“Julie could handle people, you know? They never took advantage of her.” Amber paused, her pride in her sister slowly collapsing into pain. She stared at the french fry she held, unseeing. “That’s why I didn’t worry about her going out with Rafe, even when she said he was bossy. You know, a real alpha male. She liked that type. She could always . . .” Amber swallowed hard. “She thought she could handle him,” she finished in a weak voice.
Rick shook his head. “He’s more than domineering, Amber. It’s not Julie’s fault she couldn’t handle that, or your fault you didn’t know it. Rafe’s not normal. He’s sick.”
“He’s evil,” Amber pronounced. Her brown eyes speared Rick as her face turned cold and hard. “He deserves to die. But I want to torture him first, and make him cry and beg. Then slash his throat, the same as he did to Julie.”
Well, so much for their pleasant lunch.
“Hey, Rick,” Maggie said, “aren’t you supposed to be watching Rafe, keeping track of where he is?”
Rick didn’t look perturbed. “I know exactly where he is—at a house about a mile from here, with the whole production company and the other pampered Brats. They’re filming Rafe taking over child care duties for the day. Poor kids. It’s a closed set; I can’t get on the property. So, as long as Rafe is babysitting the kids, I don’t have to babysit him.”
Wonderful. Now she had to babysit Rick to keep him from digging around in Amber’s mind—as if she didn’t have enough to do.
Her annoyance must have showed. Rick took one look at her and straightened. “But I do have an article to write, so I should be going.” He slung his camera over his shoulder, but didn’t move. “Um, Maggie, I wondered if I could talk to you about that article.”
“Sure. What’s the problem?” The way his eyes kept glancing nervously away, it looked like there was one.
“I guess you and Cal talked about having me sell it to one of the tabloids.”
“Of course. They’re the ones who are chasing after me trying to create emotional issues, and we thought you could play it up.”
“Oh yeah, I can. But the thing is, the tabloids don’t want to deal with me since the De Lucas pressured them about that picture of Rafe hitting that girl.” At her disappointed look, he rushed to add, “But don’t worry. I think we can do even better. Those papers aren’t the only ones following you around. You’re hot news and you’ve got TV stations all across the spectrum chasing after you. I’ve been talking with some of the guys from their crews, just networking, you know? And I think I might be able to convince one of them to do a piece on you as the victim of the De Lucas’ power play. That’s good exposure, Maggie. I might even get it on Entertainment Tonight. Or Good Morning America. What do you say?”
She bit her lip and thought it over. She hadn’t realized Rick’s break with the tabloids was so severe, but he might be right about the TV shows being able to spin it into exactly what they wanted. The visuals of her store would certainly encourage speculation, if they could get a camera crew in before the contractors started repairs.
She nodded. “Okay, do it. But we have to make it look like I’m letting them in reluctantly. As a favor, because I know you, not because I want them to do a story about me. Remember, we have no proof the De Lucas are behind this. I’m just the victim of a random attack and a freak accident. They have to be the ones to raise suspicions about who might be behind it.”
He held up a hand. “I got it, I got it. I’ll call you guys when it’s set up. Is it okay if we arrange to do it today?”
“You’re that sure they’ll go for it?’
He grinned. “Oh, yeah. This has scandal written all over it, and they’ve been desperate for the next episode in the Rafe and Maggie saga.”
She’d been convinced it was a good idea until Rick ran with it. Now she wondered if she was stepping into quicksand and about to get sucked in over her head. She didn’t know what could go wrong, but she had a bad feeling that if something did, it would be on a big scale. A Good Morning America scale.
Chapter
Nine
Cal shifted on the edge of the blue-flowered armchair, facing Tara Kolinowski’s parents on a similarly flowered sofa. More flowers crawled up the drapes and bordered the rug, splashy blue roses unlike anything he’d ever seen in nature. He suppressed the urge to sneeze.
