Business he didn’t want her to know about? Kylie bit her lip. Even after two rescues, she still couldn’t cut the guy a break.
She swept the bills from the table. “All right then. I accept. Annie doesn’t like me much anyway.”
He shrugged. “Just jealous.”
“Can I take this?” Toby had approached their table and pointed to the money on the silver tray.
“Yeah, it’s all there.”
Toby’s hand hovered over the check and his blue eyes met Kylie’s. “I didn’t tell you last night, but I’d met that girl when she was here for the concert.”
“Did you get to know her at all?”
“Not really. She seemed nice, you know, just here for a good time like everyone else.”
Matt raised his brows. “Why didn’t you tell us that last night?”
A dark scowl had claimed Matt’s face and Kylie didn’t want him to scare off Toby. She aimed an encouraging smile at Toby’s face. “Thanks for telling us. You’ll let us know if you remember anything else about her, right?”
“A-absolutely.” He stumbled away clutching the tray.
Matt’s eyes narrowed as they followed Toby back to the register behind the counter. “He didn’t answer the question.”
“He obviously didn’t want to say anything in front of his friends. He told us this morning and that’s the important thing.”
“I have to go back to my room before I meet Annie. Are you going up?”
“I’m going to pick up a few things at the store. Text me when you get the camera back, so we can look at the file together.”
She tossed her napkin onto her plate and rose from the table, and Matt jumped up next to her. “Be careful.”
“You, too, and I hope you didn’t put your trust in the wrong person and Annie comes through for you.”
“For us.”
With a dry mouth, Matt watched Kylie stride through the lobby. He didn’t like leaving her on her own, even in broad daylight.
He went up to his room and slid open the closet that contained the hotel safe. He punched in his code and grabbed the thick envelope already addressed to his attorney, Andy Tucker, in L.A. Some might call him stubborn, but he couldn’t let this go. He wasn’t going to end up like his old man.
Twenty minutes later he strolled into the post office, clutching the envelope. Only a few people waited in line, but Matt headed for the self-serve machine and scale. He didn’t want anyone in this small town to know his business…not even Kylie.
He dropped the envelope onto the scale and touched the screen. As his fingers hovered near the dispenser to catch his postage, someone tapped him on the shoulder.
He jerked and spun around.
“Jumpy, aren’t you?” Annie had her arms crossed over her chest and her fists bunched.
Matt pinched the postage between his fingers and pulled it from the machine. “That’s what happens when someone sneaks up behind you.”
She leaned forward on the scale with both hands and left a small envelope on top of his. “What are you mailing?”
“Something personal. Everything go okay?”
“Perfect. Does that conclude my spying career?”
“That’s it. Thanks, Annie. I owe you.”
She held up her hands. “Let’s not go there again. You owe me, and then I’ll owe you, and then so on and so on.”
“Let’s just call it even then.” He pulled her close for a quick hug. “And be careful with the chief.”
“I’m going to be very careful with the chief.” She winked and swept out the door.
Shaking his head, Matt swept the envelopes from the scale, dropped one in the repository for metered mail and folded the other one in half and shoved it in the pocket of his cargo shorts.
Time to find out what the C.C.P.D. wanted to hide.
* * *
KYLIE SLIPPED INTO the white, fluffy robe and pulled her hair out of the neckline. She wound it into a loose chignon. It had been a while since she’d had a massage, but she sure needed it. She had plenty of sore spots on her body from Matt’s tackle yesterday, but without that tackle those lights would’ve knocked her out…or worse.
On bare feet, she padded into the short hall that led to the massage rooms and poked her head into number three.
“Hello?”
The masseuse wasn’t here yet. Kylie stepped into the dimly lit room and inhaled the scent from the flickering lilac candle. There was another door in the room, and Kylie figured the masseuse would enter through that door.
Following the orders from the front desk of the spa, she slipped out of the robe. She hung it on the hook in the wall and lay facedown on the massage table, adjusting the sheet over her body. Then she positioned her forehead against the doughnut-shaped pillow and took a deep breath, closing her eyes.
The door clicked open, and Kylie said, “Hello.”
The masseuse didn’t answer, but Kylie heard rustling noises. A knock on the door caused her to flinch and must’ve surprised the masseuse, too, because she bumped into the massage table, jerking Kylie’s head from its resting place on the pillow. So much for a relaxing massage.
A door opened and closed, and Kylie twisted her head around. The room was empty. Another knock on the door and a slightly accented female voice called out. “Are you ready, Ms. Grant?”
Kylie clutched the sheet to her chest and sat up. “Yes, come in.”
A blonde, outfitted in a white jacket, glided into the room. “Oh, I didn’t mean to startle you. I’m Ingrid. Please lie down on your stomach and place your head against the pillow.”
Kylie drew her brows together. “Another masseuse was in here before you.”
“Really?” Ingrid turned to the sink to wash her hands. “Who was it?”
“I don’t know. I was facedown and didn’t look up.”
“Probably someone forgot something in here. I’m sorry about that.”
