"Wow. Bryan was actually a gentleman?" I couldn't hide my skepticism.
The blonde woman glared at me. "Can I finish my story?"
"Of course." I gestured for her to go ahead.
Coco sighed. Her lips began to tremble. "When I heard that Val's body had been found on the beach the next day, I freaked. I'd seen Bryan go out there with her and then come back alone." She hung her head guiltily. "But I covered for him. I didn't tell the police that I'd seen him out there." She swallowed. "I know it was wrong, but I thought maybe if I protected him, he'd finally see how much I care. But when I confronted him about it at the pool bar just now, he acted like he didn't know what I was talking about. He denied that he was ever on the beach that night." Tears rolled down her cheeks. "He said I was just a crazy, desperate drunk."
I stared at the crying woman for a few moments. Coco was too intoxicated to be lying, wasn't she? If so, maybe I could get more information out of her. "I'm sorry he treated you so horribly," I said gently, exchanging a glance with Jamie. "You saw Valentina and Bryan arguing at The Lava Pot before they went out to the beach, didn't you?"
She bobbed her head.
"Do you know what they were fighting about?" I pressed. "Could Val have been keeping something from Bryan, maybe?"
"Val was full of secrets," Coco muttered bitterly.
My pulse quickened. "What kind of secrets?" I asked, leaning forward eagerly.
Coco finished her wine and tossed the cup on the floor. "I think I need to sleep this off," she said, stifling a yawn. She sloppily waved a hand toward Jamie. "Thanks for the booze."
"You're welcome." Jamie nodded. "Always happy to dish out the liquid therapy."
Coco rested her head back against the pillow. Within seconds, she was snoring softly.
"So much for that," I muttered, picking up her discarded cup. Jamie and I tossed our own cups into the trash can before sneaking quietly out into the hall.
"So, she passed out before she could tell us the scoop about Val," Jamie said, shrugging. "Big whoop. The real bombshell is that she saw Bryan go to the beach with Valentina before she was killed—and then she covered for him. So he doesn't have a real alibi after all, assuming Coco's telling the truth." Her forehead wrinkled. "Think she was telling the truth?"
"I think she's too drunk not to be," I replied. "So, yeah—it sounds like Bryan's alibi is a bust." Of course, the only person who could corroborate Coco's story was my ex himself, and I doubted he'd be as forthcoming with the information as she had been. Still, it was enough to bump him higher on my suspect list.
"What about Andrew Ryan?" Jamie asked. "Did you find anything in his room?"
"Oh!" I snapped my fingers. I hadn't told her about the pictures I'd found in his closet. I quickly caught her up to speed. "I don't know who seems guiltier," I told her. "Andrew or Bryan."
"We could try confronting this stalker guy face-to-face," Jamie suggested. "Why don't we head back up to his room right now? We've got time to kill before the luau."
I blinked at her. "I already broke in once. Do you think it's a good idea to return to the scene of the crime?"
She shrugged. "Hey, there's safety in numbers, right? We'll go in together."
I thought briefly of Detective Ray's warning that I should stay out of his investigation, along with Noa's plea that I not go looking for trouble. Jamie was right, though—I'd have her along with me. If Andrew Ryan turned out to be dangerous, he couldn't hurt us both. Could he? "Okay," I said, slinging my tote bag over my shoulder and starting down the hall. "Let's do this."
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
"I'll knock," Jamie said a few minutes later as we stood at the door to Andrew Ryan's room. "If he sees you at the door, he might not open it, but maybe he won't recognize me."
"Good point." I moved aside to give her some room.
She lifted her hand to knock but then hesitated. Her expression turned thoughtful. "It couldn't hurt to throw on a little disguise, just in case." Jamie retrieved a turquoise scarf from her purse and pulled it over her sandy hair, tying it below her chin. Then she took a pair of tortoiseshell-framed glasses out of a little black case and perched them on the bridge of her nose.
I stared at her. "I didn't know you wore glasses."
"Just for reading," she said with a shrug. "Do you still have Andrew's wallet?" She held out her hand so that I could drop the leather billfold into it. Opening it up, she took out a twenty-dollar bill and stuffed it into her cleavage. "Trust me," she said when I started to protest. Jamie stepped forward and lightly tapped her knuckles on the door.