Mrs. Kolinowski folded her hands in her lap. “I’m glad someone is looking into Tara’s case again. It’s so frustrating to try to get answers from a police department a hundred miles away. It seems like they forgot all about Tara.”
“Well, ma’am, like I said, this isn’t an official investigation, and I’m not with the Barringer’s Pass police. But I will be sharing any information I discover with them.”
Mr. Kolinowski leaned forward a little, legs apart as if prepared to make a quick exit if necessary. Maybe he was uncomfortable with the strange flowers, too. “Just what do you think you can discover that the other detective didn’t find?” he asked.
“I don’t know. But it can’t hurt to have a fresh pair of eyes look at the case.”
He nodded his satisfaction, and his wife said, “What can we tell you?”
“Let’s start with the names of the girls who went on the trip with Tara. I understand she worked with one of them, and the other was a friend she’d known for years?”
Mrs. Kolinowski jumped to her feet and crossed to a small rolltop desk in the corner. “I have their names and phone numbers right here,” she offered, coming back with an address book.
He copied the information and set the book on the coffee table. Mrs. Kolinowski bounced up again, put it away, then returned to the sofa, waiting for his next request.
This was great—Tara’s parents couldn’t be more cooperative. “Had Tara been to the Glacier Pass resort before?”
They looked at each other, double-checking, before shaking their heads. “I don’t think so,” her mother said. “Tara’s a good skier, and she likes to try lots of different places.”
“She usually goes to one really nice resort every year,” her husband added. “That’s all she can afford. She always has a roommate to split the cost.”
A twinge of sadness hit him—after eighteen months, Tara’s parents still spoke of her in the present tense. They were the only ones he’d encountered so far who did.
“She doesn’t have any friends in that area, anyone she might have visited?”
Tara’s father looked to his wife, as if she’d be more likely to have that answer. “No,” she said, shaking her head firmly.
He hadn’t expected she would, but it was a good way to lead into the subject he’d really come to talk about.
“Then our best bet is to talk to the people who saw Tara most recently before she went missing. I think some people connected to the case definitely deserve another look.”
Mrs. Kolinowski bit her lip and nodded encouragement.
“For instance, the local people who ski at Glacier Pass. They often meet resort guests on the slopes, then hang around to socialize with them in the evenings.” It was a polite way to refer to the men who hoped to pick up vacationing hot chicks looking for some bedtime recreation. From what he’d heard, Tara had been one of those chicks. “They might remember seeing Tara with someone they recognize.”
“Detective Sanders had a long list of people who were there the night Tara disappeared, including all the employees,” Mrs. Kolinowski said. “He told us he talked with all of them.”
Cal nodded, not wanting to imply that the Barringer’s Pass detective hadn’t done a good job. From what Cal could tell when he’d spoken with him, he had. But local cops were subject to local pressure. If the chief had told Sanders to treat the resident VIPs with kid gloves, he would have, especially without any other reason to suspect them. The scenic real estate and renowned ski slopes around Barringer’s Pass drew a lot of prominent people to the area, people who couldn’t afford to have their names attached to the investigation of a missing girl. People who paid exorbi
tant taxes that helped keep the local police department well staffed and driving late-model SUVs. There had been no cruisers more than two years old in the station parking lot. Depending on the ethics of the local police chief, that could buy a lot of deferential treatment.
He had to approach this carefully. “It’s possible some witnesses didn’t like the idea of being involved with an investigation. People with images to protect. But that doesn’t mean they don’t know anything, and you might want to press the police to take a second look at anyone like that. Sometimes things that seem insignificant can provide vital clues.”
Mrs. Kolinowski twisted her rings. Mr. Kolinowski appeared suddenly distracted by a clump of blue roses on the rug.
Cal pushed harder. “Some of the waitstaff at the hotel remembered Tara being with a group of people that included a couple of movie actors earlier that week. One of them said Tara seemed intent on meeting as many stars as she could.” What he’d actually said was that Tara was a slut for celebrities, but he couldn’t say that to her parents. Could hardly even think it, sitting in their flowery living room. “She’d been seen having drinks with two CSI actors and a rapper earlier in the week.”
