Before he could look too pleased with the changes in Amber and ruin the whole thing, he went off to find Maggie. He was already looking forward to coming back in three days.
The beauty of being on leave was that he could set his own hours. And if he wanted to spend an extra hour in bed with a woman who could set him on fire with just one heavy-lidded glance, he would. When that woman also had a flexible schedule because half her store had been destroyed by a truck, they could make it two hours. It was a pretty good way to start a day.
Life seemed almost normal now that they could walk out of Maggie’s house without encountering the media hordes who’d abandoned them in favor of the parking lot at the resort. Maybe it was a journalistic tenet—celebrity plus abduction trumped celebrity and bad girl.
While Maggie drove into town undisturbed, Cal met Sergeant Kyle Todd at the police station.
Todd had cleared it with his chief, calling Cal an outside consultant. Cal didn’t care what they called him. All that mattered was that he now had access to information he couldn’t get on his own, information that came only as a result of police questioning. Like which employees at the De Luca estate might have seen Rafe the night Emily Banks disappeared, and whether he was accompanied by a blond girl.
Cal met Todd at his desk, pulling up an extra chair. Todd was already going through the case file. “What did you find out?” Cal asked eagerly.
Todd tossed a sheaf of papers down in disgust. “Nada. No one saw Rafe that night.”
He didn’t want to believe it. Rafe had to have taken Emily someplace where he wouldn’t be seen by paparazzi, reporters, or fans. A remote road or vacant building was risky when he might be recognized coming or going. The estate was the only safe place. “His family could be covering for him.”
“Maybe. Harrison—that’s the cop who questioned the employees—said there were two live-in housekeepers. They have more when the De Lucas are in town, but the parents are in Switzerland now. So it’s just these two women and one of the beefy De Luca guards living in the house. Two other guards stick with Rafe these days, but they stayed at the Alpine Sky that night. Verified by the hotel.”
“Shit,” Cal muttered. “So we’ve got nothing?”
“Not quite.” Todd pulled out a typed report. “The three De Luca employees never saw Rafe that night, but someone saw his car. A kid, eighteen, lives with his parents just down the road from the De Lucas’ place, last house before their private drive. He and his girlfriend saw Rafe’s car go by about one thirty in the morning.” Todd raised an amused eyebrow. “Parents weren’t home. The kids say they were watching TV.”
“Great. So while two teenagers are screwing their brains out on the living room sofa, they happen to see Rafe’s car? On a dark mountain road with no lights?”
“Actually, they were in the kid’s upstairs bedroom. Harrison says he’s got a fifty-two-inch flatscreen on the wall. More important, he’s got a big balcony that overlooks the front of the property and the road. The only vehicles passing their house are the ones going to the De Luca estate. The kid says he had the French doors open and heard the car coming before he saw it.”
“Open doors sounds a bit fishy. It’s still hitting the freezing mark here at night.”
Todd shrugged, smiling. “Gotta air the place out when you’re smoking weed in your bedroom.”
“Ah. Good point.”
“Anyway, he hears this engine roar, says he recognizes it as Rafe’s car, and pulls his girlfriend out on the balcony to see it go by. Says there was enough moonlight to recognize it.”
Damn, just when he’d thought it sounded promising. “Hell, that could be anyone. He couldn’t even be sure it was Rafe’s car.”
“Ever see Rafe’s ride?”
“He’s always in a limo, with a driver.”
“That’s what the studio provides. But sometimes he goes off in his own car. He drives a bright yellow Lamborghini. V-10, 530 horsepower.”
Cal smiled as he got it. “Loud?”
“Nothing like it. And fast. Asshole’s gonna kill himself on these roads someday.”
From the mild tone, Cal gathered that no one in the Barringer’s Pass PD would much care. “Does anyone else drive it?”
“Not as far as we know.”
“So we’ve got Rafe driving to the family estate about one thirty a.m., maybe looking for a little private time with Emily Banks. Could he get into the house without the guard or the maids knowing?”
