by Emery Hayes
There was activity, but never at night.
She let the engine idle and stared at the lake. Their crime scene was out there, and beyond it the homes of the affluent as well as luxury rentals.
She called Lars.
“What’s up?”
She told him about Beatrice’s phone call and how both Joaquin and Mrs. Esparza had blown off the mother’s alibi. She told him about Alma Esparza leaving the resort to search for her daughter and the inconsistencies in her story.
“You think they could have been in on it together? Joaquin and his mother?”
“It doesn’t feel right, but it’s possible.”
“But the roofie and the condom,” he pointed out.
Yeah, that.
“We have two predators. Maybe more.”
“Two sets of prints.”
“And a lot more besides,” she said. “Not in on the chase, but in and around the scene.” The lake was a popular place. Plenty of old prints. Some fresher, but it was impossible to know when they had been made or by whom.
“And a growing list of motives,” Lars said.
“Date rape, sibling rivalry, financial ruin—and we’re not talking just one or two pharm companies.”
“If the cure is a miracle.”
Had their vic’s death been a spectator sport?
“The brother fits the physical profile,” Nicole said.
Even if she didn’t like it. Instincts were sometimes skewed by emotion. So while Joaquin didn’t feel right as the killer, Nicole knew she could be wrong.
She took another look at the lake. McMansions of natural wood and stone lined the shore not a mile from where she idled in the cruiser, and from somewhere among them Beatrice had run for her life, making it as far as the lake before she was stopped. “I like Alma Esparza for the watcher.”
“Me too,” Lars agreed. “She really didn’t want us separating the family.”
“Strength in unity.”
“And control.”
“There’s something off about the timing,” she said. “Even when Joaquin was tossing aside their alibis, he was lying through his teeth about last night.”
“The movie, popcorn, and hot cocoa?”
“Yeah. Simple details. Believable. I think it happened, just not last night.” And the itch she’d felt earlier as she’d driven away from her first meet with the family began to scratch toward the surface. Words and faces swirled, and events began to take shape. “No, there was no movie last night, no popcorn,” she said, “because Beatrice left the resort for Christmas dinner, just as Daisy reported, and she never returned.”
“Proof?”
“I met a young man at the resort this afternoon. He knew Beatrice. He said she was on her way to a party Christmas night. First dinner with the family, then off to a party. Beatrice and her sisters.”
Her sisters. Saying it aloud, putting the youngest Esparzas together with their older sister at a time and place that correlated with the vic’s disappearance, created a free-fall sensation in the pit of her stomach and a trickling of bile up her throat.
“Her sisters too?” Lars repeated, and she heard the dawning dread in his tone.
“And they were dressed up like princesses.” The words were tight, her breath thin. She had missed it. Her first pass at the family had been at four o’clock in the morning, and it had been entirely reasonable that Sofia and Isla were sleeping. Besides, the mother had claimed the girls had colds. Plausible. Nicole had bought it. But now, a half day into their investigation, with pieces sliding slowly into place, a different picture was emerging.
“Fifteen fucking hours,” Lars said.
Wasted time. It didn’t bode well for the girls. If they were being held against their will, if the person who had killed Beatrice had the same intentions for the youngest Esparzas, Nicole and Lars were already too late.
“We never saw them,” Nicole said. But had she known to look for it, she would have seen evidence of their absence—the three parkas hanging in the closet that should have been five. “And it didn’t seem off. Not until now.”
“Why didn’t they tell us? When Beatrice turned up dead? Why not then?”
“Because Sofia and Isla hadn’t,” Nicole said.
“They had reason to hope.”
“Or thought they did.”
“Right.”
And that explained the hold on the family, the restraint that Nicole had sensed from the very beginning. “We need visual confirmation,” Nicole said. “If possible.” She put the cruiser in gear and rolled forward. Snow crunched under her tires. “You’re closer to the Huntington.”
“Already moving,” he said.
