“You want to talk to somebody who might know, lady? Somebody who cares?” He pointed to the far end of the bar, just shy of where Santa was chuckling in his beer. “Go talk to him.” He got up and pushed past me. I grabbed his seat and set down my glass. Then, as if I was just examining my new surroundings, I finally looked in the direction where Leone had pointed.
The guy next to Santa was lean but broad-shouldered, his skin darkly tanned from the sun. From his profile I noted that his nose was long, and his cheeks sported neatly trimmed stubble. Maybe I hadn’t gotten a great look at the man who’d attacked me on the town house front porch, but now I stopped breathing.
This man was wearing a leather vest over a shirt with an insignia of some kind, and he had enticed the bartender into conversation. As he leaned forward, I slid off the stool and made my way through the crowd to the door. Outside I took a deep breath and started down the street. I didn’t want to go right to my car, in case he’d followed me, but I stayed as close to the road and passing traffic as I could. At the first traffic light, I crossed and looked behind me. So far so good.
I started back, staying low behind the other cars parked along the road. I may not have been entirely out of sight, but neither would I attract anybody’s attention. Nearly there, I stopped behind a navy blue pickup. I watched the front door of Against the Wind for the man I’d spotted, but he didn’t emerge.
I tried to talk sense to myself. The guy had been some distance away, with colored lights above us. I could be imagining the resemblance. As I made even more room for reasonable doubt, my gaze dropped to the truck in front of me.
The words painted on the passenger door were familiar. I’d seen them before, on the day I’d been attacked. I’d seen them on this truck, parked a few units down from Wendy’s town house. I wasn’t imagining that the guy in the bar was all-too-familiar.
“Carrillon Roofing.” I breathed it more than said it. I took out my phone and snapped a photo, which included Carrillon’s phone number.
Then, with even more care, I scuttled to my own car, and when I was sure no one was paying attention, I pulled out, and began a circuitous route back to the town house.
In the end, though, all my twists and turns and backtracking made no sense whatsoever. If the guy at the end of the bar was indeed my attacker, he already knew where I lived.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Friday night, despite the security alarm, I slept fitfully. Every noise, a car on the road, a wood stork perching noisily on the master bedroom sundeck, woke me until I finally went downstairs and slept on the sofa. I left my gun in the glove compartment, but sleeping with it had been a temptation.
The moment I’d gotten home, I’d picked up the phone to call the sheriff’s office and tell them I’d seen my attacker, but that was as far as I’d gotten. Wendy and Kim were the same person. As Kim, my sister hung out at a biker bar, and the guy who had tried to break into the town house was a regular who knew her. After all, I’d learned the God’s own truth from that most reliable of witnesses, Craig Leone. It seemed clear that the attempted break-in was somehow related to my sister, and for now, the less attention any law enforcement paid to Wendy, the better.
I also considered calling Teo, but once again, I had to protect my sister, at least until I found out what was really going on. And truthfully, I wasn’t excited about recounting my visit to Against the Wind. At dawn, I got up and packed the few things I would need for my trip to Delray Beach, locking the town house and turning on the alarm behind me.
When I pulled out of the garage, I discovered the town house finally had neighbors. An older man in a tracksuit and Cubs’ cap was searching the bushes between us, most likely for his newspaper.
I got out to close the garage and introduce myself, and paid close attention to his expression when I told him I was Wendy’s sister. He said she had moved in after he’d left for Chicago in May, and I was relieved. Maybe he could have told me things he’d seen as Wendy’s neighbor, but I was glad we were starting fresh. He wasn’t as foolproof or cuddly as Bismarck, but another set of eyes in the neighborhood was a good thing.
I listened to a variety of true crime podcasts on the lengthy trip to Delray Beach, checking out the competition. By the time I arrived, I’d formed a long list of things we should never do at Out in the Cold and a short list of things we might want to try. Of course now that we’d triumphed once, the pressure was on.
I convened two different meetings with crew members, and Sophie and I took comments on the case we had zeroed in on. The feedback was positive and we were that much closer to moving forward if Sebastian was in agreement. I had time scheduled with the big boss on Sunday, and I expected to be able to convince him.
Sophie and I went out for lunch before afternoon meetings, and on the walk to one of my favorite local dives, she caught me up on Ike and the family barbecue. “His daughter is a sweetheart. My girls will love her.”
“And Ike?”
“Also a sweetheart.” Her smile almost stretched to the rhinestone earrings twinkling in her earlobes.
We settled on stools at the counter and made our order. I realized how much Teo would like this place. It wasn’t the first time since arriving here that I’d thought about him.
While we wolfed down fish tacos, I told her about last night. Sophie waited until I’d finished my account before she commented. “Do you have thoughts about what your sister was doing there?”
The question was so low-key, so neutral, that I was stumped for what to say. A part of me had been prepared to go on the defensive.
“I’m out of ideas. I’d like your help.”
“She’s using an alias. We could start there.” She turned up a palm in question.
“Okay.”
“So she doesn’t want the clientele of a biker bar to know her real name. That makes sense to me. You?”
“I had a fake name all prepared last night if I needed one.”