“That’s what Harrison wondered. ’Course, if we assume the neighbor kid recognized the car when he was most likely stoned and more than a little preoccupied with the girlfriend, we have to assume the household staff would also hear the car pull up.”
“Right.” He frowned, thinking. “Where else could he go? Are there any other buildings, maybe a guesthouse?”
“No, but there’s a pole barn where they store their snowplow. Not the most romantic location, but if your idea about him advancing to deliberate kills is right, it wouldn’t matter. Not being seen would be his priority.”
“And he wouldn’t drive by the house to get there?”
In answer, Todd got to his feet. “Let me show you.”
Cal followed him to a small conference room that was nearly filled by a long table and ten chairs. They walked around the table to a large map tacked to the far wall. It looked like a satellite image with the town of Barringer’s Pass at its center. Slightly above the town to the north and west, large swaths of bare ground marked ski slopes. In the winter they would stand out like wide, white roads. In the summer view, they were broad gashes in the forested slopes.
“Here’s the De Luca property.” Todd drew a small circle with his finger on Two Bears Mountain. The area sat on a fold in the mountain where rocky promontories jutted out, no doubt providing spectacular views of the ski resorts on both Two Bears and neighboring Tappit’s Peak, and the town in the valley between them. “This thin line is the private drive to the house. The barn is off to the left, here.” His finger pointed to a dark square just off the drive before the house.
Cal examined the property, trying to envision Rafe driving there at night with a very willing Emily Banks. She probably wouldn’t protest even if he drove to the pole barn instead of the house. She’d been coming on to Rafe hot and heavy.
He hadn’t wanted to believe that Rafe would move from impulse killing to deliberate murder, but every piece of evidence pointed toward it. Motive, opportunity, means—Rafe had them all. He had to operate on the assumption that he’d done it. He didn’t know how far Rafe would take it, if he’d kill her outright or have sex with her first. Either way, the barn was private, a definite possibility.
“You search it yet?”
“Getting the warrant as we speak.”
Cal nodded, envisioning his scenario. Rafe would have to dispose of Emily’s body. He squinted at the featureless mountainside, wondering if the one-dimensional image hid ravines where someone could dump a body, and where animals would soon scavenge it to an unrecognizable pile of bones. He pointed to a small black shadow on an otherwise bare spot of ground. “What’s that, another building?”
Todd shook his head. “It’s just an old mine entrance. They’re all over the place. Used to be silver mines in this area until they all played out about eighty years go. Mostly, they’re boarded up. A few are open for tourists.”
A mine could hide a body, especially if it was on private land. “Has anyone been inside it?”
“On what grounds? The De Lucas aren’t about to let cops go tramping all over their land, looking for bodies. Maybe if we find something in the barn.”
He was already looking for other dark spots that might indicate a mine. Unfortunately, the angle of the satellite image made the property to the north look foreshortened, and he couldn’t see details on the wooded slope. He tapped the spot. “Who owns this land?”
Todd peered at the map. “Let’s see . . .” He mumbled road names as his finger traced the route to th
e land on the other side of the promontory. After a few seconds, he snorted out a laugh. “That’s the commune where your sister is staying. Kind of a neat place if you’re there in the daylight. You ever see it?”
“What I’ve seen is their old silver mine. It’s right in those trees on the other side of the De Luca land. Maggie and I explored their mine. There’s another entrance to it that we never saw. It just might be on De Luca land.” Sergeant Todd gave him a quick look. Cal said thoughtfully, “I think I might explore that mine again, maybe see if I can find the other entrance.”
Todd looked thoughtful. “If you came out a different way, you wouldn’t even know whose land you were on.”
“Right. I’d have to look around a bit, see if I could find my way back to the commune.”
“That’s right. When do you think you might do that?”
He did a mental inventory. “Tomorrow, soonest. I need to get supplies first—ropes, lights, and maybe even pitons and a hammer. There’s a shaft I have to go down, with water at the bottom. A small inflatable raft, too, since I don’t know how deep it is.”
“Expensive.”
