by Mimi Barbour
Moving on, she read about all the trappings of middle-class families moving up in the world. The two men gained recognition and power—more every year until a small notice appeared about the company’s takeover by Jim Waters who was now the single owner and CEO.
Ham’s files included all the background data about both Ben and Carol. As a possible link to finding them now, it remained of significant interest, except there happened to be very little to read. Ben had a brother who’d died a bachelor a few years after the family disappeared. Carol had grown up with one older sister, Jan who’d remained in South America. The girls had lost their parents in a boating accident in Brazil after Carol had moved to L.A. and started to attend art school. Other than the Water’s family and their shared mining colleagues, they seemed to have had no ties to anyone else.
Disappointment riding her hard, Lisa joined with Jonathon Wimbly and Jim back in Jeff’s office. Vast and ornate, one could imagine a man of Jeff’s prominence working here. On the far side, a space had been allocated as the visitor’s area with a glassed-in bar, white leather couches and hangings of a diaphanous material in water colors of greens and silvers. Paintings graced the walls but the oil above the fireplace caught one’s eye and instantly mesmerized. This picture put the others to shame. Lisa walked forward feeling as if she stood on the very brink of waterfalls brilliant with luminous beauty. Rainbows had been twisted and woven amongst cascades so powerful; one had to catch their breath. The greens of the numerous trees surrounding the falls came alive with sunlit downhill streams, sparkling mists of water and a lone bird floating high as if buffeted by pure joy.
Jim moved up behind her. “Carol Stokes, Ben’s wife, painted this picture. As a child, she’d lived in a small city in Brazil called Foz do Iguaçu. Those falls are a huge tourist attraction and a place I’ve always meant to visit. She’d presented this painting to me and my wife on our fifth wedding anniversary. After the Stokes left, Gloria couldn’t handle seeing it every day so Jeff asked if he could keep it in his room. I have no doubt it’s one of the reasons he chose the water theme for this hotel—that and our name, of course.
“It’s absolutely breathtaking.” Lisa felt moisture gather. As a lover of beauty, she knew that great affection had to have powered the brush that created this work. She cleared her throat along with her head and turned to look at the influential man behind her. “Sorry, I was away longer than I intended, a personal issue.” Seeing Jeff in his smile sent a pang of yearning zinging through her insides and forced her to sit on one of the chairs by the large desk.
“And you were missed.” Then a grimace marred his features. “We received another message. And it’s a little less cryptic.” He handed her a note typed on familiar loose-leaf.
How does it feel?
Lisa shot to her feet. “This is without a doubt a personal vendetta, Jim. I’m certain you have the right culprits in mind. The folks at the precinct have started an undercover investigation. They are doing everything they can to find out about Ben, Carol and the boys after they disappeared. The lab has the first note and we’ll send this one along to be analyzed also. “
“As long as you keep everything under wraps so the kidnappers have no idea that you’re involved.” The fear in a father’s voice couldn’t be misconstrued.
Jonathon approached and interrupted. “Your man is working with our monitoring crew now and they’re going through every possible video and surveillance track to try and set up a re-enactment of that night.”
His cell phone cut him off. “We’ll be right there.”
“I think your guy might have come up with something. They want us upstairs.”
Chapter Seventeen
As soon as Lisa stepped into the Casino’s surveillance and security systems area, she remembered the amazement she’d felt the first time she’d visited. Months before, Aurora had needed help to catch a thieving pickpocket cruising the gaming rooms and had placed Lisa and Ham upstairs to help monitor the action. It had also been the first time Lisa had laid eyes on the Cascade’s owner, Jeff Waters. Even then, her tongue had glued itself to the top of her mouth and she’d fought the instant attraction. Dazzled, but with her feet firmly planted on the ground, she’d known his social position put him way out of her league.