"Just a minute," called a voice on the other side. I heard the sound of heavy footfalls approaching the door. It swung open, and Andrew Ryan poked his chubby face through the threshold, his eyes fixed on Jamie. An oily smile curved his mouth. "Are you the girl from the dating app?" he asked in a husky voice, his gaze lowering to Jamie's tight-fitting halter top. "You look a lot different than your picture online—not that I'm complaining."
I bit back a groan of revulsion. He's been trolling the internet for hookups.
"Actually, I came to return this." Jamie held up his wallet.
"Hey!" Andrew looked from the billfold to my friend, his eyes narrowing. "Where did you find that?"
"Down at the pool," I said, stepping forward. "You must have dropped it when you were running away from me earlier."
The man's eyes snapped to me, and his expression soured. He made a move to grab the wallet from Jamie's hand, but she yanked it back.
"Nuh-uh. Not so fast," she said, dangling it out of his reach. "We'll return the wallet if you'll answer a few questions for us. Mind if we come in?"
A vein throbbed in his forehead as he glared at us. Finally, he nodded. "Okay, fine. But only for a few minutes. I'm expecting company."
"Right. The girl from the internet," I said dryly. That won me another glare.
Mr. Ryan stepped back and allowed us to follow him into the room. I glanced toward the closet on my way past, shuddering as I recalled the folders filled with images of Valentina. Was the man just a harmless Peeping Tom, or did he have more sinister intentions? We were about to find out.
In the hours since I'd escaped from Andrew's room unnoticed, he'd managed to undo all of the housekeeper's hard work. Clothes were strewn across the bed and love seat, much like the mess I'd come back to in my own room—though I didn't get the impression that the man had encountered any other intruders.
Andrew mumbled something under his breath as he grabbed a crumpled T-shirt and his orange swim trunks off the love seat and motioned for Jamie and me to sit. He pulled the little desk chair away from the wall and set it down on the opposite side of the coffee table so he was facing us. "What do you want to know?" he demanded gruffly.
"Did you attack me in the sauna this afternoon?" I asked bluntly.
The man's eyebrows rose. "Sauna? What sauna?"
"The one in the resort spa," I replied. "Someone blocked the doorway and then turned up the heat. Seems like they wanted me to burn."
"Jeez," he said with a snort. "That sounds brutal. Who'd you piss off, lady?"
"That's what I'm trying to find out." I narrowed my eyes at him. "If you had nothing to do with it, why were you watching me so intensely at the pool right after I escaped?"
A pervy grin spread across his round face. "Really? A hot chick like you, wearing nothing but a towel, lunges out onto the patio, and you want to know why I was staring?" His smile widened. "I was hoping the towel would slip."
My stomach lurched with disgust. Pig.
"Then why did you run?" Jamie asked.
He shrugged. "I thought maybe that guy with the dreadlocks was your boyfriend," he said, meeting my gaze. "I didn't want to get beat up for checking out some other guy's woman right in front of him."
I pursed my lips. Had he really thought Freddy was my boyfriend, or was he lying? It was hard to tell. I wasn't sure how much longer he'd cooperate, so I decided to cut to the chase. "Why are you in
Aloha Lagoon, Mr. Ryan?"
"Why does anybody come here?" he asked in a tone of mock innocence. "I'm on vacation."
"So, you just happened to show up in Hawaii at the same time that Valentina Cruz was here? That's a pretty huge coincidence, considering you'd been stalking her for weeks," I challenged, crossing my arms over my chest.
Andrew blinked. "You think I was stalking Miss Cruz?" For a moment, he looked genuinely taken aback. Then he smiled, his green eyes twinkling with amusement. "Okay, so I'm a stalker now." he said, chuckling to himself. "That's a new one."
"I know you were," I said angrily. "And I can prove it." I rose from the couch and stormed across the room, heading straight for the closet.
"Hey, what are you doing?" Andrew protested, and I heard footsteps as he got up to follow me.
