by Jaden Skye
Aldon returned to his hotel room and sat squarely next to the phone, waiting for his daughter to contact him. As he waited, he summonsed Cindy and Mattheus to come over and speak to him.
“You’re back on the case, obviously,” Aldon said as soon as Cindy and Mattheus walked into his suite. “Find my daughter as soon as you can. Let her know that I’m full square, completely on her side. Tell her I agree with her choice and that she must never fear returning home.”
Cindy and Mattheus agreed to do deliver his messages as soon as they found her.
“And I’ll tell you something else,” Aldon continued, “I’m pleased that Tara ran away. It shows good sense on her part. The more you find out about Lynch and his family, the further away you’d want to run from them, too.”
“There are all kinds of ways Tara could have ended the relationship,” Mattheus broke in. “It’s not the best idea to just disappear.”
“Maybe that’s all she could do right now,” Aldon said with a gleeful glint in his eye.
“Maybe that’s true,” Cindy agreed with him. “Maybe Tara couldn’t think of any other way to say good bye. Let’s hope she said something to someone about where she was headed.”
“Tara has plenty of friends she’s close to,” Aldon agreed. “Someone here knew she wasn’t going through with the wedding! Go talk to all of them and find out who.”
“We will,” said Cindy. If nothing else there were certainly plenty of people to talk to.
“We also need to talk to you,” Mattheus jumped in. “You know your daughter better than anyone here. Where do you think she could be?”
Aldon closed his eyes and trembled. “Thank you for that,” he said slowly. “Actually, I used to know Tara better than anyone - before her mother died and she met Lynch. Once she met him things turned around. Lynch had a strange effect upon her, drew her away from me right away.”
“That had to be rough,” said Cindy.
“It was terrible,” Aldon remembered. “She couldn’t think straight anymore once she was with him. Everything revolved only around him. I didn’t matter a whit anymore.”
“Tell us more,” Cindy said.
Aldon suddenly seemed sad and frightened. “Tara just got swept up in that crazy whirl that Lynch and his mother lived in – parties, dances, the high life, it seems. I never saw that side of her before.”
“She wasn’t raised that way?” asked Cindy.
“Of course not,” Aldon looked out of the window and up at the sky. “Tara was raised to be a fine, upstanding, community woman, with all the right values. Do you understand?”
“I do,” said Cindy warmly. “And I believe you succeeded in that. The Tara I knew cared a great deal about others.”
Aldon was pleased and also startled. “What makes you say that?” he asked.
“Tara insisted upon including Lynch’s child in their marriage,” said Cindy. “I saw that when we went to visit the child one more time.”
“I wish you hadn’t done that,” said Aldon. “I don’t like the idea. I would have advised against it. The locals on the island can’t be trusted.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Mattheus sneered.
Aldon’s voice grew more strident, “Why didn’t anyone tell me about it?” he demanded.
“No one told you because no one knew about it,” said Cindy. “Only me.”
*
After Cindy and Mattheus left Aldon, they went down and sat on the veranda in front of the hotel. It was a beautiful clear night and the stars were out in full array, a glittering canopy. But as Cindy gazed at the sky, rather than feel the wonder of the evening, her sense of desolation deepened.
“I don’t have a good feeling,” she said to Mattheus.
“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” Mattheus tried to hold back. “Let me call Rodney, and he can call Nick. Maybe someone down at the casinos has something to tell us.”
Mattheus put in a quick call into Rodney, who had found the informant in the first place for them. He put the call on the speaker phone, and Cindy closed her eyes as she listened to him dial.
“News is out,” Rodney picked up right away. “We’re looking for her everywhere. If she’s here, we’ll find her before the morning.”
“What do you mean if?” asked Mattheus.
“Could be she took a private plane out of the island,” Rodney mused. “Two private planes left a few hours ago, just when she would have been leaving.”
