I paused. Actually, I did, though for some reason I felt hesitant to admit it to her. I wanted to ask Reid to go with me to see Captain Baptiste, because alone, I honestly wasn’t sure the policeman would listen to me.
“All right,” I agreed. Nothing in her expression changed as she turned and led me across the lobby and down a hallway. From the open doors of the offices, the familiar sound of computers, copy machines and calculators welcomed me back to the real world.
A door in Rachel’s office opened into Reid’s, and I could see him sitting at his immense desk, the telephone receiver cradled against his shoulder as he busily scribbled notes. All of a sudden, he slammed down the phone and stood up.
“Just what the hell did you think you were doing? I thought my orders were clear.”
His deep voice, so strong and full of contempt, shocked me, although I immediately realized he wasn’t speaking to me. Someone else was in his office whom I couldn’t see from my vantage point.
Reid’s voice rose again, and I cast an uncomfortable glance at Rachel. She was seated at her desk, putting away her purse. She didn’t look up.
“Do you realize what this means?” Reid said coldly. “I pay you to follow orders, not for screwups. Is that clear enough for you?”
The cold, deadly anger in his voice stunned me. I couldn’t imagine what someone could have done to invoke such derision, such ill-concealed rage. I could hear the other man stammering a defense, but it seemed to fall on deaf ears. Reid continued his tirade until I found myself in complete sympathy with his victim, no matter what the man might have done.
I was in a quandary. Should I leave now, before he saw me? Because after the scene I’d just heard, I wasn’t at all sure he’d be in the mood to grant me any favors. But it was too late, because the poor, unfortunate recipient of his rage was walking out the door. His head was bent slightly as if in dejection, but when he glanced in my direction, I could see the anger sparking in his eyes.
I stared at the man in surprise. “Jean Marc?”
He cast a furtive glance over his shoulder. “Oui. I’m glad to see you are all right, mistress.”
“No thanks to you,” I said, and had the satisfaction of seeing his discomfort. “Why did you leave me at that cemetery? Why did you lie about the window being broken? How did you have it fixed so quickly?”
The questions poured out of me like a fountain that had suddenly become unclogged. Emotion after emotion swept over his face. Once again he glanced back at Reid’s office. “I don’t know what you mean. I ran out of gas. I walked back to Port Royale to get some. When I returned, you were gone.”
“And the broken window?”
His dark gaze met mine, and he shrugged. “The car was just as I left it.”
Liar! I wanted to scream, but something stopped me, something in his face, a sorted of frightened intensity. I didn’t know what to make of him. Was he telling the truth? Perhaps he was. Perhaps I was the liar, deceiving myself into believing my own stupid dreams.
“Christine.”
Reid was glaring at me from his open doorway. “What are you doing here?”
“I…need to talk to you.”
To Jean Marc, he said, “That’ll be all. For now.”
Jean Marc gave me one last glance before he turned and hurried out of the room.
“Come in,” Reid said. He didn’t bother to hide the annoyance in his voice. Considering how we were both feeling at the moment, my timing couldn’t have been worse. Nevertheless, I marched into his office.
Reid had already seated himself behind his desk and was busily scanning an open folder. “What do you need, Christine?”
“For starters, you can tell me what you and Jean Marc were talking about.”
“If you must know, Jean Marc was being reprimanded for leaving you alone the other night. He’s been put on probation.”
“He still refuses to admit the window was broken,” I said, frowning.
“Yes. So he says.”
“And you believe him?”
“I didn’t say that. But Jean Marc has been a loyal employee. Up until this incident, I’ve had no reason not to trust him.”
“And you do have reason not to trust me?”
Reid sighed as he laid the folder aside. “He’s been reprimanded, Christine. Officially. It’ll go in his record. Without proof of what you claim, I don’t know what else I can do. If I fire him, his whole family suffers. There are very few jobs on the island. Until we get further information, I think it best we drop the incident for now. You wanted to talk to him, and now you have. Was there something else you needed?”
“I’d stupidly thought you might help me find my father.” My voice quivered with suppressed anger. “I can see now you have very little interest in either of us.”
The blue eyes lifted. “Is that what you think?”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” he said slowly, his gaze enigmatic. “I think it is.”
His tone bewildered me. For an instant, I could have sworn we were talking about two different things. I said slowly, “Then you admit it?”
A slight hesitation. “I admit I’m at a loss as to what to do. You heard Captain Baptiste. Nothing official can be done until Christopher’s been missing for forty-eight hours.”
“Which is today. I’d like you to come with me to the police station to file a missing-person’s report.”
“You don’t need me for that.”
“No, but I think Captain Baptiste would be more inclined to act on the report if you were with me. I’d like to go now.”
“That’s impossible. I can’t get away for hours. I’ve an appointment in less than—” he glanced at the gold watch on his wrist “—five minutes,” he said pointedly. “If you want me to go with you, the report will have to wait.”
I walked over to the door and shut it with deliberate care. Then I turned on Reid. “I don’t believe this. How can you sit there so calmly, thinking about some stupid appointment, when my father is missing. He could be hurt or sick or…worse, for all you know or seem to care.”
