Suddenly, Gigi remembered the camera. She reached for it on the passenger seat, bumping the parabolic microphone, which shivered, then fell into the passenger side footwell with a clanking sound that did not bode well for its continued operation. Gigi let out an “Oh!” of frustration, then concentrated on getting a picture of the strange man spying on the men in Tattoo4U. Trying to adjust for the darkness, Gigi snapped several shots before noticing that the slim figure had stiffened. She lowered the camera and watched as he jumped off the Dumpster and ran flat out, past the rear of the shop, disappearing from view as a wedge of light poured from the back of Tattoo4U and Graham’s voice shouted, “Hey!”
Her fingers trembling, unable to make sense of what she’d witnessed but sensing real menace, Gigi decided to abandon her surveillance post. Starting the Hummer, she backed out of the slot. She paused at the entrance to the tiny lot, then started to turn right, almost striking a bicycler who appeared from nowhere, traveling south on the sidewalk. Gigi stamped on the brakes as the rider wrenched the bicycle’s front wheel aside and stopped inches from the Hummer’s door panel. She tumbled out, saying, “I’m so sorry. Are you okay? I’m so sorry,” as she hastened around the back of the vehicle to check on the biker.
“No harm done,” the man was saying, swiveling the handlebars right and left as if to check their responsiveness. The bike was an old-fashioned one with fat wheels, no gears, and a wire basket clamped to the front. “I should watch where I’m going.”
“I’m so sorry,” Gigi said again, heaving a huge sigh of relief that the man was unhurt and, apparently, unlitigious. He looked up and smiled at her. Recognition was instantaneous.
“Roger!”
“Gigi.” Roger Nutt’s smile widened. “I didn’t expect to see you again so soon. What are you doing down here?”
“Uh … I’m … I had to—”
“Look, I picked up a few things at the Albertson’s.” He gestured to the bag in the bike’s basket. “Let me run them home and then what say we have that dinner we were talking about? Do you like Greek? Jake and Telly’s is just down the street.”
“That sounds lovely,” Gigi said, returning his smile. “I’ll meet you there.”
“Great. Give me twenty minutes.” He straddled his bike again and pedaled off with a cheery wave.
Heaving a huge sigh of relief, Gigi clambered back into the Hummer and checked both ways three times before pulling into traffic. She’d discuss what she’d overheard with Charlie in the morning. An unaccustomed bubble expanded her chest, and she realized it was anticipation. She was looking forward to dinner with Roger Nutt. He was an attractive man—she especially liked how the corners of his mouth disappeared into his beard when he smiled—and the dolmades at Jake and Telly’s were to die for. She sped up, wanting to reach the restaurant in time to powder her nose and fix her lipstick before Roger arrived.
16
I didn’t know how long I’d been out when I awoke, but I was soaked to the skin from the waist down—my parka had protected my torso—and shivering uncontrollably, despite the blazing fire creating a Bosch-esque hell of dancing flames and shadows in the clearing. I dragged myself to a sitting position. My head hurt abominably, and I figured I was probably concussed. I sat for a moment, my back propped against the tree, and watched the cabin burn. No way was anything salvageable. A wave of nausea washed over me, maybe triggered by the strobelike effect of the reds and oranges and yellows of the flames gyrating on the blinding white snow, and I threw up. Done heaving, I scrubbed my mouth with clean snow. Yep, definitely a concussion.
A loblolly pine behind the cabin burst into flame with a loud pop of sap exploding. I needed to get help before the forest started to burn and left Bambi and Thumper homeless. Geez, I was losing it. I glanced around, looking for my cell phone, but it was hopeless. For all I knew it was a blob of shapeless plastic in the inferno. Using the tree for balance, I climbed slowly to my feet and stumbled back to the driveway by the fire’s light. Putting one foot in front of the other with great care, I headed downhill to my car. Without my flashlight, I veered off the path more than once, getting slapped with needles from low-hanging pine branches before finding my way back to the driveway.
