The only good thing that had come of my near demise on castle rock was the arrival of Jitty. My family haint had arrived on-scene just in time to keep me from panicking and drowning. Now I wondered if she’d reappear.
Millie would flip if she knew I had my own ghost in Zinnia. “I’ll be fine,” I assured her. “And before you leave tomorrow, Federico has a surprise for you. Robert Redford is stopping by the set. He heard about your lemon meringue pie.”
I thought I was going to have to hold Millie up. Aunt Loulane would have called it a swoon. Millie recovered and danced around me.
“I’ve got to roll out some pie crust and squeeze the lemons. I’ve got to—” She headed toward the kitchen.
“Have fun. I’m going to bed.”
“Sarah Booth, can I speak with you alone?” Cece asked.
She was unusually solemn, but I figured she wanted to give me a personal good-bye. Tomorrow would be hectic, and there was no guarantee we’d have time for a real parting.
I followed her to her room, and she closed the door. “You never asked what we were doing while you were chasing down the beach.”
“You were helping Millie cook,” I said. I hadn’t asked because I knew.
“We were. But before anyone realized you were missing, I found Sweetie and Chablis locked in a room on the third floor.”
I’d gotten over my terror of nearly drowning, but this bit of news sent goose bumps racing down my arms. “A room on the third floor? The costumes and makeup are in the ballroom, but all the other doors are locked.” I’d tried them while following the “ghost.”
“I had to get a hammer and screwdriver to let them out.”
I nodded, afraid that if I spoke my voice would quiver.
“They were both frantic. They nearly killed themselves getting to the front door, but I thought they had to go to the bathroom, that maybe they’d wandered into the room and somehow locked themselves in.”
I watched her face. Cece wasn’t the kind who worried, but a furrow between her eyebrows told me she was concerned.
“Once I opened the front door, the dogs were gone. Both of them. Like they were on fire. I yelled for Tinkie and Graf, and when Graf caught sight of them vanishing into the gardens, he ran after them.”
“So everyone was chasing Sweetie and Chablis instead of looking for me?”
She nodded. “Initially. But Sweetie was acting so bizarre, we knew something was bad wrong. And we knew it had to involve you. That’s when I got really frightened.”
“What did Graf say about the dogs being locked up?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t get a chance to tell him. Or Tinkie either, but I’m going to call the police.” She put her hands on her hips. “Someone set you up. This was premeditated and well planned. If we’d been ten minutes later . . .”
“I know it’s dangerous.” I took a deep breath. “But if this gets out, someone will leak it to the media, and it’ll be in every tabloid. This one thing—that the dogs were deliberately confined—is something only you, me, and the person who did it know about.”
Her head moved incrementally up and down. “I see what you’re doing, but Graf can’t protect you if he doesn’t have the facts. Federico’s daughter seems criminally deranged.”
She was right about that, but it didn’t change what I wanted her to do. “Just humor me.”
“Until something else happens. Then I’m spilling the beans. Dahling, you can’t be damaged before you rise to stardom. Without you, I’ll never get a press pass to the Oscars.”
We were giggling when there was a tap on Cece’s door. She opened it to find an excited Federico. He shifted from one foot to the other. “I finally tracked down one of Estelle’s friends here in Petaluma. Estelle left this morning for Los Angeles. She couldn’t have been involved.”
That information momentarily took me aback. I was pretty certain the woman I’d chased through the gardens and along the beach was Estelle.
“I’m concerned about her,” Federico said. “I’ve tried calling her place in Malibu, but there’s no answer.”
“Estelle has a house in Malibu?” This was news to me. “Where?”
“Not too far from Lettohatchie Canyon, where you and Graf were staying.” Federico seemed oblivious to the conclusion I’d drawn in a nanosecond.
“You never mentioned that Estelle lives in Malibu.”
He looked at his shoes. So he had jumped to the same place, and he was ashamed of himself.
“Suzy Dutton is dead, Federico. Joey was injured here on the set. I was almost drowned. Serious things are happening, and your daughter is linked to all of it.”