“I’m staying here.” She cut a U-turn and headed back toward the boat ramps. “Call me after you’ve made contact.”
“Will do.”
“Get a visual. Ask them their names. Use their ski passes for confirmation.” If they were wrong, that is—if the girls were in the hotel room, tucked into their beds with boxes of tissue and chicken noodle soup. And if they weren’t … Her feeling of dread thickened. Instinct flared. How she wanted to be wrong.
“I know the protocol.” His words were thick with breath, and she could tell he was outside then, jogging toward his cruiser.
“I know you do.” She heard his car door slam shut, his engine turn over. Too little, too late. “You have Esparza in the box?”
“Waiting about as patiently as the second hand of a clock.”
“Good.”
She hung up and slid her cell phone into its holder on the dashboard. Snow plows had left upwards of four feet of drift, even at the entrances to the ramps—no one used them in the winter. Nicole cut across the mound at an angle. Her back tires spun, caught, spun again. She got out, used her miner’s shovel to dig herself out, and finally pulled up to a metal pole and post. She used a heavy set of clippers to cut through the Schlage and then stood for a moment, pondering the sweeping shoreline.
She knew the terrain well. Eight years of crime and recreation around this lake had made sure of that. From where she stood, their crime scene was due west, lost beneath new snow. She thought about Beatrice out here, no coat, knowing she was in trouble. But smart—was she smarter than she was compassionate? Or had her soft heart betrayed her? She had turned and faced her killer. She had looked him, or her, in the eye—the markings on her throat showed that—but were her last words ones of love or fear? Had she pleaded for her life, for the lives of her sisters? Or had she realized it was already too late?
She climbed back into the Yukon. Lars was on rescue detail. Nicole had recovery, in case the Esparza children hadn’t been kidnapped but had been murdered like their sister. Her men had combed the crime scene, fanning out in ever-increasing circles, but they hadn’t known then to look for the bodies of two small children. Had they known the girls were missing, they would have expanded the search area, brought in more people.
Nicole moved the transmission into neutral and released the parking brake. The Yukon inched forward, tapped into the potential energy from gravity, and hit the ice at ten miles per hour.
In winter, the ice was thick enough, even at the center of the lake, to drive a car across the surface without fear of breaking through. Nicole allowed the Yukon to slow naturally. With little resistance, that placed her about fifteen yards from shore. She turned in a wide arc and straightened the Yukon. Lake Maria wasn’t big—three-point-three miles long, less than a mile across at its widest—and people were generally too nervous to venture too far out. She decided it would take two sweeps, executed slowly, to complete the search. Still, kids were small and easy to miss. And with the new snow that morning, she was looking for irregular shapes that could be bodies. A rolled shoulder, the tapering of legs. She peered through the glass, adjusted the strobe lights, and tried to push away the feeling of defeat crouching in the shadows.
* * *
Her cell phone rang. The screen saver was a picture of Jordan—five years old and wear
ing a small red pail on his head. His smile was wide, and he was all about pulling you into his world. He was still like that.
She hadn’t named him after Michael Jordan, but because she’d wanted a name that would work equally well for a boy or a girl. Reese, Taylor, and Peyton had made her list, but only Jordan was a place of miracles. The river, at the highest point of the season, had stopped flowing, had stacked up like a brick wall on either side of a group of believers, allowing them to pass through. And that did describe Nicole—she was a believer, in good and bad. She expected the unexpected. She was willing to be moved by love, although her son was her only proof of that.
She had circled the lake twice, then crossed its center in a series of switchback motions, and found nothing. Lars had already called—the Esparzas’ hotel room was empty. He was searching the grounds, talking to people.
She took one last, sweeping look at the lake from where she sat, back on asphalt and above the tattered yellow ribbon her department had used to protect the body of Beatrice Esparza and its surrounding geography, then pressed the icon of Jordan’s shining face and spoke. “How was the backgammon?”