Stopping to glance around at the banks of flashing screens and consoles full of buttons, her thoughts flew to Noel and how stoked the little guy would be if let loose in a room like this. It was every kid’s magic dream world. Some of the men glanced her way and smiles appeared. She waved and stepped over to where Ray worked feverishly, pounding the keys. Ham appeared at her side and Jim and Jonathon brought up the rear. As soon as Jonathon appeared, heads were lowered and normal activities kicked in.
“What’s up, Ray?” Lisa moved behind his chair and leaned over to get his attention.
His wild hair hid a lot of his face and she grinned and joked. “You need a girlfriend my man, someone to keep you looking less like a poodle and more like a human male.”
A grin splitting his face, his youth obvious, Ray beamed at her. “Hey Lisa, how’s tricks?”
Cuffing him on the arm, her fist closed but gentle, she replied, “You know I’ve become a surrogate mom now. No more fooling around for this girl. So, batman, what have you got for us?”
“It’s not much. Call me crazy, but I suspect Jeff Waters was drugged and kidnapped by his own maid.”
Lisa’s heart thudded to a complete stop and then started up again. Exclamations from the two men behind her added to Ray’s startling announcement.
“Okay, okay! Everyone settle down. Ray, what brings you to that conclusion?”
“Lisa, you need to watch the surveillance tapes from the night the man went missing. No one entered or left his apartment. No one until the maid came to do his room in the morning. Because she was identified by the employees as having worked here for over a year, she held no interest to anyone and was overlooked as a possible suspect.”
“Her name is Jane Ward and I talked to the woman myself,” Jonathon added. “Her previous employers gave her a glowing reference and her work here has been exemplary. Because of it, we’d assigned her to the penthouse. Jane has built up years of experience in some of the major L.A. hotels.”
Ray held up his hands to stop the chatter. “I went through all the videos religiously and none of the cameras had been tampered with other than one in the elevator. Therefore, the only explanation—this time, instead of the butler being the culprit, the maid did it.” Ray winked at Lisa wanting to share his sick joke but got a hint when she kept her expression serious and her eyes half-closed in warning.
“Okay, sorry!” He turned back to the screen. “Look here, her cart had a lot of towels and junk piled on the top. There are dirty linen bags hanging on the sides basically empty when she first appeared going into the suite.”
They watched as Ray rolled back the tape. Sure enough, an overweight middle-aged woman, a bit slumped, one who walked with a slight lurching movement appeared. Her grey hair, worn in a bun and covered with a net, added little to her already plain, pale features so unnoticeable that one might forget her a minute after she disappeared. She opened the door and maneuvered her cart into the room and then closed herself inside.
Lisa turned to Jonathon. “Is that allowed? For her to bring the cart into the place?”
He shrugged. “It’s not normal for our regular rooms. Jeff gave her permission because it meant she’d have less walking to do. Plus, he didn’t like having the door left open.”
“So her entering in that way would be acceptable?”
“Oh sure, Jeff liked her. Jane babied him from what I understood. Left him chocolates, made sure he had a full fridge, filled his coffee bin, even put fresh flowers in every second day. You know, things that others might not have been so fastidious about.”
“I want to talk with her,” Lisa insisted.
“I’ll arrange it.” Jonathon texted a message faster than Lisa could follow.
With a head shake, she turned back to Ray. “Okay you’ve got our attention. Explain your theory.”
“I timed how long she spent in the apartment. One hour, ten minutes and forty seconds passed. Not a big deal, right? Except I checked and the rooms hadn’t been vacuumed, nor had the bathroom received more than a spit and polish. Even the wastebasket hadn’t been emptied. Small things, sure, but if my supposition is correct they matter.”
He quickly rolled the video forward and stopped it at a point where the maid opened the door and began pulling her cart into the hallway. Noticeably heavier if one looked for such a clue, and less maneuverable, Jane struggled. If they hadn’t purposefully examined the scene, the billowing side bags would have meant nothing. Neither would the problem with the vehicle’s apparent heaviness.