“She’s disturbed, Sarah Booth, but she isn’t dangerous. Besides, she couldn’t have harmed you. She’s not even in this country.”
Federico wanted so badly to believe that his daughter wasn’t someone who would murder. I understood that, but it didn’t make it true. So far, I could say that Estelle could easily have been in the vicinity of Suzy Dutton’s “fall” from a cliff. She could also have damaged the balcony where Joey fell, and she could have messed with the camera. It was possible she’d been in the house and pushed Jovan down the stairs. I’d seen her—or someone who looked a lot like her—before I was nearly drowned. And I knew for certain that Estelle had the means to slip in and out of the house undetected—and someone had locked up the dogs. The evidence was stacking up against her.
“Are you sure she left Costa Rica?” Cece asked.
“Regena says so. They share an apartment in Petaluma, so she would know.”
“And who is this roommate?” Cece followed through.
“Regena Lombardi. She’s a dancer.”
I made a mental note of the name. Once I was through filming in the morning, I intended to pay Regena a call.
“Thanks for telling me, Federico.”
He remained in the doorway. “Estelle has given me many problems, but she is my flesh and blood. She’s an unhappy young woman, but I can’t believe she would harm anyone.”
I had a goose egg on my head that was all the evidence I needed that someone had meant to harm me. But I wasn’t going to argue with Federico. Not now. Not in front of Cece, who was already worried enough.
“Tomorrow I’ll see what I can find out. Let’s give it a rest until then.”
“Until the morning.” He kissed both of my cheeks. “And have a safe trip home, Ms. Falcon. It’s been a pleasure having you here.”
“Thank you, Mr. Marquez. It’s going to be a bang-up movie.”
He left and I looked at Cece, who rolled her eyes. “Daddy doesn’t want to believe his little darling is a murderer.”
“When you get to the airport, can you check to see if Estelle actually boarded a plane today?”
“Sure. I don’t think Costa Rica has the security issues we have in the States. Should be a piece of cake.”
“Thank you, Cece. You’re a good friend.”
“Sarah Booth, you’re going to be a huge star. I’m only doing this so you’ll owe me.”
I gave her a big hug and hurried to my room. Graf was waiting for me. Even though someone had tried to kill me, I was still a lucky woman.
To my bitter disappointment, the next morning when Robert Redford arrived, I was working. I caught a glimpse of him and Millie walking in the gardens. By the time I was due a break, Robert was gone and Millie and Cece were packed. Federico had assigned one of the security guards to drive them to be sure nothing happened on the way.
I kissed and hugged and held back the tears that would wash away all of Sally’s artful work. When the car pulled out of the driveway, Sweetie sat at my feet and howled mournfully. “We’ll see them soon,” I promised her. I was ready for a trip back to Zinnia. I was homesick.
When I finished my scenes, I picked up the keys to one of the rental cars and drove into Petaluma. It wasn’t far, and I could have walked, but I wasn’t certain where Estelle and Regena’s apartment might be, and I didn’t have time to walk if
it was a distance away.
I checked a local phone book and found a listing for Regena Lombardi. There was none for Estelle. I rang the number and was surprised when a young woman answered. My Spanish was nonexistent, so I prayed Regena spoke English.
And she did—very well in fact. In less than thirty seconds she’d agreed to meet with me.
The apartment complex was lovely, sort of a 1950s Hollywood set where aspiring starlets might rent. Regena’s apartment was 2B, and I knocked on the mahogany door, wondering how this interview was going to go.
The young woman who answered the door was petite, with hair colored a plum shade and a nose ring. She wore a leotard and leg warmers and was barefoot.
“I’m Sarah Booth Delaney,” I said, trying hard to read her face, but she gave nothing away.
“I’m due to dance rehearsals in twenty minutes. It’s a big opportunity for me.”
“I’ll be brief.” I slipped inside before she could block me at the door. “Are you sure Estelle has gone to Los Angeles?” I asked as I took in the decor. Low-rent college kid furnishings were mixed with some expensive furniture and art.