I flung open the closet door and snatched the briefcase from the floor, flipping it open before he reached me. "These are proof," I said, grabbing the top folder and holding it up. "There are dozens of pictures of Val in here. You've been following her every move."
"Of course I was following her." Andrew shot me a dark look as he wrestled the briefcase away from me. "I was being paid to do it."
"Huh?" I blinked at him.
He carried the briefcase across the room and set it down on the coffee table. I followed, returning to my seat next to Jamie just as he retrieved something from the bottom of the pile of folders. I felt my jaw go slack as he held it up for us to see.
"You're a PI?" Jamie asked, her tone disbelieving.
"Yep." Andrew handed her the private investigator's license so she could give it a closer inspection.
"Then why wasn't this card in your wallet?" she asked accusingly.
He shrugged. "Didn't need it. My mark is dead. That means until I pick up another client, I'm off the clock." He grinned and folded his hands behind his head. "Like I said before, I'm on vacation."
I leaned over Jamie's shoulder, bewildered as I stared down at the license. "Why would a PI need to follow Valentina around?" I asked, unable to hide my confusion. "And why fly all the way across the country to do it?"
"I was hired to," he replied in a huff. "Her boyfriend paid me to keep tabs on her. He thought she was running around on him."
My gaze snapped back to the sleazy investigator. "Bryan paid you to spy on Val?"
"So much for client privacy," Jamie remarked.
Andrew blew out a breath. "Whatever. I already told all of this to the cops. Colfax paid me two grand a week to follow the girl around and take a few pictures. He was convinced she had a secret sugar daddy back in Atlanta."
There may have been a daddy, all right, I thought, picturing the drugstore receipt again. I thought back to the money in Valentina's wallet. It suddenly seemed much more significant. Had the cash come from someone other than Bryan? Maybe Val had come clean about the pregnancy to her other lover, and he'd paid her a little premature child support. Or hush money.
"What did you find out?" I asked quietly as Jamie handed the license back to him.
Andrew shrugged. "Nothing. The only guy I ever saw her with was Bryan himself."
"Then why did he keep paying you?" Jamie pressed, her brow furrowed.
"Good question," I added, suspicion crawling up my back as I looked at the PI. "Bryan doesn't like to waste money." If he'd given my ex the proof he'd needed that Val wasn't being unfaithful, then why was he still on his payroll?
The man gave me a greasy smile. "I told him my findings were inclusive," he said in a sly tone. "I know what he does for a living. Pro athletes rake in a lot of dough, and I figured there's no harm padding my own little nest egg as long as he's willing to shell out the cash." He snorted. "Not that it matters, anyway. The guy is dead convinced that Valentina was cheating. He didn't even trust her to be loyal on this trip, even with him staying at the same resort. He paid for my ticket and booked me a room just so I could keep an extra close eye on her." Andrew shook his head. "Seems to me he's got some major trust issues."
Well, isn't that ironic? I thought sourly. I pushed aside my bitterness at Bryan's own infidelities and focused on the important information the greedy investigator had just divulged. Had Bryan thought that Val would hook up with some random islander, or did he suspect that one of Dante's other groomsmen might be the other man? If something had happened to prove his suspicions true, could he have killed Valentina in a jealous rage? What if he'd planned to murder her all along and had paid for Andrew Ryan to come to Hawaii so that he could take the fall? I had to be sure I could count the PI out as a suspect before I jumped to such a dark conclusion.
"Where were you early Friday morning when Valentina was killed?" I asked, carefully studying his face. "I know you followed us to the Lanai Lounge—Jamie saw you—but what about after? Did you follow Val to the beach?"
The man shook his head. "Nah. I tailed you ladies back to the resort, but my stakeout ended when I saw the girl meet up with Bryan at that little tiki bar."
"The Lava Pot?" Jamie supplied.
He nodded. "After that I came upstairs and ordered a little room service, if you know what I mean." He winked, his lips curling in a leer that made my skin crawl. A knock sounded at the door, and he rubbed his hands together. "Speaking of which, I'm afraid our time is up, ladies. I have a guest."
