by T. G. Ayer
Drake and I searched the shrubs and trees beyond the hot tub, then made a circuit of the grounds. Not that we could see much with the dark, moonless sky.
A light went on inside the house, startling me.
"Why are you so edgy?" grumbled Drake.
He was right to be both irritated and concerned. I wasn't usually the jumpy one. Truth be told I was always the one to run headlong into danger, always the one grateful Drake was around to be my common sense, conscience and guardian all rolled into one.
I let out an annoyed sigh. "I wish I knew. Something is really bugging me about this place. I just can't put my finger on it."
"Magic?"
"Don't think so," I said shaking my head as I peered through the windows at Marshall who was sitting down at the kitchen counter, pad of paper and pen in hand. Did the man not sleep?
I sank onto the nearest lounger, my mind racing. "I think I'll try a projection again."
"Probably a good idea."
Drake came closer and drew a bag from his pocket. He brought along a few more strands from the hairbrush and I gave him a grateful smile. I'd been so distracted, so off my game, I'd completely forgotten to bring samples along with us just in case.
Again I was thankful for Drake.
Settling back onto the lounger I raise my palm. Drake sat beside my feet and withdrew a pair of tweezers from his pocket. The man came prepared. Withdrawing a strand he placed it carefully on the center of my palm and then sat back.
I gripped the hair and inhaled softly.
Chapter 10
Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.
I reached for the energy and followed the feedback thread, more confident now that I knew the feel of Gia's energy. When I opened my eyes, I was looking at the study in which I'd first met Santiani. He was sitting at his desk, the room dark, lit only by the flames of the fire in the grate. He seemed to be in some kind of trance, perhaps immersed in his grief.
I shifted closer to him, stopping only at the edge of the table. Concerned for his welfare, curious too. Despair, guilt, fear. Emotions flitted across his face as he stared into nothing, making me wonder what else it was he hadn't told me. Though Santiani remained motionless, his hands shook, tiny tremors that at least confirmed he was still alive.
It was hard not to feel sympathy for him. Wealth makes no difference when sickness and death are the eternal equalizers of mankind.
I left him to his torture and returned to the fireplace, still curious as to why I felt the feedback at that particular place. This had never happened to me before, where I arrived at a place to find no sign at all, of the person to whom the feedback belonged.
I studied the two wing-backed chairs flanking the fireplace, the open grate, the poker lying on the stone floor. Ash and cinders coated the front edge of the fireplace and I figured Santiani may have stoked the fire. He certainly didn't look like the type to know his way around a fireplace. Which would explain the mess.
Finding nothing that would lead me to Gia, I returned to my body. Drake took one look at my face and sighed.
"Right. So What next?"
"I'm not sure. This is a first for me."
Drake pursed his lips, his eyes lifting to the dark sky as if it may hold an answer. "Heads up," he said softly.
I threw him a questioning look and he flicked a subtle glance upward toward the balcony. I got to my feet slowly, then made a short circuit of the patio. On the way back I peered up through my lashes and caught sight of Gina, watching us from her sister's bedroom window.
For a moment I stiffened, that strange feeling coming over me again. It said I should keep a close eye on the girl. That she either posed a question or she was a danger. I wasn't sure I liked the idea of a fifteen year old posing a danger to me. Made me feel a little too vulnerable for my liking.
I threw my shoulders back, made the decision, then lifted my hand and waved at her. "Hi Gina." I called out loudly. So loudly that even Marshall turned his head to look out the kitchen windows at us.
I didn't care because it worked. I'd made it impossible for her to ignore me without looking somewhat guilty. Lights shifted as she exited the room and walked down the stairs towards us. The shadows hid her face making it hard to tell her expression but her body language spoke loud and clear.
She did not want to be here.
"Ms Morgan." The formal greeting didn't suit a teenager.
"Gina. I'm glad I saw you. I think we may need your help." As soon as the words left my mouth I wondered how the hell I was going to explain our predicament without making her wonder where we'd gotten out information.