“She said she was going, and yesterday morning she was gone.”
“Did she take her things?”
Regena shrugged. “Estelle has things here, in Malibu, and in Europe. She doesn’t have to carry things. They’re there waiting for her when she arrives.” There was no bitterness in Regena’s tone.
“What kind of person is Estelle?”
She sank into a beanbag chair—an artifact from the seventies, I suspected. “She’s very kind. She helps people when she can.”
“And she hates her father.”
She looked away, a telling gesture. “Federico was never there for her. After she turned ten, she was shipped off to boarding schools. Whenever she wanted to come home, he told her no. She wasn’t even allowed to visit her mother when she was dying. How would that make you feel?”
“Pretty shitty, I’m sure.”
“Her dad doesn’t care about anything but himself and his movies. He even had Estelle thrown out of her house.”
I thought of Federico’s face as he tried to assure me Estelle couldn’t be involved in the attack on me. “That isn’t true, Regena. He’s devoted to his work, but he cares about Estelle. He’s worried about her right now.”
“She doesn’t think so.”
And therein lay the rub. Perception was everything.
“Has Estelle been in Petaluma long?” I was curious to discover if she was in Malibu when Suzy was killed.
“She’s been gone for a couple of weeks, and she came in the night before you guys arrived. She travels a lot.” She went to the kitchen and returned with two bottles of water and handed me one. “She was in a state. She talked about booby-trapping the house. She said she asked her father not to film there, out of respect for Carlita. He just ignored her. The film was everything. Estelle’s feelings didn’t matter at all.”
I sipped the water. “Has Estelle ever mentioned that her mother’s ghost is in the house?”
Regena gave me a look that left no doubt she thought I was nuts. “Look, Estelle is angry, not insane.”
“She’s never spoken of a ghost or spirit in the house?”
She laughed. “Not to me. But it sounds like a good way to run off a bunch of unwanted company.”
“You’ve never heard ghost stories about the house?” That was peculiar. Daniel Martinez, the security guy, had mentioned the ghost stories as if everyone in town knew them.
She shrugged. “Any old house that sits empty is going to get a reputation in a small town. Petaluma isn’t a big city. Kids used to go out there to park, until a couple of them got spooked away.”
This was interesting, but impossible to track down. “Do you remember any of the stories?”
The blush that touched her cheeks was unexpected. “I was there one summer evening with a guy I used to date, swimming in the cove. I thought I saw a woman in a red dress on the balcony.”
My gut tightened and my skin began to crawl. “Who was it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did your date see her?”
She bit her bottom lip. “No. He thought I was making it up to avoid, you know. He got mad because I insisted that we leave. Anyway, there were a couple of people who saw something like that.”
“No one ever investigated?”
“Nope.” She walked to the door. “Now I have to go. I can’t be late or they’ll cut me from the rehearsals.”
I followed her out the door. “Thank you, Regena.”
“When you finally track Estelle down, ask her to call me, please. I’ve left twenty messages and she hasn’t returned my calls. Sometimes she gets depressed and just sort of fades. That worries me and I have some things we need to talk about.”
“Will do.” I kept it perky and upbeat, but the talk about depression concerned me, too.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Another day in paradise was concluding, and I returned to the mansion with a mental list of people to talk to. Ricardo was right at the top, but I wanted to catch him away from his dad.
Tinkie, Chablis, and Sweetie were at the beach. I walked to the edge of the gardens and looked down to see her and the dogs scurrying around castle rock. It took me a moment to realize that the slick body in the surf wasn’t a dolphin—Graf was in scuba gear examining the portions of the rock that were underwater.
They were looking for clues. My heart surged with warmth. Graf really seemed to care about me. And Tinkie, well, she was the best friend ever.
We were an odd couple for a business team. When I’d first come home, licking my wounds and in dire financial circumstances, I’d failed to see past the Daddy’s Girl exterior that Tinkie projected.