“We played checkers,” he said. “Mrs. Neal is pretty good.”
“She didn’t let you win.”
“She sweeped me,” he admitted. “Three games.”
“And made grilled ham and cheese.”
“Yeah. That was good. What did you have, McD’s?”
“You know I wouldn’t do that to you.”
Jordan snorted. “You wouldn’t tell me about it.”
She had a healthy suspicion of fast food and wouldn’t so much as park in the lot of a restaurant with less than an A in the window. She’d waitressed her way through college and knew the difference the alphabet made on her plate.
But sometimes calories, even if they tasted like a cardboard box and called her soldier cells into formation, were all she had time for.
“I had the double box tops with extra cardio-blocking cheese and curly cancer-fries.”
He gasped and put enough drama into it that Nicole felt it. “That is so unfair.”
“You’ll live longer than me.”
“I’ll do that already.”
“Occupational hazard.”
“No, it’s the lack of love in your life.”
He wanted her to get married. Because he wanted a father, and because she needed a daily dose of “affection.” He’d caught a show on O about longevity and its link to human touch.
“Thanks, Dr. Phil.”
“I prefer to be called Dr. Oz. It’s way cooler.”
“Okay, Oz, what’s up?”
“You need any more info on Morgan le Fay?”
“Why do you ask?”
“It’s all around town,” he informed her. “The dead girl and her father complex.”
“Morgan le Fay had a father complex?”
“Maybe. She had a thing with Merlin for sure.”
“The Great Magician?”
“Wizard. But yeah.”
“What kind of thing?”
“You know, like, she loved him. It wasn’t just about discovering his secrets.”
As Beatrice had loved her father? She might have been at the heart of his secrets, and she might have died because of them, but when Nicole thought about Beatrice Esparza and her father, the ew factor did not kick in. She hadn’t gotten that feel. Not from Dr. Esparza and not from Beatrice’s mother either. She thought about the photo of Beatrice in the embrace of a much older man. A man who held her maybe too closely. There was affection in the image, and it was mutual. But possession? No, not quite.
“What did you hear?” And from whom, Nicole wondered.
“We talked about her at Scouts earlier. Some of the guys knew her from the resort.” The winter season brought in the bulk of Blue Mesa’s economy, with the influx of tourists carving through the mountains and dropping money in the restaurants and gift shops. The employment rate saw an increase and the locals were upbeat. Most of the jobs went to housewives and senior citizens, a smaller portion to teens and college students returning for the holidays. “The dead girl was all about her father,” Jordan continued. “She spoke like he was a god, but they fought like dogs.”
“Who told you this?”
“Jackson Lambert. He works in housekeeping.”
She thought about going to see Jackson herself. “What did they fight about?”
“He wanted something and she wasn’t coming across,” he said. “It was weird, Jackson said. Like Beatrice held all the cards and the father was begging her not to play the deck against him. Those were Jackson’s words.”
13
Benjamin Kris loved snow. It gave him a kid kind of glee, that ribbon of excitement inside pulling tight as anticipation grew to an almost unbearable point. Snow meant a lot of things to him, all in the past now. It triggered a series of images: snowmen and forts and snowball fights; anthills on mirrors and powder stuck to nostril hairs; money—his first big score, fifties and hundreds cascading onto his prone and laughing body on the bed of a cheap motel on Valentia Street in Denver. Nicole. It was no surprise that she would be stitched into his imagination and into this little trip to wonderland.
She could have busted him; instead she’d slept with him. More than once. And every time it had been too good to talk about. But women couldn’t be trusted.
The thought was sobering. Even Charlene had messed up. She had played when she should have been working.
He shifted in the seat and the leather crackled. They cruised down Main Street, USA, Charlene glued to his side in the back seat of the Durango—Montana’s winter limousine. The shops had been renovated recently, painted earthy colors, and twinkled with holiday lights.
“Could be a Christmas card,” he said.