“How well-known is she in Seabank?”
I had no idea. Wendy had graduated from high school decades before. Nobody ages so well they are instantly recognizable.
I felt my way to an answer. “She works for Gracey Group, but I’m doubtful the people she works with would party down at Against the Wind. Certainly my parents’ country club friends wouldn’t.”
“Still, it’s taking something of a chance. Just to be there, I mean.”
“What else?”
“Why would she pretend she’s somebody she’s not?” When I didn’t answer, Sophie went on. “And we aren’t just talking about the fake name. You found clothes you hadn’t expected, and they hint at a different identity she might use at the bar. Because it adds spice to a dull routine? Because it’s a chance to try on another kind of life? Because even getting caught could be interesting?”
“How so?”
“Adrenaline high. A chance to make up a great story.”
She was using “story” instead of “lie” to be tactful. “What else are you thinking?”
“I’m wondering how she managed to go out at night with two little girls at home.”
“My parents?”
“I’m assuming she wouldn’t tell your parents where she was really going. Would she use old friends as an excuse?”
My mother had said Wendy wasn’t socializing with old friends, so I knew that wasn’t it. “She might have asked Mom to give her a break so she could go out to dinner or a movie. And she’s perfectly capable of finding babysitters.”
“Have the girls mentioned a sitter?”
I had asked Sophie for help, but now I realized I didn’t want it. I knew where she was leading, and I wasn’t ready. I shook my head. “Can you think of any good reason she might show up at a biker bar?”
“An innocent pressure release? She has the girls, a tiring job, an absent husband.”
I had forgotten to
tell her about Bryce’s phone call. I did. Quickly. She nodded. “Okay, something’s going on there.”
And how could I refute that? Instead I looked at my watch. “I’m going to I Spy to see Glenn before the next round of meetings, and I’d better leave in a minute. You’d be welcome to come. I’m going to ask him about tracing Wendy’s calls.”
“I’ll let you do that alone, but you’ll tell me what he says?”
I promised I would, refused an invitation to dinner with her daughters the next night because I planned to drive back right after my meeting with Sebastian, and told her I’d see her in an hour.
She held me at arm’s length. “When you really want to talk about this, let me know.”
I sighed. “She’s my sister.”
I drove to Boynton Beach and parked in front of Glenn’s store. I Spy wasn’t quite a hole-in-the-wall, but neither was it easy to find from the street. The windows were darkly tinted, the signage was subtle. He didn’t like walk-ins. Most of his customers found him on the internet and had good reasons to shop there.
Glenn was a licensed private investigator, and he had an office in the back of the store. One time I’d arrived while he was explaining how a young woman could discover what her husband was really doing every time he claimed to be checking on his mother. She was suspicious because her mother-in-law had accused her of keeping him from visiting. I didn’t have a lot of hope for that marriage.
Today Glenn was alone with his technical devices, shelves and shelves of them against dark gray walls. He sold cameras and video surveillance equipment hidden in everything from AC adapters to teddy bears. I was particularly fond of the models with night vision, and was still trying to come up with a good reason to buy the bird feeder. Maybe if I found Wendy and all turned out well, I’d tell her to buy it for me at Christmas.
Other shelves sported GPS trackers of every shape and kind, monitors for cell phones and landlines, and another personal favorite, bug and camera detectors to help root out all the previously listed gadgets.
My favorite spymaster greeted me with the sexiest male voice in the Americas. “Good to see you,” he rumbled. Thirty-something Glenn was short and squat with a Winston Churchill nose, but in the dark, would any woman care?
He gave me a careful hug. I was never quite sure if he was hugging me or patting me down, but I understood. Glenn made paranoia pay.
“I hear you’re staying on the other coast,” he said when he stepped away.
I suspected he knew everything about me. “I’m taking care of my sister’s children. And I have a bit of a problem.”
The other sexy thing about Glenn is that he listens without interrupting. Of course who knows what he does with the information? I gave him the most abbreviated version of what had happened with Wendy, but didn’t add my growing suspicions.
“She doesn’t want me to get involved. But I want to help. Is there any way, any...device I can use to trace her calls?”
He didn’t have to think. “Nothing. It’s a burner phone. She’s blocking the number. You don’t even know what state she’s in. Even if the cops were involved, they’d have problems finding her.”
I had expected this, and he saw my disappointment. “Ask leading questions when you talk to her. Ask if she needs you to send her warmer clothes? Promise you’ll send them through the remailing service—which is a good one, by the way. Ask if she’s getting enough to eat, staying where she can sleep enough? And listen for background noises when she calls.” He shrugged. “I’m sorry, but with what you’ve told me, that’s all I’ve got.”
We both knew it wasn’t enough. Before I left I asked him to show me his latest finds, and we chatted as we toured the shelves.
The afternoon meetings went well, and after we had finished with every crew member I’d been able to snag, Sophie and I were in agreement. If Sebastian approved, we had our case. She went off to waste her snooping talents at a cash register, and I went home to the duplex, locked all the doors and fell deeply asleep on the sofa, only waking up once to heat a can of soup for dinner and strip off my jeans before I crawled into bed.
