THE MIDDLE SIN

by Merline Lovelace

  Uh-oh. The cat was a de­ad gi­ve­away. No self-res­pec­ting fe­li­ne lo­ver wo­uld go off for a we­ek wit­ho­ut ma­king ar­ran­ge­ments for her pet.

  "I bro­ught the cat back to the of­fi­ce with me, got Marc's aut­ho­ri­za­ti­on to bypass the com­pany se­cu­rity co­des and had my folks start cal­ling the per­so­nal pho­ne num­bers sto­red in Trish's of­fi­ce com­pu­ter. They cal­led ever­yo­ne in it. Ac­qu­a­in­tan­ces, re­la­ti­ves, for­mer in­s­t­ruc­tors, the pet sto­re whe­re she pur­c­ha­sed spe­ci­al flea col­lars. No one's se­en or he­ard from her sin­ce last Fri­day."

  Slo­an pic­ked it up from the­re. "That's when I spo­ke to her pa­rents and sug­ges­ted they fi­le a mis­sing-per­son re­port. I al­so cal­led the Char­les­ton chi­ef of po­li­ce. He's a fri­end."

  "Ha­ve the po­li­ce se­ar­c­hed Trish's apar­t­ment?"

  "They went thro­ugh it yes­ter­day-Wed­nes­day-af­ter­no­on. I'm told they dus­ted for prints and spra­yed the pla­ce with lu­mi­nol."

  The prints wo­uld ta­ke a whi­le to run. The lu­mi­nol wo­uld ha­ve hig­h­lig­h­ted blo­od spat­ters in­s­tantly.

  "An­y­t­hing show up?"

  "No. The de­tec­ti­ve as­sig­ned to the ca­se is fol­lo­wing up now on the calls Di­ane and her pe­op­le ma­de."

  Cleo wa­ited a be­at or two. "That's it?" "That's it."

  "J­ust out of cu­ri­osity, why did you call me in so so­on? The po­li­ce ha­ven't had ti­me to work the ca­se yet."

  Slo­an's eyes went as hard as sla­te. "Chi­ef Ben­ton ga­ve me the sta­tis­tics. The chan­ces of fin­ding a mis­sing or ab­duc­ted wo­man ali­ve di­mi­nish by a fac­tor of ten with every twen­ty-fo­ur ho­urs she's go­ne. I don't li­ke the odds."

  Ne­it­her did Cleo, al­t­ho­ugh the­re was not­hing to in­di­ca­te the mis­sing em­p­lo­yee had be­en ab­duc­ted or ot­her­wi­se har­med. Yet.

  "Tell me mo­re abo­ut Trish's per­so­nal li­fe," she prom­p­ted. "Hob­bi­es. Tas­tes in fo­od or mu­sic. Fri­en­ds-boy, girl or in bet­we­en."

  "She's go­ne to lunch with the ot­hers he­re in the of­fi­ce a num­ber of ti­mes," Wal­ker re­la­ted, "but hasn't re­al­ly grown clo­se to an­yo­ne. One of her co­wor­kers, He­at­her Dal­ton, says she thinks Trish has be­en se­e­ing so­me­one la­tely but do­esn't know who. Her only hobby I know of is col­lec­ting star­fish. She had one shel­lac­ked and ke­eps it on her desk."

  Cleo duly no­ted the star­fish, then flip­ped her no­te­bo­ok shut and chec­ked her watch. It was still early af­ter­no­on. Plenty of ti­me to po­ke aro­und.

  "I'd li­ke to talk to Trish's co-wor­kers, then go thro­ugh the apar­t­ment myself. I'll ne­ed a ve­hic­le."

  Wal­ker nod­ded. "I've got one of the com­pany cars wa­iting for you. I al­so ha­ve Trish's ho­use keys. I pic­ked them up yes­ter­day."

  "Go­od. I'll al­so ne­ed a city map, a prin­to­ut of her ad­dress bo­ok and a re­cent pho­to."

  "I ha­ve tho­se re­ady, too," Ms. Su­per Ef­fi­ci­ency res­pon­ded. "And I've bo­oked you a su­ite at the Hil­ton Wa­ter­f­ront."

  That wor­ked for Cleo. Not for Slo­an, tho­ugh.

  "Can­cel the su­ite, Di­ane. Ms. North can use the cor­po­ra­te gu­est ho­use."

  "The Hil­ton is mo­re con­ve­ni­ent to Trish's ne­ig­h­bor­ho­od."

  "Can­cel the su­ite."