I’d sold her short.
But she was far more than her five-carat engagement ring, her banker husband, and her Dun & Bradstreet report. Tinkie, for all of her slavish devotion to glamour and fashion, was smart. And loyal. And caring.
Watching her and Graf and the dogs, I again thanked whatever lucky stars had brought her into my life. I’d lost a lot, but I’d also gained.
Tinkie and Graf went into a huddle, and then they packed it in and started back toward the mansion. I changed into some cool shorts, sandals, and a sleeveless T-shirt and went down to greet them.
Graf swung me into his arms, making me giddy with laughter, as Tinkie looked on with approval. “It’s good to see you happy, Sarah Booth.” She punched Graf’s arm lightly. “I never thought this celluloid playboy could do it, but I was wrong. I think he’s good for you.”
“And she’s good for me,” Graf said.
“And we all have to be good detectives to get this whole mess resolved.” I put my arms around their waists as we walked to the front door. When I told them my plan, they readily agreed.
Tinkie distracted Federico, while I talked to Ricardo. Graf was going to the third floor to see if Sally and Dallas had heard or seen anything unusual.
Ricardo had a room on the second floor in another wing from my room. I knocked on his door, half expecting that he wouldn’t be in.
The door swung open and he stood there, shirtless, in a pair of shorts. Like his father, he was handsome, and he knew it. While his conduct on the set was impeccable, I’d heard he was something of a rake and a scoundrel with the young women who were part of the crew.
“Dad send you to talk to me?” he asked, leaving the door open so I could enter or not.
“No. Why would he?”
He flashed his perfect white teeth. “Because Dad doesn’t like confrontation of any kind.”
“And what have you been doing that would lead to a confrontation?”
“Sleeping with Dallas. Dad is afraid if I dump her she’ll quit in the middle of the film.” His grin was just a hair too smug.
“Your father has legitimate concerns, Ricardo. No one likes to be used like garbage.” Dallas was a beautiful young woman. She could hav
e her pick of any number of men, but Ricardo could make her feel like trash in a ditch.
He shrugged, picked an apple from a table, and bit into it with a loud crack. “I’m giving her what she wants.”
“Somehow, I doubt that.”
“Come on, you older people don’t get it. We hooked up. She knows that. When we get back to Los Angeles, she’ll go her way and I’ll go mine. That’s how it is.” He took another huge bite of apple.
“As long as she knows that upfront. We ‘older people’ and most younger ones, too, like to know the rules before we begin the game.” I wasn’t insulted by his rudeness. In terms of maturity, the fourteen years between us was a huge distance. He was handsome, privileged, and felt entitled. “I didn’t come to talk about Dallas. I want to ask you some questions about your sister.”
“Estelle, the psycho queen?” He took the last large bite of the fruit and tossed the core into a garbage can. “What’s she done now?”
“Do you know where she is?”
“Ah, hiding in the attic?” He grinned big, proud of what he viewed as his cleverness.
It was peculiar, but I’d talked to Ricardo before, and he hadn’t been such a jackass. “Do you know where Estelle is?” I asked patiently. “Federico is worried about her and so am I.”
The mask of superiority dropped for a moment. “Why? What’s she done now?”
“Nothing, for sure. She’s not answering her cell phone.” I wasn’t certain how to proceed. I’d expected Ricardo to be more cooperative. Our prior conversations had been pleasant; now there was antagonism.
“Sometimes she gets down and doesn’t want to talk to people,” he said. “Maybe she wants to be left alone.”
“That’s a reason for concern. This anger she carries toward your father could be . . .” I let the sentence fade. He’d supply his own ending.
“She’ll be fine. She’s just pissed about the house. He could have asked her, you know.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know any of the details. What I’d like to know is how stable is your sister?”
He dropped all pretense of being the smartass he’d been earlier. Motioning to a comfortable chair for me, he sat down on the floor. “Look, Estelle has her ups and downs, but she’s not going to harm herself.”
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