"Who is he?" she asked without looking at Drake.
Her reaction to Drake was odd. I always found human women, especially young girls, tended to swoon at the gargoyle’s feet. Maybe some special gargoyle pheromone drew them like bears to honey. Yet this young girl seemed impervious to him. Was she that much of a snob?
Deciding to use it, I said, "He's my chauffeur. He doubles as a bodyguard and a personal assistant so I usually take him along to help record any questions I might have." I glanced at Drake whose face remained expressionless. A pad of paper and a pen seemed to appear out of thin air and he made a note.
His non-reaction made me wonder if I was going to receive the brunt of his fury the moment we got home. I knew how deeply the subject of subservience affected him.
The play seemed to work as Gina gave him a quick inspection before shifting slightly to put him out of her line of vision.
Superior bitch.
I forced a genial smile onto my lips. "I was wondering if you could help us put a few pieces together."
"If you believe I can be of help." Still no expression on her face.
I nodded. "I'm sure. You're Gia's sister. I'm pretty sure you know more about her than anyone else in the world." The pitch of my voice rose, my tone peaking into more of a breathy gush than an interrogation.
She smiled.
At least my playacting wasn't fruitless.
"Yes. I did. We were very close." Spoken with less emotion than a fruit fly.
Okay then.
"Can you tell us where Gia's favorite places were on the property?"
She raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow. "Her bedroom. The movie room. Here." Gia waved at the loungers. "She liked to sun herself. Not that she needed to. Only a little sun makes our skin golden."
She said it as if it made her perfect. When I was growing up I'd never liked girls like her. Apparently I still didn't.
But I'd felt as if she'd been honest enough. With a nod I said, "Boyfriends?"
Gian snorted. "Gia wasn't that type of girl. She drew the boys to her, yes. But she was never interested in boys."
"Girls?" I asked, watching her expression.
She barely reacted. "Maybe. No idea, actually."
"She didn't confide in you?"
"Not as much as I'd have liked. We were close for a long while, but something happened and it all changed."
"What happened?"
She gave a small sigh and wrapped her arms around her. Then she turned and stared out at the pool, the blue-green waters lit from below shimmered casting strange demonic shadows across her face. "I honestly haven't a clue. One day Gia was just different, you know." She glanced over her shoulder at me. "Even when Mother . . . even when I needed her she wasn't there. She just withdrew into herself."
Not what Santiani had told me. "So she wasn't the rock of the family, keeping you all together?"
Gina laughed bitterly. "That's Father for you. He told you that, right?"
I didn’t answer.
She shrugged. "Gia did support him. It was just me she lost touch with. So, I'm afraid I can't really tell you anything. She didn't confide in me. I barely knew her movements. I couldn't even tell you her mood unless you want me to guess."
"But you had her friend’s telephone numbers?"
Gina stiffened so slightly I almost missed it. "I had Bailey’s number. She's been coming over fo
rever. We were all friends at one point. Until she chose to be closer to Gia."
I nodded. Gina seemed to have an answer for all my questions. But I'd already gathered there was tension between the sisters, competition for friends’ and father’s attention. A little jealousy maybe.
All of which pointed to Gina as a possible suspect.
"If you're done, I have tennis first thing in the morning at the country club." She turned on her heel and began to walk off.
"Oh, one more thing." I took a step forward.
She paused and did a half turn, her eyebrows curving in question.
"Your bedroom. The fireplace in the study. The hot tub. Did Gia have any association with these places?"
She shook her head. "Sorry. No. If she did it was without my knowledge. I didn't like her coming into my room." She gave a high pitched laugh. "We stayed out of each other’s rooms."
She came to a sudden halt. Paused, gave me a hard look then turned and left without a word.
Only when we heard her shut the door upstairs, and only when I did a quick projection to ensure she was back inside her room, did I look at Drake. He looked impressed.