He stared at me for a moment. “Are you through?”
“No, I’m not through.” I was on a roll now, and if my actions seemed totally foreign to me, I’d worry about that later. “No one seems to care about my father, but especially you and Angelique. If it wasn’t for him, neither of you would even be here now. How can you be so callous?”
Reid stood slowly, the blue in his eyes darkening to indigo. I wondered then if perhaps I’d gone too far. “Let’s get one thing straight, Christine. You seem to think Christopher bought this hotel back and then just handed it over to me out of the kindness of his heart. Hardly. He supplied a good deal of the cash, that’s true, but I’ve devoted everything else to it—including blood, sweat and not a few tears. I’ve run it practically single-handedly for the last several years, and if anyone’s made sacrifices…well, it hasn’t been Christopher, believe me.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you shouldn’t be so quick to jump to conclusions. As for looking for your father, I’ve done everything there is to be done except for filing the report. I’ll do it later, but I won’t drop everything to do it this minute.”
“Fine.” I turned to open the door, then slung over my shoulder, “But if anything’s happened to him, it’ll be on your conscience, Reid. If he doesn’t come back—”
“Oh, he’ll come back, don’t worry,” Reid volleyed. “He always does.”
* * *
And so that was that, I thought, as I climbed into Rachel’s car and started the engine. Hardly an encouraging beginning, but one I should have expected. No one would help me find my father. Not even Reid. I was alone in this.
So be it.
I’d been alone most of my life. If he thought he could intimidate me into leaving Columbé by his lack of cooperation, he was in for a rude awakening. As far as I was concerned, there was no turning back now.
The streets narrowed precariously as I entered the city, and overcrowded buses careened on and off the thoroughfare without bothering to signal. The din of blasting horns threatened to drown out the voices of women who hawked their wares from the sidewalks.
I parked the car as soon as I saw a space, and got out to walk the rest of the way. The police station—a two-story, dingy stucco building with wrought-iron trim—was located in the center of town, near the square. An overweight man in a brown uniform sat behind a counter, lazily swatting flies with a rolled up magazine. He barely gave me a glance as I stepped up to the desk and stated my mission.
“Captain Baptiste is out,” he said in a listless monotone. “Can someone else help you?”
Briefly, I explained the situation, but without even asking a single question, he dug around in his desk and brought out a form which he placed on a clipboard.
“Fill this out, front and back.”
I took the clipboard and form and sat down near an open window. A ceiling fan droned overhead, but the air inside the station was stuffy. I could feel tiny little beads of sweat trickling down my back.
I was only halfway through the form, struggling to answer questions about a man I hadn’t seen in a decade, when I felt someone staring at me. Hardly a new sensation in Columbé, where all foreigners, particularly Americans, seemed to conjure a certain amount of animosity. But I couldn’t ignore the feeling. I looked up and glanced around the room.
A man—an American by the looks of him—was sitting on the opposite side of the room, speaking quietly to a young black woman who clung to his hand. But his eyes never left mine.
He was around thirty, I judged, and attractive with blond hair and light gray eyes. He was dressed in a suit that had begun to wilt in the heat, and as I watched him for a moment, he mopped his forehead with a white handerkerchief. Almost imperceptibly he nodded, acknowledging his awareness of me. In a moment, he finished his meeting and crossed the room to me.
“Miss Greggory?”
“Yes?”
“You don’t know me, but I feel as though I know you quite well,” he said with an engaging smile. “My name is Lawrence Crawford.”
“How is it you know my name, Mr. Crawford?”
“I’m your father’s attorney. I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation with DuMont over there. Christopher Greggory is missing?” he asked, incredulous.
“Yes, I’m afraid that’s true.”
The crumpled white handkerchief swiped across his forehead. “This is…unbelievable. For how long?”
“Mrs. DuPrae, the housekeeper, last saw him two mornings ago. She assumed he was leaving for work, but no one has seen or heard from him since. Which is particularly worrisome since he knew I was coming.”
“Yes, indeed, he was looking forward to your visit.”
“Then you knew I was coming?”
“Of course. Christopher informed me the first time he telephoned you. Ms. Greggory—may I call you Christine?—I think we should talk about this in more depth. If we put our heads together, we may be able to shed some light on this…unfortunate turn of events.” He glanced furtively over his shoulder as DuMont vigorously swatted another fly. “I’d rather not talk here, however. Would you have lunch with me?”
“If you have information about my father, Mr. Crawford, of course I’ll have lunch with you. Let’s go right now.”
“Excellent,” he said, flashing me a brilliant white smile. “And do call me Lawrence.”
Quietly, I handed the report to DuMont and asked him to have Captain Batiste phone me, but it was a call I never expected to get.
* * *
“How long have you been in Columbé, Christine?” Lawrence Crawford asked between bites of steaming conch chowder.
“Since day before yesterday.” I picked at my own food a little more timidly. We were seated outdoors at the Almond Tree, a charming little restaurant with a shady terrace that overlooked the Caribbean. A light breeze drifted through the palm trees and the rustling leaves sounded like satin. The day remained clear and gorgeous, yet out to sea, thunderheads had begun to gather over the water.