I woke early the next morning. Florida dawns can be spectacular, and Sunday morning’s promised to be no exception. Since my morning was free, I bought a takeout breakfast and drove to Gulfstream Park.
After I found a parking spot I strolled between sea grapes down a boardwalk to the beach, spread a towel on the sand and waded a short distance as the sky turned a marbleized apricot and, at last, the sun peeked over the horizon.
Wendy was not a fan of sunrises. Once when we were both visiting our parents, I’d made her come with me to see what I like to call the “Seabank Special.” Off a point not far from the house where I grew up, dawn sets the sky on fire. To get there, walking through tall brush is required, something else Wendy doesn’t like. But I’d dragged her along, and when we got to the beach and dawn lit the sky I turned to watch her expression. She was looking at her cell phone screen.
“I don’t suppose you’re about to take a picture?” I asked.
“I missed a text last night. I was just checking.” She looked up. “I’ve seen sunrises, Ryan. I came with you, didn’t I?”
Now as I watched the sky brighten and three pelicans fly across the sun, I wondered why she had come that morning. To keep the peace? To show she was a good sport? To stay on my good side? I wondered if I had ever really seen my sister clearly.
* * *
In my work life, I was surrounded by eccentrics, and certainly not just the sources I interviewed for our podcast, or the crew, like Sophie and Glenn, who followed their bliss wherever it led them. Sebastian Freiman, Out in the Cold’s executive producer and backer, was eccentric in his own way, although his eccentricities made him one of the richest men in Florida.
Among other things, Sebastian owned a chain of weekly newspapers, which he devoted to stirring up controversy, as well as making sure that justice prevailed in courts and police work. Like our podcast, I’m not certain the newspapers were earning their keep or if he cared. Although I knew he started life with a trust fund, I’d never discovered all the ways Sebastian multiplied his birthright. I’d just seen plenty of evidence of the way he spent it.
Right now I was looking at one of them. Sebastian’s house—better described as a mansion—made my parents’ luxurious home in Seabank seem small and insignificant. The house was saffron-colored stucco with a red tile roof, inset tile mosaics and beautiful wrought-iron balconies and doors. Inside there were at least six bedrooms—I’d counted that many once on my way to his upstairs office. The property itself stretched from ocean’s edge to Lake Worth lagoon. Today I’d faced down two security guards to get this far.
Somebody once told me that Sebastian bought the house to help an old friend when it was about to go into foreclosure. However it happened, he made good use of it and threw amazing parties. Invitations were nearly as coveted as those to soirees at nearby Mar-a-Lago. Twice Sebastian insisted I attend. Since I grew up with parents who entertained lavishly, I knew exactly how to enjoy myself. I smiled, schmoozed, and when I could, I escaped with a plate of gourmet tidbits, one glass of white wine and another of whatever red came most recommended by the bartender. Then I’d sit behind a palm tree to people watch.
It wasn’t a bad way to socialize.
Now Sebastian’s housekeeper let me in and motioned me to the parlor to the right of a huge foyer dotted with priceless art and sculpture. I stayed where I was, trying to imagine how easy it would be to steal this collection. I didn’t want it. I just wanted to know how an art thief might proceed.
The fact that I was now standing under Sebastian’s priceless Murano glass chandelier plotting a burglary was little more than a fluke. Fresh out of grad school, as well as courage after the John Quayle encounter, I had drifted to Delray Beach to work on the crime beat at one of Sebastian’s weeklies.
Try
ing to find my feet again, there had been too many hours in every day. Six months in, on the verge of starting over somewhere more exciting, I met Sophie at the local grocery store. She’s a chatterer, my Sophie, and the store was nearly empty. I told her what I did, she told me her hobby was crime research and internet sleuthing, and we became instant best friends.
Just for fun we decided to create a podcast about a local jewelry store heist. By criminal standards, the crime was mediocre, a theft that had netted the burglars less than a thousand dollars in merchandise. But between us, we found some interesting angles, and a friend with a recording studio. We wrote and recorded the podcast for entertainment, never expecting anything to come of it. But when we finished, I played it for some of my colleagues and wondered out loud if it would be an interesting addition to the paper’s lackluster website.
Three weeks later I was called to a meeting at this very house, with the boss I’d never met. I thought my command performance might relate to an unflattering story I’d written about a local politician. I hadn’t expected to like Sebastian Freiman, who was known to be outspoken and domineering. Instead I fell under his spell immediately.
The Sebastian I met was a distinguished silver-haired man in his late fifties, wearing jeans and a polo shirt and munching a bagel as he strolled into the foyer. He had one for me, too, along with a travel mug of coffee, and even better, as we walked around his extensive grounds, he told me he liked our podcast. He asked if I’d like to inaugurate a series that he would bankroll and promote through his papers, as well as his other contacts.
I was so taken aback I had to finish my bagel before I could answer. I told him I couldn’t do a podcast without Sophie, and he told me to hire her and whoever else I needed, but not to assume the money wouldn’t dry up if it was spent too freely. It wasn’t quite that simple, but nearly. When Sebastian wants something, Sebastian almost always gets it.
A Family of Strangers Page 24