Cindy opened her eyes in a flash. How wonderful that would be. She prayed that Tara was on one of the planes, safely tucked away, headed back to the states. Cindy hoped that Tara had found that kind of strength. But why would she leave her bag in her hotel room then?
“Tara Whitfield has all the money in the world and all the contacts,” Rodney continued. “There’s no reason to think she didn’t charter a plane.”
“Hope so,” said Mattheus, guardedly.
“Why’d she disappear like that? What kind of trouble is there in the family?” asked Rodney, curious.
Cindy put her hand on Mattheus’s arm, as if telling him not to say a word.
“All kinds of pre-wedding jitters,” Mattheus answered vaguely.
“Come on, let me have it,” Rodney wasn’t buying it. “You guys dug something up that made her go?”
Both Mattheus and Cindy were dead silent.
“Hey,” Rodney continued. “Lynch comes from a big family and they’ve got power. If his bride to be actually turns up missing, there’s a lot of suspects waiting in the wings. “
“Is Tara officially listed as missing?” Mattheus responded, sliding around Rodney’s other question, artfully.
“Well, what else would you call it?” asked Rodney, irked.
“I’d call it a case of a runaway bride,” said Mattheus.
“If you’re lucky,” Rodney didn’t sound convinced. “But I just want to let you know that a couple of other people connected to this family’s company have gone missing in the past. Police looked high and low and found nothing – they’re both cold cases by now. It won’t look so good if another vanishes.”Cindy was shocked by that news. “We have to find out more about that,” said Cindy, horrified. “Who were these people who went missing? Did it happen when Lynch’s father was still alive?”
“Slow down,” said Mattheus to her. Then he thanked Rodney for the information, told him to keep in touch and got off the phone, fast.
“Why didn’t you want to find out who are those people who went missing?” Cindy repeated, annoyed.
“Slow down, Cindy,” Mattheus repeated. “A lot of the native population here work for the company in one way or another. And, there’s a pretty good underground drug trade down here too, growing all the time.”
“So?” asked Cindy.
“So, all kind of things happen that have nothing to do with this wedding. People go missing for a thousand different reasons. We have to stay on focus. Remember, Tara isn’t working for the company, just marrying into it.”
“Was marrying into it,” Cindy corrected him, both relieved for Tara and concerned about her.
“Don’t jump to the conclusion that it’s such a bad family,” Mattheus responded. “We don’t have evidence of that at all.”
Cindy wondered, once again, why Mattheus was being so protective of Lynch’s family. It had to be because he was identified with Lynch, and his secret son. Cindy hadn’t even given a moment’s thought to Mattheus’s own daughter since Tara disappeared. There would be plenty of time for exploring that when things settled down here.
“You just want to protect Lynch and his mother,” said Cindy. “But let’s keep our minds open to everything.”
“I’ve got a better idea,” said Mattheus, “let’s take a deep breath. We’re acting as if Tara’s in big trouble. There’s no evidence of that yet, either, so let’s take it slow.”
Of course Mattheus was right. There was just as much of a chance that Tara was fine, had made up her mind to get out of the marriag
e and taken off to an unknown location. For the moment Cindy had to ignore the persistent nagging feeling inside that told her otherwise.
“We get so used to expecting the worst,” Cindy murmured, “at the least little thing, we smell disaster.”
“Precisely my point,” said Mattheus softly. “It’s a danger of the trade we’re in. And, it doesn’t only apply to cases,” Mattheus looked at Cindy directly then. “It pertains to our relationship, too.”
Cindy swallowed hard.
“You’re also thinking the worst and imagining disaster just because I didn’t tell you about my daughter,” Mattheus went on.
Cindy had to acknowledge that he was right. “It’s true,” she said quietly.
“My daughter was born when I was a kid. It was years and years before I ever met you. What could it possibly have to do with us now?”
“You never told me about her, though,” Cindy had no choice but launch into the discussion. “We’ve been talking about getting married and building a family these past few weeks, and she never once came up.”
“So?” Mattheus truly didn’t get it.