“And there was absolutely no word from your father when you got here?”
I sighed, shoving away my plate. “None. It’s as though he’s vanished off the face of the earth.”
Lawrence blotted his mouth with the pink linen napkin as his gray eyes scrutinized my face. “I don’t like the sound of this. Something’s not right here.”
“That’s exactly what I think,” I said, grateful for someone’s understanding. “And the worst part is, no one seems concerned in the least.”
“I should think they wouldn’t be,” he murmured as he carefully folded his napkin and set it aside. His gaze lifted. “What do you know about your father and Reid St. Pierre’s arrangement at the hotel?”
“Not much. I know they’re partners.”
“Christopher is the senior partner. He owns fifty-five percent of the stock. Reid owns the rest, but your father has controlling interest. I don’t have to tell you that that’s created more than a few problems in the last few years.”
“In what way?”
“Reid’s impulsive. A gambler, just like his father, from what I gather. He’s never satisfied with the St. Pierre’s success, and he’s always willing to take unwarranted chances. Christopher has always been more conservative. In the last year or two, the dissension between them has escalated to the point where Christopher finally wants out.”
I looked at him in shock. “You mean he wants to sell his partnership?”
“He wants to sell his partnership, the mansion—oh, yes, he owns that as well—and he plans to move back to the States.”
“Move back? But…why did he ask me to come here, then?”
Lawrence shrugged, his gaze scanning the sea. “I think he was afraid,” he said softly, so softly I thought at first I must have misunderstood him.
I gripped the edge of the table. “What are you saying?”
“Your father came to me a few weeks ago with all these proposals. He’d had it, he said. He was fed up with the constant battles, the tension. He knew I had a buyer for the hotel. I still do. My clients are still quite interested in the St. Pierre. Christopher and I were very close to having a deal.”
“What does Reid think about this?”
Lawrence gave a small laugh, but it was a sound totally without mirth. “He’s furious, naturally. He doesn’t have the capital himself to buy out Christoper, and the new owners could very well force him out. I imagine he would do anything he had to, to stop this deal going through.”
I felt his eyes on me and I looked up. Our gazes met. “He wouldn’t…”
Again Lawrence shrugged. “I’m not accusing anyone of anything. I merely think you should have all the facts. The last few times I saw your father, he was a frightened man. He became increasingly paranoid, sometimes almost irrational. He talked about dreams, visions.”
My spine tingled with chills. The noise from the other diners faded into the background. My hands were trembling. Dear God, I’d had dreams and visions
Lawrence glanced around warily and lowered his voice. “He thought someone was trying to harm him. By using voodoo.”
My hand jerked, almost upsetting my water glass. “Surely he didn’t believe in that sort of thing….”
“It’s hard for outsiders like you and me to understand the ways here on Columbé,” Lawrence said, his voice still low and worried. “But I’ve seen things here, things I can’t easily explain. True believers are everywhere, in all walks of life here on the island. It’s hard to know who you can trust. Believe me, I know.”
He paused for a moment, then said, “I was your father’s friend and I’d like to be yours. Let me give you a piece of advice. Voodoo is a mind game as much as anything. A voodooist’s power comes from fear as much as magic. If you allow yourself to be vulnerable, that’s when you’re in the most danger. A voodooist, one with real power and knowled
ge, can be sly and cunning. They can pretend to be your best friend—or even your lover,” he said, his eyes shrewd. “If someone has harmed Christopher—God forbid—then you could very well be in danger, as well.”
“Why would anyone want to harm me?” I said woodenly. “I don’t own anything anyone would want.”
“Maybe not yet.”
“What does that mean?”
“Client confidentiality,” he said with an apologetic shrug. “Unfortunately, I’m not at liberty to divulge everything I think you should know. Let’s just hope Christopher returns…and soon.”
“He will return,” I said, realizing suddenly that Lawrence had already been speaking of my father in past tense, and I…I hadn’t even noticed. It was a revelation that upset me a great deal, and I couldn’t wait to get away from Lawrence Crawford and his dire warnings.
I pushed back my chair and stood. “I have to get back now. Thank you for lunch. And for the talk.”
He didn’t stand, but he caught my hand and held it for a long moment as he stared up at me with earnest gray eyes. “If you should ever feel in need of a friend on the island, Christine, just remember you have one.”
And then he did something very surprising indeed. He lifted my hand and brushed the knuckles ever so lightly with his lips.
I tried not to show my shock as I smiled, thanked him again and removed my hand. As I turned to leave, something made me glance across the terrace, an almost compulsive urge I didn’t quite understand.
Then I saw him.
Reid St. Pierre was seated at a table with Angelique and a man I’d never seen before. Reid was talking to them, even gesturing vaguely with one hand as he continued the conversation, but his gaze was on me, and so was Angelique’s.
It was hard to tell which set of blue eyes glittered more angrily…or more dangerously.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“I’m sorry I took so long, but I really appreciate the use of your car,” I said to Rachel as I handed her the keys upon my return to the hotel.
She took the keys and slipped them inside her desk drawer. “You’re welcome to use it anytime you need it,” she said, her voice carefully polite but devoid of any real warmth.
The Seventh Night Page 10