And his credit card had already taken a beating. But he had money he hadn’t touched, money that felt tainted somehow, since it came from Diane’s life insurance policies. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to profit from her death by buying a new house, but it had felt okay to live off part of it while he took a leave from work to look for his sister’s killer. And it felt okay to use more of it to spy on Rafe De Luca.
“I can manage,” he told Todd. “Think I can find those supplies around here?”
“Hell yeah, no problem. B-Pass gets lot of climbers in the summer. But I don’t want you poking around De Luca land without letting me know first. Someone has to cover your ass.”
“It’s not De Luca land,” he reminded Todd. “We don’t know whose land is on the other end of that mine.” He smiled at Todd’s narrowed eyes and gave him a friendly slap on the arm. “I’ll let you know before I go. First I have to get Maggie to arrange for us to visit the commune.”
Maggie stood under a mounted moose head in the hunting section of High Country Outfitters, talking into her phone. “I’m doing great,” she assured Zoe. “I don’t need a shopping trip to cheer me up, but thanks for asking.”
She watched Cal as she talked. He was across the aisle selecting climbing and caving equipment. He seemed to know what he was doing.
“How about dinner?” Zoe persisted. “I can make that chicken teriyaki dish you like so much.”
“No, thanks, really.”
“Come on, we should do something. You want to catch a movie?”
“Not tonight.” She had other things in mind that were far more fun than a movie. Unless Cal was interested in watching something a little racy . . .
“What’s going on?” Zoe sounded suspicious. “Are you and Cal stalking Rafe tonight?”
“No. Cal’s working with the police, and I’m not doing anything.” That she wanted to talk about. She watched Cal try on some gloves and wondered how he’d look in a bathtub full of bubbles, and if he’d sit still for it. Probably, if she was in it with him.
Zoe was silent for a few seconds. “Why don’t you sound tired and depressed?”
Maggie thought she must have lost the thread of the conversation. “Why should I sound tired and depressed?”
“Didn’t you just spend the whole day in your demolished store talking with contractors and claims adjusters?”
“And suppliers. I have a lot of orders coming in still.”
“So why do you sound as relaxed as if you’re on a beach in Jamaica?”
“Do I?”
“Yes, you do.”
“I guess it’s because I have everything under control.”
“Uh-huh.” Zoe had gone from suspicious to decisive. “Or maybe it’s because you’ve been working out all your tensions in the bedroom.”
Maggie wasn’t sure if she should deny it, and she couldn’t even pretend to be outraged. “Why does everyone think we’re sleeping together?”
“Because you are.”
“Yeah, but they thought so before we actually were.”
Zoe didn’t respond for several seconds, and the silence cracked with tension. “I thought you were trying to be more selective about who you went to bed with.”
“I am.” It came out sounding defensive, but she didn’t like the thought of Cal being lumped in with her past mistakes.
“Do you even know much about Cal?”
“I know his half sister, and I know how he rejected his irresponsible mother.”
“I mean romantically? Does he have a girlfriend back in Oklahoma? A fiancée? A wife?”
Maggie wanted to say, “Of course not,” but she didn’t really know. A wife? He didn’t wear a ring, but he wouldn’t be the first man to take it off when he left the house.
Her silence was enough for Zoe. “Maybe you should find out,” her sister said quietly.
She had to come up with some defense. “He would have told me. He’s a good guy, Zoe.” She glanced at the good guy in question, who held up a pair of boots much too small for him as he waved her over.
“I hope so, sweetie, I really do.”
“I have to go, Zoe. Talk to you later.” She pocketed the phone and smiled at Cal as she walked over to him, loving the way she could see both affection and desire in his eyes when he looked at her. There wasn’t a wife back home, she was sure of it. Not even a girlfriend. Cal was better than that.
Right. And she had a history of flawless decisions about men.
She would find the right time, and ask.
They didn’t leave for the commune until nearly noon the next day. Maggie liked waking up with Cal too much to rush out of bed. It should have been the perfect time to ask him some personal questions, but it had turned into a giggling, crazy tangle of arms and legs and constantly changing positions that left her exhausted and happy. Too happy to let doubts about his marital status and general availability intrude.