“So what does that say about you?” Cindy said. “It says that you’re hiding important parts of your life from me. It makes me say how can I trust you?”
“Just trust me,” Mattheus replied. “Just trust that I love you. I do. This happened before I ever knew you.”
“And what else happened then?” Cindy asked blatantly.
“Thousands of things happened,” Mattheus replied. “Do you want me to make a complete record of them all? Do you want to take a microscope and peer into every inch of my life?”
Mattheus was making Cindy feel foolish, but she refused to take the bait. She had a right to know about his daughter, just the way Tara had a right to call off her marriage to Lynch when she found out the very same thing. The strange conversion of events between them struck Cindy once again, as she grew more uneasy about Tara. Cindy needed to know that she was alright.
“I have to know how Tara is doing right now,” Cindy got up from her seat and paced back and forth along the veranda. “We can talk about ourselves later. There’s no time for focusing on our relationship now.”
Mattheus got up and began walking beside Cindy. “It’s going to take a while until we find out about Tara,” he said softly. “Who knows when it will be? These things take time; you know that. And, plenty of cases go cold.”
“This case won’t go cold, Mattheus, I feel it,” said Cindy, as his telephone suddenly rang.
Mattheus picked up quickly. “Yeah,” he said, as his face grew stony. “Yeah, yeah,” his voice dropped an octave then.
“What is it? What is it?” Cindy tugged on his arm.
“Okay,” said Mattheus, shut his phone and turned to her slowly. “You’re right, as usual,” he said slowly.
“Right about what? Tell me!”
“They found Tara at Ryder’s Cove,” Mattheus voice was dark and stilted.
“Oh thank heavens,” said Cindy, “that’s where she went swimming.”
“No,” said Mattheus, “not thank heavens. Tara was found tangled under the branches. She’s dead.”
CHAPTER 11
The horrible and shocking news hit the island like a tsunami. Socialite found dead the night before her wedding, the headlines screamed. More police swarmed the hotel. Guests at the wedding were detained from leaving. Aldon collapsed in his hotel suite. His sister Olivia took a room in his hotel to care for him during the ordeal.
“The case of the socialite bride who came down to St. Martin for her wedding has quickly developed from a missing person’s case to a homicide,” the TV news announced. “C and M Investigations have been brought on board. These are two of the best, most widely known private detectives in the Caribbean, Cindy and Mattheus.”
After the story broke Cindy and Mattheus received endless calls from reporters for interviews.
“Nothing yet, Mattheus repeated over and over. “As soon as we have news, we’ll let you know.”
The shock of the news mobilized them . Cindy and Mattheus immediately established a center of operations in their hotel room. First step was to create an overview of all that had to be done.
“We have to meet with police on the island as soon as possible,” said Cindy.
“I’ve already set up an appointment,” Mattheus agreed.
“Good,” said Cindy. “I can check that off the list.”
“You’re going to have to tell me every single detail of your visit with Tara to see Bala’s child,” Mattheus added.
“Absolutely,” Cindy agreed. The visit had oddly slipped her mind. The memory of it now made her freeze, as her thoughts naturally drifted to Bala’s brother Dawl. Oh God, why had she taken that visit so casually? Dawl had been rude and unruly, even made a definite threat that Cindy had overlooked. It never occurred to her that Tara was in danger, though. Cindy had truly believed that Tara would call off the wedding and leave on her own. Her relationship with Bala and Dawl would then have ended naturally.
Mattheus sat quietly, pondering the items on their list. “I think it’s best for me to interview Raina alone first,” he said. “You’re a bit threatening to her. She’s comfortable with me.”
“Agreed,” said Cindy, “and how about Lynch?”
“We should speak to him together,” said Mattheus. “But I hear he’s in no condition to talk to anyone at the moment. He’s still running around on the beaches calling for Tara.”
“Gone off the deep end?” asked Cindy.
“In shock,” Mattheus replied. “They’re reining him in now though, as we speak.”
“What a nightmare,” said Cindy.