After ten soggy, cold, miserable minutes, I reached my car. The moon chose that moment to peep from behind a cloud, and I stared in dismay. The car that I had left in the middle of the driveway was now lodged in the ditch along the left side of the drive. It lay on the driver’s side. The passenger side was a mangled mess of metal, and the headlights and windshield were busted. Something big and fast coming downhill from the cabin had plowed right through it. If there’d been more light, I would have seen the tire tracks and been forewarned. As it was, I had to fight to keep back tears. Someone or a couple of someones had parked a vehicle behind the cabin where it wouldn’t be seen. They’d ransacked the cabin. Someone had been injured or killed, as the blood in the kitchen testified. Ransacker or ransackee? Dmitri? No way to know. They’d turned on the gas and waited for it to fill the cabin. Had they seen me arrive? Had they deliberately ignited the gas in an attempt to kill me? Or would I have been collateral damage?
These cheery thoughts sloshed in my brain as I trudged downhill toward Route 7, hoping to flag down a passing motorist. I heard a siren before I reached the road and closed my eyes with relief. Flashing red lights preceded a fire truck’s turn into the driveway. A neighbor must have spotted the fire’s glow and summoned help. Hallelujah. I edged off the driveway to avoid being mowed down and waved at the startled firefighters.
* * *
An ER doc had confirmed my diagnosis and given me painkillers for the concussion. I’d drunk three Pepsis and gone over my story with an Estes Park police detective multiple times when the round clock on the interview room wall ticked over to midnight and Montgomery walked in. I’d given Detective Radik his name at the beginning of our interview, knowing he’d be interested in Bobrova’s cabin being blown to smithereens the same day someone put her in the hospital. I didn’t know he’d be interested enough to make the drive up here, but I was damned glad to see him, especially as the ER doc had strictly forbidden me to drive for twenty-four hours. Even if I’d wanted to disobey, I had no drivable vehicle. My Subaru would be towed to a repair shop in the morning, and I suspected my insurance adjuster would pronounce it DOA.
Montgomery introduced himself to Detective Radik, who assessed him from under straight dark brows. He apparently passed muster, because her gray eyes seemed a lot warmer than they had when she was grilling me about my presence in the cabin and the blood I’d “allegedly” seen. I couldn’t blame her much; his Clive Owen good looks heated up a lot of women.
“Thanks for the call, Detective,” Montgomery said as they shook hands.
“Gretchen,” she said. “Coffee?”
“Thanks.” He smiled at her, and I realized she was above-average cute in trouser-cut jeans that showed off her well-toned butt and a melon-colored blazer that contrasted nicely with her chestnut hair. Hmph.
They discussed the fire, the findings of Radik’s team so far (tire tracks and my story), and the preliminary report from the fire investigator (gas go boom—duh). They agreed in a too friendly way to pool their information, although Radik didn’t have much to offer from my point of view. Her officers would canvass the neighbors tomorrow, she said, and see what they knew about the cabin’s recent inhabitants. Montgomery thanked her warmly. Very warmly. You’d think we were at a caramel factory with all the warm goo coating everything. It was making me nauseous. Or maybe that was the concussion.
He turned to me, and his smile faded. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me you were coming up here to toss a house belonging to Bobrova? I’ve got more than half a mind to charge you with obstruction.”
So much for sympathy. I glared at him, my head pounding and sparkles of light wheeling at the edges of my vision. “Go ahead. I’d like to see you make it stick. I followed up a lead on my missing person case that has nothin
g to do with your investigation.” I didn’t believe that, but I was damned if I knew what the link was. “I checked out the cabin, and it blew up. That’s not my fault!”
“I can hold her on a breaking and entering charge,” Gretchen Radik offered helpfully.
“Tempting,” Montgomery said.
“Maybe I saw the blood through the window and went in to see if someone was injured and needed help,” I said. “I was being a Good Samaritan.” I held the cold Pepsi can against my temple.
“That’s not what you said earlier,” Radik said, her eyes narrowing.
“I have a concussion. I’m confused. Is today Monday?” My stare dared her.
“Ramos, you got cuffs?” she asked the patrol officer standing by the door. She never took her eyes off me as the officer handed over his cuffs. “You have the right to—”
Oops. She was calling my bluff. I hate it when that happens.