"Take it you saw her reaction."
"With my own two eyes." His voice was husky as he spoke through his smile.
I'd seen her face tighten when I'd listed the locations. Her eyes had darkened and a muscle in her neck had twitched. "Certainly has a lot of tells."
"So she knows the significance of those places."
"And the significance, is somehow related to Gia's disappearance or Gina would have happily confirmed it."
"And now she's up there wondering how we know."
"Probably wasn't the smartest thing to do. Did we just tip her off?" I inhaled harshly.
"It was a smart move. A calculated risk. Now we know she knows something. Just have to figure out what those locations mean in relation to Gia."
"Easier said than done," I murmured.
"Whatever you say, Ma'am." Drake said humbly, giving me a low courtly bow.
I shook my head and lifted my middle finger, flipping him off rather rudely.
Drake grinned and headed to the kitchen entrance. I followed in silence. The place was dark now, Marshall having retreated inside the house. We left the Santiani mansion and headed home, with my mind firmly on the missing girl and her twin sister.
Gina knew something. And now she knew we knew something. How will that play out for us in the course of my search for her sister?
And, what the hell did Gina have to do with her sister's disappearance?
Chapter 11
Fresh from the shower, I grabbed two jam thumbprint cookies from the plate in the kitchen and headed upstairs, pausing only to flick a few crumbs off the carpet onto the wooden floor below. I had no time for cleaning, especially, in the middle of a case. We tended to band together to clean the house, which usually only happened when we were between cases.
Heading down the hall to Steph's room I knocked lightly before entering. Our resident hacker sat cross-legged on her bed, her curvy legs encased in leopard-print tights, her body hidden by a ratty, falling-apart shockingly blue football jersey. Her hair, piled high on her head, fell forward to cover her face as she bent to the screen of the laptop on her lap.
"Yo," she said without looking up.
"Steph. You are a danger to yourself. What if I was a burglar?"
"If you were a burglar you'd have psychic powers and magic which means you'd be far too powerful for a lame human like me to tackle, and I'd for sure certainly be dead meat anyway so what is the point?"
She raised her hand, opened her palm and waited, still not removing her gaze from the monitor.
Reluctantly I dropped the second cookie into her hand and sniffed.
"For sure certainly?"
Around cookie crumbs and jam, she mumbled what I assumed was a ‘yes’.
"Impeccable English."
"Hacker. Not English Lit major."
"Point taken." I smiled. "So what do you have for me?"
Steph swallowed, coughed, then cleared her throat. "You're here just in time. I've some interesting info for ya."
"Spill."
Uncurling from her yoga pose Steph scooted closer and sat at the edge of the mattress.
"So the mom, Deborah, died three months ago. It looked suspiciously like a suicide, but the ME and the senior investigating detectives suspected there was more to it."
"Murder. Staged suicide?"
Steph nodded. "Or accident, staged suicide. The cops weren't ready to throw Santiani under the bus just yet."
I snorted. "More likely because he was indirectly lining someone's pockets."
Steph's messy bun danced as she shook her head. "Nope. Santiani is, according to my searches, one of the most above-board businessmen on the continent. He's never greased a palm or lined a pocket in his life."
"That we know of."
"That we know of," conceded Steph, looking serious.
I sat on the edge of Steph's desk. Like any normal kid, our resident hacker had the requisite study desk shoved against the wall beside her bed. Unlike any normal kid, the surface was immaculate. Half a dozen candles, of varying sizes and colors provided a splash of color. An old chipped mug that looked like it had escaped from a Beauty and the Beast musical, was filled with pens - gel, glitter, felt tip. All these items were lined up against the wall and the natural wood surface of the desk itself remained bare. The laptop sat on Steph's lap, and she sat on her bed.
I'd have complained about its lack of use, or its total irrelevance, had it not been for a raid not too long ago in which the lovely Det Fulbright had obtained a not-so-legit warrant and barged in through our front door. Thankfully, Steph had been in her room and not inside our secret comms center upstairs.