I reached for the stack of pictures on the coffee table and picked up the one on top. It was similar to the image I'd captured on my phone earlier that afternoon, though it was taken from a slightly different angle. In this one, Val and Bryan were walking toward the parking deck next to his high-rise condo. There was something about the picture that bothered me. The couple's backs were to the camera, and they were walking several feet apart. Even from far away I could see the stiffness in Bryan's posture. He seemed angry.
"Can I keep this one?" I asked as Jamie and I rose from the love seat and followed Andrew toward the door.
He paused and turned around to face me, a greedy glint in his eye. "Sure. For twenty bucks." When I glowered at him, he added, "I'm going to need some cash for my date, after all."
I grudgingly reached into the depths of my tote and fumbled around for a moment before I remembered that my wallet was probably in an evidence locker at the police station by now. All I had was my backup credit card, and I wasn't about to ask this slimeball if he took plastic.
Fortunately, Jamie stepped forward, reaching into her halter top to retrieve the bill she'd taken from the man's wallet. She handed it over to the sleazy private investigator. "You can pay me back later, Kaley," she said, winking when the man wasn't looking.
"It's been a pleasure, ladies," Andrew said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. He opened the door and stepped aside to let us pass. A young woman in a tight, silky black dress was standing in the hallway, using the camera function of her smartphone to check her lipstick. She backed up a few steps as we emerged from the room. Jamie leaned close and whispered something to her. The woman's freshly glossed lips formed a surprised O before her face crinkled in a look of disgust. She muttered something to Andrew and then turned to stalk off in the opposite direction.
"Hey, wait! Where are you going?" he demanded, scurrying after her.
Jamie and I continued on our way silently down the hall. When we reached the elevator, I turned to her and arched a curious eyebrow. "What did you say to that woman?"
She smirked. "I suggested that she steer clear of our crusty friend unless she wanted to catch a nasty case of crabs."
We both dissolved into a fit of giggles as the elevator doors slid closed.
"Now what?" Jamie asked when the laughing subsided.
My smile faded. "I don't know," I said quietly. "Nearly everything we've learned points to Bryan, but something is still bothering me." I looked up at her. "I wish I knew what happened to Valentina's phone. It wasn't in her purse when I picked it up from Gabby's office earlier, and Detective Ray admitted that the police don't have it, either."
"Do you think it could still be out on t
he beach?" Jamie asked. "Maybe she dropped it in the sand."
"Maybe," I said, frowning. "But I'd think the police would have found it, unless it was buried pretty deep." I looked up at her. "Maybe the killer has it."
"We could try calling it," she suggested. "Do you know her number?"
I shook my head. "I'm sure Detective Ray already tried that, too. The battery must be dead. I'm not an expert, but I don't think most carriers can locate a dead phone." I shrugged.
"What good would it do to find it?" she asked.
I thought for a moment. "Well, if Bryan is innocent, the real murderer could have lured Val out to the beach with a call or a text." An idea began to take shape in my mind. "Say that, hypothetically, her phone is still out on the beach somewhere. If I can find it and charge the battery, I could see if any calls or texts came in on late Thursday night or early Friday morning." Or maybe I could find out who she'd been texting from the Lanai Lounge.
Jamie grinned. "I sense a plan forming."
I winked. "You know me too well." The elevator dinged, and the doors slid open. We stepped off onto the first floor. I glanced around to ensure no one was close enough to hear us. "Tonight, during the luau, I'm going to sneak out to the area where Val's body was found and see if I can find that missing phone."
"How can I help?" Jamie asked. "Want me to be the lookout?"
"No. I'll need you to cover for me at the luau in case anyone is looking for me. There's no sense in us both getting into trouble if we're caught breaching the crime scene." I met her gaze. "But there is one thing you can help me with."
"Name it."
"Do you know where I can find a metal detector?" I smiled. "I think it's time for a little treasure hunt."
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
"Aloha to all our guests and friends." The emcee's voice boomed from the speakers by the stage. It was an hour and a half later, and Jamie and I were seated at our reserved table on the Ramada Pier with the rest of the wedding party. I zoned out as the host continued the same rehearsed greeting speech that he delivered during each luau, instead studying the faces of the others seated at the table.
Handbags & Homicide Page 15