Montgomery heaved a put-upon sigh. “I’ll get her out of your hair, Gretchen,” he said. He pulled my chair out and helped me stand. I fought the urge to upchuck on his shoes. Something was wrong with my vision, because I saw two of him when I looked up. My eyeballs throbbed.
“You sure?” Radik said. “I wouldn’t even mind doing the booking paperwork for this one. She’s got a mouth on her.”
“Tell me about it.”
Assessing my condition, Montgomery put his arm around my waist and steered me toward the door. His touch was gentler than his words, and I let my head fall against his shoulder as we reached the hall, unable to keep sparring.
“Can you make it to the car?” Without waiting for an answer, he scooped me up in his arms and carried me down the hall and out the door.
The cold air revived me slightly. I could feel his heart thudding against my rib cage. KA-thump, KA-thump. It clashed with the boom-boom-boom rhythm in my head. “’Snice,” I slurred. “Like the groom carrying the bride over the threshold. Tradition. Brad didn’t carry me. He said it was sexist and he didn’t want to throw out his back. King Kong carried Fay Wray Jessica Lange. Up the Empire State Building. I don’t see it.” I didn’t see anything except swirling lights.
The rumble of Montgomery’s laughter vibrated through me, and I thought I felt him press a kiss against my hair as he slid me into the passenger seat of his Jeep Commander.
17
My head was substantially better when I awoke Saturday morning. I remembered little of the drive back to Colorado Springs, except for Montgomery waking me at intervals to ask who was president and how many fingers he was holding up. I guess I answered right, because he brought me home instead of to the hospital. I hadn’t really asked him to carry me over the threshold, had I? The memory refused to gel. He’d removed my shoes before tucking me into my bed, but that was all, I realized thankfully. I still wore the smoky-smelling, vomit-spattered jeans and top I’d had on the day before. Yuck. Now I needed to wash my sheets, too. First things first: a shower.
After a shower long enough to lower the reservoir an inch, I dressed in my ratty air force sweats and stripped the bed. With an armful of laundry, I headed for the washer. A trailing bit of sheet knocked scraps of paper off my dresser as I passed, and they fluttered to the ground. After setting the washer on the mega-hot-kill-bacteria cycle, I returned to my bedroom and stooped to retrieve the slips. Credit card receipts. I stared at them for a moment, puzzled, then remembered they’d come from Dmitri’s condo. One was from the Men’s Wearhouse and one from a Sunglass Hut. The curious thing was that neither belonged to Dmitri. The first was signed by a Lawrence Grossinger and the second by Darren Johnson. I frowned. Why would Dmitri have credit card receipts belonging to two other men in his pocket? Something about the signatures caught my eye. The loops coming off the o’s in Grossinger and Johnson looked similar. I held the slips side by side and compared them. What I wouldn’t give for a sample of Dmitri’s handwriting.
The ringing phone broke my concentration. “Yeah?”
“Ms. Swift? This is Sally Peterson. Dara’s mother? We met yesterday.” The way the r’s slanted looked the same, too.… Was it possible Mr. Olympic Skater was into credit card theft?
“I remember, Mrs. Peterson. What can I do for you?” I moved into the kitchen, wanting to study the receipts in a brighter light. Her next words made me drop the receipts on the counter.
“Dara called. She’s in danger.”
* * *
We met at a Starbucks near the University of Colorado’s Colorado Springs campus, where Sally Peterson worked as a communications instructor. She refused to let me come to her home for fear it was being watched. I parked my Enterprise-delivered rental car and ground my teeth at the thought of car shopping. Hopefully, I’d hear from my insurance agent today and could set about replacing my poor Subaru. As I strode toward the door, attired in black jeans and a green flannel shirt, sun cut through the thin atmosphere, melting yesterday’s snow with a steady drip-drip off the eaves. I got splashed as I went in. The familiar smells of coffee and steamed milk pervaded the space. Patrons ignored each other, absorbed in newspapers or laptop screens. Sally Peterson sat in a corner by the window, hands tight around a stainless steel travel mug, face sallow with fear or lack of sleep. Her wiry hair, light brown flecked with gray, was pulled back in an unbecoming ponytail. She jumped as I settled into the chair across from her and pulled a Pepsi from my purse.