A layer of unease settled on Kylie’s flesh. Why didn’t the other masseuse say anything? Maybe she…or he wasn’t supposed to be in here?
She rolled over onto her stomach and tried to get comfortable again.
Ingrid tugged the sheet from Kylie’s shoulders to expose her back, and with firm hands coated with warm oil started on Kylie’s neck.
“You have a lot of tension here.”
Kylie sighed and closed her eyes again. Ingrid, you have no idea.
* * *
A LITTLE MORE THAN an hour later, feeling like jelly, Kylie slipped her key card into her hotel-room door. The connecting door to Matt’s room stood open, and Kylie’s breath hitched.
“Matt?”
“I’m here.” His large frame appeared in the doorway. “Feeling better?”
Her thoughts flickered to the uninvited masseuse, but she snuffed them out. “Great. If you need a good massage, I highly recommend Ingrid. Did Annie come through?”
He held up the small camera. “Of course.”
“I hope Chief Evans never finds out what she did.”
“I think Annie has the chief under control. It wouldn’t surprise me if she heads out with him when he takes his new job.”
“It’s that serious?”
“Annie is a woman on a mission.”
“Some women just have to be with a man.”
“Unlike other women.”
Kylie ignored the leading question. “Did you have a chance to take a peek yet?”
“You asked me to wait for you, and I’m a man of my word.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Besides, I knew you’d be tied up with the massage for a while, so I picked up some sandwiches for lunch. Is that okay?”
“That’s more than okay. There’s something about being totally relaxed that makes you starving.”
“I have everything in my room if you’re ready.”
Kylie followed him into his hotel room and poured herself into a chair by the window.
Matt plunked a bag from the local deli onto the table and began unwrapp
ing sandwiches. “Turkey okay?”
“That’s fine.”
“Plain or barbecued?” He held up two bags of chips.
“I’ll take the barbecued.”
He fished two cans of diet soda out of the bag and plunked them down on the table. He tapped one can. “I saw a diet soda can in your trash.”
“Very perceptive of you. I suppose it comes with the P.I. territory.”
“I suppose.” After pulling lunch out of the assorted bags, Matt sat on the love seat in front of the coffee table where his laptop sat and where he’d placed the camera.
“I’m going to start downloading the pictures, and we’ll read the report straight from the laptop.”
“Ah, modern technology.”
“Makes spying a lot easier. Unfortunately, it makes crime a lot easier, too.”
He took the second chair at the table and snapped open his can of soda. He touched it to hers and said, “Here’s to more clues in the police report.”
“Nobody saw you and Annie at the post office?”
He had taken a bite of his sandwich and circled his finger in the air while he chewed. He swallowed and wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Nobody that mattered. After his meeting with Mayor Davis, the chief had a lunchtime meeting with the police chiefs in the neighboring coastal cities. No other cops around. Not that I think his force is all that loyal to Evans.”
“This town never got over losing Chief Reese, and now it looks like his son, Dylan, is coming back to man the station.”
“Dylan was a cop in San Jose.”
“Oh, you kept in touch with him?”
Matt busied himself shoving an errant piece of lettuce back into his sandwich. “Yeah. Here and there. He played drums in a few of my bands in high school.”
“I remember. You guys played at that one party at the Roarke brothers’ house when their folks were out of town and the only reason the whole thing didn’t get busted is because Dylan was the chief’s son.”
“Were you at that party?”
“One of the few I attended.”
The laptop beeped, and Matt tossed his napkin onto the table. “I think it’s done.”
Kylie gulped her soda too fast and it fizzed in her nose. “In your face, Chief Evans.”
Matt dropped to the love seat and Kylie settled next to him, her hip touching his.
He clicked a few keys on the laptop to complete the download and unplugged the camera from the computer.
“So how does this work?”
“Every picture is a page of the report. We can view it as a slideshow and just click through each page and read to our little hearts’ content.”
“What are we waiting for?” She reached across him and clicked on the first picture.
Side by side, they read through the preliminary information of the case. Some of the information they’d already seen from the redacted report Matt had obtained legally from the police.
When they got to the juicy part where the report started naming names, Matt flipped open his pad of paper and started taking notes.
“So Bree stayed with two girls while she was here. Mindy Lawrence and Patrice McNicoll. Do you know if they’re still in town?”
“We can look them up in the phone book or maybe the guys from the other night know—Kenny, Rob and Toby.”
“Okay, we’ll check.”
When they clicked to the next page of the report, they both gasped simultaneously.
Matt said, “You must’ve read what I just read.”
“That Mindy reported Bree was friendly with Harlan Sloan?”
“Yep. What does that mean, friendly?”
“I guess we’ll have to ask Mr. Sloan. What kind of friendly can a thirty-five-year-old man be with a nineteen-year-old woman?”
“Probably the very friendly kind, but Bree was nineteen—nothing illegal about that.”
“Nothing illegal, but plenty immoral since Sloan is married, was married at the time.”
“He wouldn’t want her causing trouble, would he?”