“It’s beautiful,” Charlene agreed. But then, they had the heater pumping and she was bundled up in faux fur—at her insistence. Benjamin wanted to buy her the real thing, but she was a member of PETA and Women for Humane Cosmetics.
They approached the crossroads where the police station sat kitty-corner to the only bar in town. Such an easy walk to the tank, it could be self-service.
“Stop here a minute,” Benjamin ordered the driver, a man he’d often used and whom he’d sent ahead of them by two days in order to secure the right ride and get acquainted with the layout of the town. Specifically the roads in and out of Toole County and the rolling stretches of land that could be used for the disposal of bodies and evidence—if such a need occurred.
Benjamin was an accomplished escape artist. The Magician’s secret to that: he left no witnesses because he created none. He kept a quiet demeanor and frequented places for the rich and pretty, where he blended in better than most. When he had to speak, he was neutral. Otherwise, he smiled as much as the next guy but no more. He didn’t smoke, nursed a drink, and never dabbled in the goods of his trade.
But Toole County was different. He was known here, by none other than the head of law enforcement. As the father of the sheriff’s son, he had pull with her.
The thought was dark and settled on his brain like a cat teasing a favorite toy, and he laughed, enjoying himself. Catnip. Nicole was that for him. Tormenting her gave him an insane kind of pleasure.
“Benjamin?” Charlene prompted. “Why are we stopped in the middle of the road?”
He considered his next move. Contact. That he’d decided before the day dawned. But when and how?
He’d waited long for this moment. He’d mapped out scenarios in his mind—all the possibilities in Nicole’s reaction and how he would handle each. He couldn’t have been more ready.
He spoke to the driver. “Pull in at the police station.”
There was an initial wave of hesitation—the natural response of a man who had spent his life doing wrong—and then the driver pulled forward, hit the indicator light to signal his intentions, and executed a clean turn into the parking lot adjacent to Nicole’s office. And that made him smile
too. He was looking at the product of Nicole’s slow, downward spiral. She’d been on the fast track to captain and beyond, but she’d given it all up to raise their son in a safe environment, away from the violence and drugs of Big City life and the father who had played a role in creating him. That part wasn’t so nice, but he was a changed man. While Nicole had taken a step down the ladder, Benjamin had ascended by leaps.
“Wait here,” he instructed, and felt Charlene’s hand tighten on his arm.
“What are we doing here?”
Always, they carried out their business as shadows that moved across the wall. He understood her apprehension but pried her fingers from his arm.
“I want to say hello to someone,” he said. He climbed out of the SUV and lifted the hood of his parka. The snow was coming down steadily, and he had spent time on his appearance.
The entrance to the police station had Nicole’s name on it in bold black lettering.
He liked that. He’d bet Jordan was proud of it.
Inside, the lobby was warm and lit with fluorescent tubing. A woman in uniform sat behind the desk. She addressed Benjamin and he stepped forward, lowering his hood and pulling the top toggle of his parka open.
“How can I help you, sir?”
“Is Nicole around?”
“Pardon?”
“Sorry.” He smiled—an easy slide of his lips that didn’t seem at all practiced but reached his eyes and carried a wattage of charm that was neither too much nor too little. “The sheriff? Is she in?”
The woman cocked her head to the side and considered him. “Does Sheriff Cobain know you?”
“Old friends,” he told her. “And I’m in town for a few days. If I come and go without dropping in on her and Jordan, well, that would be grounds for arrest.”
That was lame. As a rule he wasn’t a punster, but he was nervous. And he blamed Nicole for that. The last time he’d seen her, she’d put the cuffs on him and the flared tip of a loaded .357 to his temple. She’d threatened him with all the things she could do to him. All legal, and she had the goods. Before that, he’d been the one jerking her chain. He’d liked that a lot better. He’d liked that so much he was willing to walk into the lion’s den just so he could pull her strings and watch her dance to his tune. Again.