“Sorry. Ever since Dara called I’ve been … well…”
“What did Dara say?” I asked, sensing that polite chitchat was not going to set this worried mother at ease. I took a long swallow of Pepsi.
“She called from a pay phone. She wouldn’t say where she was. She just wanted me to know she’s all right.” Tears leaked from her eyes, and she wiped them with a napkin. “Sorry. She said Dmitri called her and said she had to disappear, that she was in danger. Damn him!” Her voice shook.
“Dmitri? Did she say where he was calling from or what kind of danger she was supposedly in?”
Sally Peterson shook her head. “No. She only stayed on the line for about twenty seconds. She was worried someone would trace the call.” She looked around wildly, eyes lingering on the twenty-something barista making lattes as if suspecting he was a CIA agent, and on an octopus-shaped rattle hanging from a stroller as if it might be a recording device. “Can they even do that?”
It depended on who “they” were. “Mrs. Peterson—”
“Sally. Please call me Sally.” Her fingers shredded a napkin as her gaze settled anxiously on my face.
“Okay. Have you any idea—any at all—of what Dmitri might be mixed up in? You mentioned overhearing something about cards … was he a gambler? Could he owe somebody money?” A hell of a lot of money, I thought, to result in Dmitri’s friends being threatened. A grim thought wiggled into my concussed and sludgier-than-normal brain: Had anyone talked to Dmitri’s mother recently? I made a mental note to call her in Detroit.
“I don’t know. Let me think.” She pressed her fingers to her temples. “I remember he spent a whole night gambling in the Bellagio once when he and Dara did an exhibition in Vegas, about two years ago. He came straight from the casino to the airport, reeking of cigarette smoke.” Her nose wrinkled. “He bragged about ‘cleaning up’ and showed us a new Rolex he’d bought with his winnings.” Sally shrugged, clearly not impressed. “He gave Dara a gold chain with a charm in the shape of a figure skater. She never skates without it now. He won,” she reiterated, “and I’ve never heard him talk about going to Vegas for the weekend or anything like that.”
The occasional big win keeps the obsessed gambler coming back to lose more. And the real addict didn’t need to go to Vegas: he or she could place bets on anything from dog races to football games to the outcome of Olympic skating events from the comfort of home via phone or Internet. Too bad Dmitri’s computer was missing. I made a note to ask Montgomery to check Fane’s phone records. Maybe there’d be calls to or from a known bookie.
“Dara wanted me to tell
you to stop looking for Dmitri,” Sally interrupted my thoughts.
“I’m fired?” Shit. I hate to abandon cases once I’ve sunk my teeth into them, although clients do occasionally change their minds about wanting someone found. Plus, I really hate giving back unearned retainer money.
“Dara’s firing you, yes.” Sally leaned forward, her hazel eyes intent. I caught a glimpse of the stage mama who must have encouraged her daughter—if not browbeaten her—to achieve international skating success. “But I want to hire you.”
Hm, potential ethical dilemma, known in professional circles as “conflict of interest.” Still, if Dara had fired me, working for her mother shouldn’t be a problem. “To find Dara?”
“No, to find Dmitri. It seems to me his situation is the root of the problem. If Dara’s not safe at home, I want her to stay wherever she is until this thing with Dmitri gets settled.” Sally’s expression and tone were resolute. “I don’t want her to end up like Yuliya Bobrova.”
Who could blame her? She wrote me a check on the spot, and I promised to give her an update soon. “If—when—I find Fane, what do you want me to do?” Dara had wanted me to restore the status quo, bring Fane back so they could skate their way to Olympic glory. I figured Sally Peterson would want me to make sure he stayed far away from her daughter.
Her eyes hardened. “Make his problems go away so he can come back and skate. If he needs to pay someone off, let me know, I have a mutual fund I can tap into. I’ve invested—Dara’s invested—fifteen years of sweat and tears and money to get to the Olympics. I’m not letting go of that dream because a spoiled young man can’t keep his eye on the prize. This is what Dara’s worked for all her life. I’ve—she’s—given up everything for a chance at Olympic gold.”
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