“Nope.”
They read through the rest of the page, where it was evident the police hadn’t questioned Sloan very thoroughly, even though he’d had a text message on his phone asking Bree to meet him the night of her disappearance.
Kylie clicked her tongue. “I can’t believe the cops let that slide so easily.”
“Sloan claimed he had misplaced his phone and never sent the message. He also had an alibi at the time the message was sent.”
Bree snorted. “Yeah, a couple of roadies who are dependent on him for their paychecks and their next gig.”
At the end of the page, Kylie cinched Matt’s wrist. “There it is. My mom’s name.”
Matt read the paragraph aloud, which stated on the day of the evening of Bree’s disappearance, she had visited Rose Grant on Cressy Road.
“They questioned your mom, Kylie, and she had nothing to add.”
“She wouldn’t. She considered readings like a therapist would consider a session with a patient—private and confidential.”
Matt took her hand, palm up, as if doing his own reading of the lines that crisscrossed her skin. “Why did your mother commit suicide? She never left a note?”
At the sudden question, ready tears burned behind Kylie’s eyes. “She didn’t leave a note. I just always figured it was because she couldn’t take the voices and sensations anymore. My mom was a tortured woman.”
“You’re not.”
“We were different. My mom taught me what she was never able to do herself—filtering.”
“Filtering?”
“I can turn things on and off. Mom was never able to do that. Can you imagine having flashes and feelings and voices assaulting you every time you met someone?”
“It could be useful in certain lines of work.”
“It’s hell. It’s total confusion.”
“And you don’t get that? You don’t shake someone’s hand and immediately know, I can trust this person, or This person is hiding something?”
She leaned back against the cushion, but Matt kept possession of her hand, lightly encircling her wrist with his long fingers. “No. Sometimes I think my mom taught me too well. I have to be in the mood. It helps if I have an item belonging to the person. I have to concentrate.”
“That’s a good thing.”
“I suppose.”
“Your mom killed herself a few months after Bree’s disappearance, right?”
“Yes, four.”
“And the authorities were sure it was suicide?”
“I had the same thought when I went to Columbella House, Matt. I definitely felt a malevolent presence there, but the circumstances of my mom’s death point to suicide.”
“Okay, what if she knew something about Kylie’s murder. What if she knew it was going to happen, did nothing to stop it and then couldn’t live with herself?”
“That’s what I thought when I had that dream the other night. In the dream, my mom was warning Bree.” Or had she been warning her own daughter in affairs of the heart?
“Maybe she didn’t voice her concerns to Bree. Maybe she wasn’t specific enough and blamed herself for the girl’s death.”
“I don’t know, Matt. It could be.”
He hunched forward again. “Okay, let’s get through the rest of this pathetic report. It’s obvious why Chief Evans didn’t want me to have it. This is a poor excuse for an investigation.”
“I suppose you’ve seen a lot of police reports as a private investigator?”
He clicked through to the next page of the report. “Yeah, I’ve seen a lot of police reports.”
They read about Bree’s final interactions on the night she disappeared. Mindy and Patrice had reported that Bree had left them in the middle of the concert after receiving a text message, which they never saw, and which the cops later found out had come from Sloan’s cell phone.
Matt tapped the screen. “She told them she was going to meet someone, but
didn’t give the name of the person. And that’s it. She walked off the edge of the earth.”
They clicked to the last page of the report that listed the people who had been interviewed.
Kylie’s eyes skimmed through the familiar names, and then she froze.
“Matt, it’s not just the ramshackle nature of the investigation Chief Evans was trying to hide from us.” She poked at the screen.
Matt read aloud. “Eric Evans? Any relation to the chief?”
“Eric Evans is his son.”
Chapter Ten
Matt swore under his breath. He should’ve known there had to be more to the chief’s reluctance to hand over the full report. Then he thought about Annie.
“So the chief is married?”
“Divorced.”
“Ex-wife and son still in town?”
“Ex definitely not. I don’t think she ever lived here. The chief was already divorced when he took this job, divorced or separated.”
“And the son?”
“Like most kids of divorced parents, he split his time between Mom and Dad, but he was already a teenager when his father took this job. I don’t think he ever went to school here though—just summers and holidays.”
“And is he here now?”
“I haven’t seen him.”
Matt’s hands hovered over the laptop. “I don’t get it. We didn’t see an Eric Evans in the report, just his name listed at the end. What was his role in this tragedy?”
“I don’t know. It must’ve been important enough for the chief to want to hide it.”
Matt scrolled to the beginning of the report and did a search on Eric Evans. “It’s coming up at the end only.”
Kylie leaned forward, wedging her elbows on her knees and peering at the screen. “He must be one of those unnamed young people floating in and out of Bree’s orbit while she was here.”
She jumped back to the last page with the interviewees. “Look. Toby’s, Rob’s and Kenny’s names are on here, too, but they don’t appear in the report.”
“Shoddy police work or an attempt to gloss over the fact that Eric Evans’s involvement isn’t chronicled in the body of the report?”
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