She'd thrown her dirty socks onto the floor and sank into her wobbly student chair just in time. None of us were entirely sure what he'd hoped to find, but a kid studying at her desk was hardly it. He'd commandeered the device though, eager to see what she was up to, possibly hacking nuclear codes off some unsuspecting douche of a president in some far flung third world country.
I didn’t think I’d have ever been happy to see Steph’s browser history coming up with eye makeup videos and pants that enhanced the size of one’s ass. Later I'd accused her of not being up to speed and that perhaps upright female urination devices or nipple rings would have been a far more appropriate search for Fulbright to have caught her doing.
Steph had snorted so hard it had sounded like a horse choking. She’d proceeded to write 'code' promising a single touch of a button would bring up a screen full of pictures of both those particular items as well as Ben Wa balls, whatever they were.
Ever since then, I'd been seriously disappointed that Fulbright had not obtained another one of his dodgy warrants.
The density of the air behind me shifted and I grinned. "How long have you been there?" I asked.
"Long enough to know the two of you are giving Santiani far too much credit." Drake leaned against the doorjamb, the action pushing against his biceps making them far too prominent.
Had he been my type, I would have found it far too distracting to have him under the same roof on a permanent basis.
Steph rolled her eyes. "So what doth the high and smarty believe?"
The corner of Drake's lip twitched. "The family is dodgy, the case is fishy, and the dude is offing his nearest and dearest one by one so he can run off to some private island with a tanned blonde in a string bikini."
I laughed, lifting a finger. "Dodgy, yes." I lifted a second finger. "Fishy, yes. But unfortunately the dude has an alibi."
"Say it isn't so." Drake's lips twisted with disappointment. "I so had him pegged for murder of some flavor."
"Sorry," said Steph, her mouth a thin line. "And I’ll have you know not all tanned blondes wear string bikinis." She fluffed her blonde bun and shoved her glasses back up her nose with a stiff forefinger.
I
snorted and was glad I'd eaten that cookie or I would probably have choked on it. Drake appeared unrepentant.
I cleared my throat. "So if Santiani is clear of his wife's murder, where does that leave us?"
"Leaves us without a clue. Leaves him in the clear." He scowled.
"But only for the wife. What about the kid?" asked Steph.
I shifted against the desk where the sharp edge had begun to make a dent in my ass. "We don't know that that's a murder yet."
"But you projected onto the property and found bupkis," challenged Steph.
"Could mean anything."
She rolled her eyes. "Could mean he buried parts of her body all around the house."
"That's a bit macabre." I shifted my gaze to Drake, hoping for some backup.
"Would explain why we couldn't find her," he said with a grin.
No dice.
I shook my head. “ It's seriously difficult to bury someone underneath slate tiles without leaving any evidence. Plus we found nothing near the hot tub."
"What if he dissolved her in acid in the hot tub?" suggested Steph, leaning closer. She had a fascination with serial killers, especially the ones with weird methods of doing away with bodies.
I frowned.
"How long do biological particles remain viable?"
I glared at Drake. "This is ridiculous."
"Humor us."
I gritted my teeth and sighed. "Fine." Taking a breath I said, "Flesh decomposes faster but DNA and biofeedback for tracking can remain viable for weeks, sometimes months given the right environment. Bone and hair don't decompose so they hold the biofeedback longer, especially if blood or live cells are available."
"So if Gia was buried on the property you'd still find her because the biofeedback would lead you to her."
I nodded, making a face. "Fine. I agree this is a viable line of questioning, but again, the feedback took us to places that don't make sense in terms of hiding body parts. Even if they were liquefied with the help of acid." I gave Steph a pointed look.
Drake shifted against the threshold. "That’s true. Her bedroom. And the area in front of the hot tub. There was no place to bury her, and even in a liquid form-”