“She collects autographs,” Mr. Kolinowski said stiffly.
Is that what the kids called it these days? “Yes, sir,” Cal agreed. “And she’s a pretty girl, and I’m told she likes to meet new people, so I imagine she often had conversations with the celebrities she met.”
Her mother smiled a bit too tightly. “Tara’s always been popular.”
“Did she talk with you while she was there, maybe mention any of the celebrities she’d met?”
“She e-mailed me every day. That’s what she does. She told me about meeting the CSI actors and that singer.” She went back to tugging on her wedding ring, sliding it back and forth on her finger. Never taking it completely off, but never leaving it alone.
“Did she happen to mention meeting Rafael De Luca?”
“No.” She shook her head emphatically.
“You recognize the name?”
“Of course, we’ve heard of him,” Mrs. Kolinowski answered for both of them.
Cal had the distinct feeling Rafe’s name had come up before, and not because they were fans of Trust Fun Brats. But their faces remained carefully blank. “A couple of the waiters thought they saw her with him the night before she disappeared,” he prodded.
Mrs. Kolinowski shrugged. “I wouldn’t know.”
He found that hard to believe, especially if Tara had mentioned the actors and the rapper, whose names weren’t nearly as recognizable as Rafe De Luca’s. For young women interested in celebrity “autographs,” Rafe was a major coup. Certainly exciting enough to write home about, even if she left out the intimate details. “Would you possibly have those last e-mails from Tara?”
“Sorry, we didn’t save them,” Mr. Kolinowski said. “It was over eighteen months ago, you know.” His wife got the ring all the way off this time, before slipping it back over her knuckle.
Cal couldn’t imagine the parents of a missing girl deleting e-mails they’d received from her, especially her final communications with her family. He studied their faces, but they avoided his gaze.
Time to be blunt. “Apparently she talked about him quite a bit the night before. She almost certainly spent time with him Thursday.”
No reaction.
“One of the employees thought she would have willingly left with Rafe Friday night if he’d shown up again.”
Mr. Kolinowski frowned. “Conjecture.”
Mrs. Kolinowski made a fist, holding her rings in place, and didn’t look up.
Cal studied their tight-lipped expressions. “Perhaps I should speak to Rafe De Luca about it.”
“I don’t see the point,” Mr. Kolinowski rushed to say. “He wasn’t there.”
“The point is, he might have been. He was there the night before, and police say he was definitely in town that night. He might have even seen Tara leave.”
Tara’s father scowled his impatience. “Seems to me you’ve got plenty of other people who saw her Friday night. There’s no need to bother with people who might have been there. That’s the kind of thing that slows an investigation down.”
Cal’s neck prickled with sudden suspicion. “Is it?” he asked quietly.
He nodded sharply. “Celebrity names come up and folks get distracted from the real focus—Tara.” His voice quivered, and he took a moment to swallow back the emotion. “Look, we don’t care where Rafe De Luca was Friday night, we care where our daughter was. Where she is. If you can help us with that, we’d be grateful. If not, I don’t see the point in dragging other names into it and muddying the water.”
Cal’s hopes sank. The De Lucas had gotten to them.
The Kolinowskis were spouting the De Luca spin—we’re famous, Rafe’s name will just distract everyone from looking for Tara, and after all, it’s your daughter who’s the important one here.
The De Lucas knew what they were doing. They’d obviously applied enough ego stroking and feigned concern for Tara to keep Rafe’s name out of it. If the media detected even the tiniest connection between Rafe and the search for a missing girl, it would be headlines. He could end up tried and convicted in the tabloids. The De Lucas would have done whatever they could to stop that.
He stood. “Thank you for talking with me.”
Mrs. Kolinowski raised a pleading gaze to him. “You’ll call if you find out anything? Anything at all?”
“Of course.” Although they’d just reduced his chances significantly. The only progress he’d made was having his worst suspicion confirmed—Tara Kolinowski had almost certainly spent her last night on earth with Rafe De Luca. Now it was only a matter of finding her body.