Once these suspicions became aroused though, Lisa could see the promise of Ray’s theory. “For chrissakes. You’re a freaking genius, Ray. Now tell me where she took him?”
Ray’s thick hair bounced from side to side as he wagged his head. “You see, that’s the problem. I have no idea.”
Chapter Eighteen
Lisa’s hard voice cut through the despondency hovering in the room. “How the hell could one of your carts and a maid disappear from a busy hotel? We’re pretty sure he had to have been unconscious or he would have made some type of movement, given a sign, knowing that you have the video surveillance in the hallways. At the very least, Jane Ward had to have had a vehicle waiting and someone to help her with the body. I mean, she managed to roll him into the space under the cart but no way could she have lifted him out. She looks slightly crippled and he’s at least six-one.”
Jim spoke up, “Six-two actually.”
Jonathon whined an answer to her rhetorical question. “I don’t know.” Then he lowered his head back down in the nest his arms made on the side of the Jeff’s desk where he and Jim had taken up residence.
Jim thumped his fist on gleaming surface, startling Jonathon who sprung upright. “We’ve watched so many videos today my eyes feel like they’ve taken an acid bath. We saw nothing. Four sets of eyes couldn’t have missed that damn woman leaving the hotel.”
Lisa knew that what he said had merit. However, they had overlooked something. No doubt about it. The fact was Jeff had disappeared. The last place they’d followed him was being pushed up the hallway inside a utility cart, heading for the elevator. Once the elevator doors closed, only the empty elevator appeared on the screen. Someone had fiddled with the camera to show a vacant space. They must have restored it soon after the cart reached its destination because when the staff first surveyed that specific film, nothing had popped out at them. Leaving them with no idea of what had happened.
Spending the day and a good portion of the night thereafter, mesmerized by scene after scene of the thousands of visitors and employees that pack a popular Las Vegas hotel, their exasperation had mounted. Add to the fact that Ham had nothing further to report on the Stokes family and their whereabouts once they’d disappeared, didn’t help the situation. After they’d left Colorado, smoke didn’t vanish as quickly as that family had. They took nothing with them except cash, their personal belongings, including clothes and some of Carol’s art supplies.
Lisa had requested one of her detective pals who was an art lover to follow Carol Stoke’s art career but that didn’t pan out any better. Either the woman quit painting, stopped selling or she changed not only her name but her style drastically. So far, they had no leads within the art circles.
Discouraged already, it didn’t help when the lab sent back the analysis with nothing to report on the second note. Only a partial thumbprint had been found, not enough to even put a trace on.
They had zilch! Bitterness in Lisa’s stomach roiled, became heartburn and burned the back of her throat while her head gave notice of a migraine appearing soon. She knew it like she knew her own shoe size, they were overlooking the obvious. Lisa leaned back and rubbed her eyes, knowing the time had come to clear her head. She turned to her co-worker. “Ham did you know they have evidence that water once flowed on Mars? The only thing stopping Earth having a lifeless environment like Mars is our magnetic field that shields us from the solar radiation.”
Ham rubbed his own eyes and then grinned her way, sarcasm fueling his smile. “Yeah, I was just saying the same thing to Mattie this morning.” He took a deep breath. “You have a headache, girlie, don’t cha?”
“At least it’s giving me ample warning. I need to stop thinking about everything and just let it all settle into making sense.” She closed her eyes and started some deep-breathing. Then she flexed her neck from one side to the other and gazed around her at the beautiful hotel room they were occupying.
Ham moved behind her and began massaging her neck and shoulders. “With your brain so full of all the informational tidbits you keep spouting, I wonder there’s any room for… What? Something sparked?”
Lisa scrambled upright and said, “John-boy Hampton, my partner, my love, could the sons-of-bitches be holding him in his own hotel?”
Catching her vibe, Ham slumped onto the sofa, tilted his head and let his computer-like brain compute. “By gollie, lass, you could be right. It would certainly answer all the questions.”
