyguards putting Olivia into it the night she died."

"This is unbelievable," Colleen said. "This video is from your home security system?"

"No, it's from an outside nanny cam that I set up on my own. No one else knows about this."

"A nanny cam?" Colleen said.

"Yes. I thought my husband was cheating on me. I've been considering a divorce for a while so I wanted to gather evidence of his infidelity. I got this instead."

"Is there any footage that shows Olivia entering the house?" Colleen said.

"No. She must have been brought in from the back or something. It shows Frank Stone arrive with his bodyguards and then just shows her coming out."

Colleen shook her head, trying to process what she was looking at. It wasn't working.

"This is beyond..." Colleen said.

"I know," Jodi said. "From the moment I saw this after I heard about Olivia's overdose, I've been tortured as to what to do. I mean obviously I would have immediately come forward but look at this. That's the town police chief! You don't understand how powerful Frank Stone is. If he had something to do with killing Olivia, then he can certainly kill me for blowing the whistle on him.

"But when I heard you were here in Beckford today, I couldn't sit on this anymore. I've been praying on it and I knew you were the sign I was waiting for. I knew I had to come forward. Something needs to be done here. What really happened to Olivia?" Jodi said.

She was getting very emotional now, Colleen saw. She reached out and held Jodi's hand.

"You're doing the right thing, Jodi. I know how difficult this must be."

"And my husband," Jodi said as she started to cry. "He was in there the whole time. I mean, how can he be involved in this? A girl is dead. He's been the only father my daughter knows. And when this comes out! My family, our whole life here, everything will be over."

Colleen watched as Jodi took a deep breath.

"I can't allow this to go on anymore. That's why I'm here. I need your help, Colleen. They might be following me or you right now. If they know I'm talking to you... Please. Do you have a car?"

"They?" Colleen said.

"Director Travers from the video is the head of campus security. My husband has him and some of the other campus security creeps follow me sometimes. And as you just saw, Garner, the town's chief of police, is in this as well. Please. It's not safe here. For either of us. We need to get out of here."

Colleen looked at her, at her frightened eyes. She looked down at the video in her hand. Then she turned and zipped up her rolling case.

"Okay, Jodi. My car's in the parking lot. Let's go."