Split Second - Catherine Coulter [33]
“My gut veers toward one, then the other. I thought Vincent was going to shoot both of them there for a while, what with that smug smile on Sentra’s face, and Mrs. Lansford—that lady was extraordinarily pissed off. At us? Or at her sister?”
Coop said, “All of us. I Googled Sentra Bolger, found no mention at all of a twin sister, only that Sentra’s an interior decorator, works out of her home on Russian Hill. There was a lot of stuff about her husband, Clifford Childs, and his family. You’d think there’d be more, but there wasn’t.
“Elizabeth Mary Lansford has hundreds of links, of info about her husband and her artwork, her gallery, and her charities—but not a word about a twin sister. I did find a mention of Kirsten, but only as a daughter.”
Lucy laughed as she set down her beer can. “I did the same thing. I bet Vincent is so hyped he’s still up working on this.”
Coop said, “He’s a little like Savich, happiest when he’s got a trail to follow. A big trail is that new Porsche Mr. Lansford gave her for her birthday, and, of course, the usual financial records and cell phone accounts. If she hasn’t ditched them all, they could lead us to her.”
Lucy said, “I wouldn’t be surprised if Kirsten finds out we were here in San Francisco, that we know now who she is. If she does, she could disappear again.” She frowned for a moment, then walked to the window and stared out again at the small chunk of San Francisco Bay she could see between two buildings opposite her room. She looked down onto Bay Street, two floors below. There were few streetlights, and no people about. The entire wharf area seemed quiet as a tomb.
“I wonder who named this hotel Edelweiss?”
He grinned at her back. “Hey, Shirley gave it an eight on our short FBI-approved list of hotels, so what’s in a name?” It was late, and Coop was tired; he lost focus for a moment and found himself looking at her bare legs—nice, long legs, actually—and at the silver bracelet with a small dangling palm tree hanging from one of her ankles. He was smiling until she turned around and he saw misery in her eyes. She blanked it out in an instant and said, “When I look back on the interview, I can remember thinking some of the things she said were more than a bit odd. I wonder how much of it was true. Did you see her pull that piece of paper from the blue horse’s hoof—she stared at it for the longest time. What was that all about?”
Coop said, “But the real question is: why was she pretending to be her sister?”
“The word nuts springs to mind. Maybe it was a game they played when they were younger, but—”
“Yeah, but this was nothing to joke about. Maybe Sentra Bolger was going for exactly the shock and rage we were treated to from her sister.”
Lucy thought about that. “So, Coop, what do you think? Who is Kirsten’s mother, Sentra or Mrs. Lansford?”
Coop sat forward, his hands clasped between his knees. “I’m thinking if Sentra is Kirsten’s mom, the women had to switch identities at the very beginning, even before Kirsten’s birth, since there was never any question raised about maternity.”
Lucy said, “It would be nice to have a DNA sample from one of them to really nail down Kirsten as the Black Beret, though I don’t think these ladies are going to line up to give us one. But I wonder why Sentra would give her baby to her sister? It’s true she appears to be several slices short of a loaf, and that throws even more doubt on Kirsten’s mental health. Was she born crazy, a loaded gun?”
“No,” Coop said slowly, “not crazy. I think Bundy was pure evil.”
Was he evil? What did that make her grandmother, killing her own husband? She closed it off. “It’s a pity Mrs. Lansford refused to talk to us at all.”
Coop set his beer can down on the coffee table next to Lucy’s. “It