Jonathon piped up, his voice weedy. “We have over 3,000 rooms in this hotel, not counting the suites and gaming space and shops and… My God. How will we ever search them all for one man?”
Jim brightened, and though his voice broke, he kept talking. “We can go to each room via a maid. Knock on every door; search the premises room by room.”
“No, that’s exactly what we can’t do.” Lisa’s firm tone shut them all down. “We let them know we’re on to them being in the hotel and they could take Jeff anywhere. We could lose him completely. There has to be a better way. First we look at the rooms where they’ve put out a notice for no maid service.”
“How do we know there isn’t another maid involved with the crime and she’s covering their room?”
“If we go with the premise that this is the Stoke’s family having payback time, then that’s not likely. Did anyone else notice Jane’s build? She looked to be an older woman and rather stocky. Did Carol’s sister, Jan, ever come to visit her while you were still friends, Jim?”
“No. She couldn’t because she’d hurt her hip…” His words stopped for a second and then he shot to his feet. “Jane, Jan. The maid!”
“Could be. Looks about the right age and her name could have been changed. Ham, would you look into that?
“On it.” He walked toward the other end of the room, cell phone at his ear, voice steadily giving orders. “As soon as now is what we want.” He barked the words, one hand motioning in emphasis. Turning back toward the others, he grimaced. “They’ll do the best they can but they’re swamped.”
“In the meantime, we have a lot we can check into here at the hotel.” Lisa noticed him wriggling his shoulders and then his bleary eyes guilt-slapped her. “Ham you’ve been at this long enough. You’d better head home to get some shut-eye. I have a feeling tomorrow’s going to be one hell of a long day.”
“You’re right. I better go and see my sweetheart before she leaves me for someone more attentive,” Ham sighed the words theatrically. “So if Mattie calls, tell her I’m at the office.”
Lisa cracked up laughing. “You’re so bad, O’Hampton.”
“Sure, and you’re so easy.” Ham winked and left.
Jonathon grabbed his Ipad and started a list. “What exactly do you want us to look for? I’ll get the hotel staff on it now.”
“Check rooms that have cancelled the maid service. Ones where the customers have booked side-by-side rooms, or even with two men registered. Concentrate on the rooms closer to the penthouse so their cart trip wouldn’t have taken as long. Can you think of anything I might have missed?”
Head tilted, the little man tapped the pen against his lips. “I think they probably took a suite. If they have any un
expected visitors, they can hide Jeff in the bedroom area.”
“Yes. I bet you’re right. You know the layout of your hotel best, work with that thought in mind.”
Jonathon deliberated and then nodded. “This is good to start with. I’ll get them on it now.”
Jim stood and stretched. “I’m still good to go for a while. I couldn’t sleep anyway, now that I know we might be close to finding him.”
Lisa interrupted, “Not a good idea. You and Jonathon both need some shut-eye to rejuvenate. If something comes up, tell your staff to contact me and I’ll stick around in Jeff’s office in case anything breaks.”
Both men hesitated.
Lisa added, “I’ll call you if I need you.” Her eyes narrowed and hardness reinforced her authority. In minutes, the room cleared. Lisa sent orders upstairs to her own people that she wanted certain data made available and brought to Jeff’s office. Then she slumped on the sofa to wait.
One of Lisa’s tricks to being a good detective was being able to rethink a case, focusing one by one on all the different aspects. Once concluded, she’d throw out unnecessary information that clogged up the incident and concentrate on the intelligence most pertinent.
Unfortunately, this time when she tried to reflect, all she saw was Jeff’s beloved face and his quirky smile. The way his eyes lit when she’d walked toward him on the night of Aurora’s wedding. Feeling the heat that swamped her from the memories, she sifted her fingers through her hair and again heard the husky voice he’d used as his hands caressed the waves. “So beautiful.” He’d been the gentlest lover she’d ever had. Tender yes, but he’d brought her to heights she thought only happened in the silly romances Aurora hid on her cellphone.