Mattheus looked up at Cindy and rubbed his eyes. “You knew there’d be trouble right away,” he commented. “I made light of it. I was wrong.”
Cindy found Mattheus’s comment unsettling. It was not like him.
“Not at all,” she replied, “there’s totally no reason to blame yourself. I had no idea Tara would end up dead.” Cindy’s voice clenched in her throat as she said it. The shock of Tara’s death hit her in waves and actually saying it out loud, suddenly made it real.
“I should have paid more attention to what you said,” Mattheus was ruminating.
“Mattheus, stop it,” Cindy wanted to snap him out of it right away. Once they went down the road of self blame it was hard coming back from it. It shook their confidence and clouded their perception of what was going on right now. “There’s nothing to be gained from blaming yourself,” Cindy added.
“Maybe I do though?” Mattheus answered, oddly.
“For what?” Cindy asked sharply.
“A young woman ended up dead,” Mattheus echoed, “who could have foreseen it?”
“But, I was the one who said we should tell Tara’s father what we found out,” Cindy insisted. “You didn’t want to. If we’d listened to you -.”
“Nah, I was wrong. We had to,” said Mattheus.
“You can’t look back with what ifs?” Cindy insisted.
“Tara didn’t deserve to die,” Mattheus said sounding heartbroken.
“No one deserves to die,” said Cindy sadly. “That’s why we do what we do, remember?”
*
It was definitely time to spring into action. Mattheus called Raina then, put her on speaker phone, and asked if he could come by to speak to her. To both Cindy and Mattheus’s surprise, Raina insisted upon Cindy coming as well.
“I have nothing to hide,” Raina said, “you’re both on the case so bring Cindy along.”
“You’re sure?” said Mattheus.
“Of course I’m sure,” said Raina. “Both of you come and let’s get it over with.”
“Get it over with?” Cindy said to Mattheus, after he hung up and they were getting ready to go speak to her. “That’s an odd way to put it. Tara’s life is already over with. You’d think Raina would be focusing on finding the killer, not getting an interview over with.”
>
“Don’t jump to conclusions, or the interview won’t go anywhere,” said Mattheus, “Raina has plenty to tell us. Let’s keep an open mind and give her a chance.”
As they walked out of their room, down the hall to the elevator, Cindy realized that she had no desire to speak to Raina, or give her a chance. “I don’t like Raina,”Cindy said as they stepped into the elevator to leave the hotel.
“Whether you love her or hate her doesn’t matter a damn,” Mattheus replied. “All that matters is that you keep your ears and eyes open and hear everything she’s telling you. That’s what you’re being paid to do.”
Of course Cindy realized she was on a case and she had every intention of doing her best. She always did and was proud of that fact. She was also proud to be going to the interview with Mattheus, and able to share the findings with him. In times of difficulty, Mattheus was unshakeable, able to stand like a tree with roots that plunged hundreds of miles into the earth. She loved that about him and she needed it.
*
When Cindy and Mattheus came to the door of Raina’s suite, it was slightly ajar, so they could walk in right in without Raina having to open the door for them. Before they entered though, Mattheus knocked loudly, so as not to make an unannounced appearance.
““I’m here in the main room,” Raina called out. “Just come in.”
They walked in and looked around. As Cindy might have imagined Raina’s suite was on the top floor of the hotel, incredibly lavish, with every amenity one could dream of. They walked into the main room and there was Raina, on an opulent, blue velvet sofa, looking like a queen, about to receive her subjects. She was dressed in a long skirt and lavender, silk kimono blouse.
“Sit down,” Raina commanded as they entered, as if she were holding court.
Cindy and Mattheus did as she requested and sat on two velvet chairs, directly facing her.
“We are terribly sorry for your loss,” Cindy started, taking Raina by surprise.
“Lynch’s loss,” Raina corrected her. “It’s a horrible shock for him, he’s a mess.”
“And you too, of course,” Mattheus interjected. “This can’t be easy for anyone.”