The drive to the commune almost had a feel of adventure, with all the caving supplies loaded in the back of the truck and a warm breeze sucking away the last crusty patches of snow. The truck wound up fifteen hundred feet of switchback roads with high granite cliffs pressing in on one side and sheer drop-offs on the other. Dense growths of spruce clung to the steep sides, filling the air with the scent of pine. Cal rolled down the windows and gaped like a tourist.
They parked amid the commune’s usual pack of barking dogs. After taking a few minutes to pass out pats and ear scratches, Cal dropped the tailgate and hauled out their large backpacks. Maggie tied her jacket around her waist before strapping her pack on. She’d need the jacket in the mine, but it was too hot to wear it now.
Her mother found them just as they were ready to start their hike to the mine.
“Cal! How lovely to see you again!” She hugged them as well as she could with the supplies on their backs, then turned a stern look on her daughter. “Maggie May, were you going to go off without saying hello?”
“I didn’t want to disturb your work. I’ll stop by when we get back from the mine. I’m sure Pete will want to know where that other tunnel goes.”
“Good. If you see Amber, would you tell her Marcy picked up the supplies we were waiting for and we can do her piercing now?”
Maggie gave a cautious nod, expecting Cal to make another attempt to veto the piercing, thereby incurring a lecture on free expression and a young woman’s right to decide what to do with her own body. But Cal’s thoughts had taken another direction.
“Amber’s not here?”
“Oh, she should be back any minute now. She went for a hike.”
“A hike? Amber?”
“Um-hmm.” Kate nodded and repositioned a purple flower in her hair as she talked. “We were talking about the mine and how you thought it might connect to our neighbor’s land, and she said she wanted to see it.” Realization dawned, and sh
e touched Cal’s arm. “Oh! You’re worried about her going inside the mine? No, no, don’t worry. Pete warned her about not going in there alone, and she promised she wouldn’t.”
“And you believed her?” Cal obviously didn’t.
“She promised,” Kate stressed. “Amber wouldn’t lie to us.”
Cal raised a skeptical eyebrow. “She wouldn’t mind bending the truth till it screamed.”
Maggie grabbed a coiled nylon rope and shoved it at Cal, pushing him toward the path up the mountain. “We’ll give her the message, Mom.” She gave Cal another push, but he was already moving.
Kate waved. “I’m sure you’ll run into her soon.”
Maggie skipped to catch up with Cal. “Maybe Amber’s starting to like the mountains,” she said. “She might be looking for spring flowers. Communing with nature.”
“Do you believe that?”
“I’d like to, but . . . no.”
“She’s up to something, and I’m afraid it has to do with sneaking onto De Luca land.”
“To do what?”
He set his mouth in a grim line. “I’m afraid to guess.”
They made the hike quickly. There was no sign of Amber along the trail, but the boards covering the mine entrance didn’t appear to have been moved.
“You think she’d close it up behind her?” Maggie asked doubtfully as Cal pulled boards aside.
“I don’t know. If she didn’t want anyone to find out where she’d gone, then yes, she probably would.”
“But she’s smart enough to know it would be dangerous to go inside alone.”
“That didn’t stop you.”
She didn’t have an answer to that. Even after she’d moved to her grandmother’s house, she’d spent every summer at the commune. They were all her family. But communal living could be overwhelming, and sometimes she’d needed to get away, to go off on her own.
She guessed Amber was like that, too. She probably would have gone in the mine alone.
Their mission to follow the new shaft suddenly had a more serious overtone. Wordlessly, they slipped out of the backpacks, put on jackets, gloves, and headlamps, then repositioned the packs. Pulling out two Maglites, they ducked under the boards and turned on the flashlights. Twin beams cut through the black maw of the mine, adding to the slightly weaker lights atop their heads. All of them faded quickly as the inky blackness swallowed them. Maggie aimed her light briefly at the floor, but the hard-packed dirt and rock held no footprints.
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