Cal almost turned off the main street a block before Fortune’s Folly in order to enter the employee lot without passing the storefront. He was glad he didn’t, or he might have missed the sight of Rick Grady being interviewed by a beautiful woman on the sidewalk in front of the boarded-up window of the store. Cal stared as he crept by, traffic going even slower than usual as people gawked at the TV camera and crowds. Probably trying to spot whatever celebrity the press had cornered this time.
Cal wedged his truck into a corner of the employee lot next to a minivan sporting a satellite dish and the legend Entertainment Tonight. Maggie and Rick had been busy.
The back door was locked and no one responded to his knock. He pulled out his phone and called Maggie’s cell.
“Hi. I’m at the back door. Can you let me in?”
“Oh, that was you! Be right there.”
Seconds later she opened it, then shut it quickly behind him, throwing the dead bolt. She grinned, using her wrist to brush a few untidy hairs off her face, careful not to touch her face with fingers that appeared to be covered with dust and dirt. “I should have known it was you. No one else bothers to knock, they just walk right in if I don’t keep it locked.”
“The pitfalls of celebrity, huh? Where’s Amber?”
“Out front, peeking through the window at the ET reporter. Did you want to talk to—”
He pulled her against his chest and kissed her. She switched gears seamlessly, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him back with enthusiasm. It only inflamed the growing need for her that he already had a hard time controlling. He was starting to wonder why he fought it.
He’d been wrong. Maggie wasn’t like Diane. She might have the same incredible passion for life and determination to succeed. She might be impulsive. But she listened to people she trusted, and lately that seemed to include him. She’d consulted him, weighed his advice, something Diane would never have done. Maggie might have reckless impulses, but she allowed him to temper them.
As far as talking himself into a relationship went, it was good reasoning. Plus, he was wearing down Maggie’s resistance. She seemed more interested every time he kissed her.
She pulled away now with a satisfied sigh. “You �
�really are very good at that.”
“I can do more. What do you say we ditch the kid sister for a few hours?”
“Leave Amber on her own?”
“She’s sixteen, Maggie.”
“That’s exactly what I told the cameraman who invited her to meet him at Del Tanner’s bar tonight. She accepted, by the way.”
“Shit.” He’d been responsible at sixteen. What was with kids these days?
Maggie chuckled as he followed her into the shop area. “Were you like that at sixteen?” he asked her.
“Worse, I’m afraid. But you have your work cut out for you.”
As if to prove her point, he saw Amber stand on tiptoe as she let Rick in the front door, looking past him at someone outside. She waved and called, “’Bye, Josh, see you later!”
Like hell she would.
“Cal!” Rick interrupted Cal’s scowl as he strode across the room, more energized than Cal had ever seen him. “Great idea you and Maggie had. They went for it big-time. What do you want to bet you have at least three more stations here tomorrow morning, clamoring for interviews?”
“I didn’t know you were going to turn it into a publicity event.” He wasn’t entirely comfortable with the idea, either. He’d prefer that the Rafe-and-Maggie press party died out. Instead, it seemed they’d just cranked up the excitement.
“Had to. This story has all the angles—powerful bad guy, titillating rumors, hardworking independent businesswoman. Pretty, too, which always helps. And a truck driver who—get this, Cal—just happens to work for the landscaping company the De Lucas use at their fancy estate up the mountain. Big surprise, huh? I dug up that bit of information this afternoon. I just love when it all comes together like that.”
So did Cal, but he liked to make sure it stayed under control. Rick’s enthusiasm made him nervous. “You didn’t actually accuse the De Lucas of being involved, did you?”
“Of course not. I didn’t have to. It was one of the odd ‘coincidences’ Tiff cited. That’s Tiffany Martin, the cohost of the show. Cohost, do you believe it? She flew in just for this. I tell ya, this is going to blow up big.”
Silver Sparks Page 15