  The to­ne was even, but the or­der un­mis­ta­kably boss to em­p­lo­yee. Af­ter an in­fi­ni­te­si­mal pa­use, Wal­ker's ex­p­res­si­on clic­ked in­to ne­ut­ral.

  "Very well. I'll get a key­card for the gu­est ho­use."

  Cleo wa­ited un­til the ot­her wo­man had de­par­ted the of­fi­ce to ask the qu­es­ti­on ho­ve­ring at the back of her sus­pi­ci­o­us in­ves­ti­ga­tor's mind. "Is the­re so­met­hing go­ing on he­re you ha­ven't told me abo­ut?"

  "What do you me­an?"

  "Bet­we­en you and Trish?"

  His aris­toc­ra­tic fe­atu­res as­su­med a ha­ughty air. "I ma­ke it a po­int ne­ver to mix bu­si­ness with ple­asu­re."

  "Ca­re to tell me why Ms. Jac­k­son en­ded up in yo­ur ca­bin abo­ard yo­ur yacht, then?"

  Gri­ma­cing, he clim­bed down off his high hor­se. "All right, it's true Trish de­ve­lo­ped so­met­hing of a crush on me when she first ca­me to work at Slo­an En­gi­ne­ering. She was yo­ung and im­p­res­si­onab­le. That night on the yacht was… aw­k­ward. But I was in the mid­dle of di­vor­ce ne­go­ti­ati­ons at the ti­me. I wasn't abo­ut to up the sta­kes by get­ting in­vol­ved with one of my em­p­lo­ye­es."

  "Ye­ah, I re­ad abo­ut tho­se sta­kes." Cleo wag­gled her brows. "Twel­ve tho­usand a month for ma­in­te­nan­ce?"

  His shrug sa­id he co­uld af­ford it.

  "Which re­minds me. We still ha­ven't dis­cus­sed fe­es for my ser­vi­ces."

  "What's yo­ur go­ing ra­te?"

  She didn't he­si­ta­te. "For a mis­sing-per­son lo­ca­te, two hun­d­red an ho­ur, plus ex­pen­ses. With a twen­ty-tho­usand-dol­lar bo­nus when I find her."

  "Do­ne."

  Cleo swal­lo­wed a grin. Ac­tu­al­ly, her go­ing ra­te de­pen­ded a who­le lot on the cli­ent. She'd ac­cep­ted mo­re than one ca­se over the ye­ars for a to­ken fee of a dol­lar. One, she re­cal­led, in­vol­ved fin­ding a mis­sing ham­s­ter for her se­ven-ye­ar-old ne­ig­h­bor. Anot­her las­ted months and rip­ped a ho­le in her he­art, but in the end she'd ma­na­ged to ta­ke down the sick per­vert who'd as­sa­ul­ted and ra­ped a se­ven­ty-ni­ne-ye­ar-old Al­z­he­imer's pa­ti­ent. Tho­se cli­ents who co­uld af­ford it, tho­ugh, pa­id well for her ser­vi­ces.

  Marc Slo­an co­uld af­ford it.

  “I’ve in­s­t­ruc­ted Di­ane to cut a check for yo­ur re­ta­iner," he told her. "She has it wa­iting for you.

  "Ef­fi­ci­ent wo­man, yo­ur Di­ane."

  "Yes, she is."

  The­re didn't se­em to be much to add to that, so Cleo slung her pur­se over her sho­ul­der. "I'd bet­ter get to work. I'll ke­ep you pos­ted on my prog­ress."

  Nod­ding, Slo­an to­ok her el­bow and es­cor­ted her to the do­or. His hand slid up her bla­zer sle­eve in an al­most-ca­ress, but he didn't press things. That was pretty much okay with Cleo. True, she hadn't had sex sin­ce San­ta Fe. Al­so true, she'd pro­bably ma­de a se­ri­o­us er­ror in jud­g­ment by let­ting Jack Do­no­van jump her bo­nes du­ring that par­ti­cu­lar gig. Or may­be she'd jum­ped his. She wasn't qu­ite su­re at this po­int. In any ca­se, fo­ur months was a long ti­me to go with only a co­up­le of e-ma­ils to hold her hor­mo­nes in check.

  They we­re cer­ta­inly hum­ming now. Han­d­so­me, sexy bil­li­ona­ires co­uld do that. Par­ti­cu­larly this han­d­so­me, sexy bil­li­ona­ire. Sternly ig­no­ring the tin­g­le his to­uch ge­ne­ra­ted, Cleo eased out of his hold.

  "I'll see you la­ter." "Yes, you will."

  The mur­mu­red ex­c­han­ge was low and ob­vi­o­usly in­ten­ded to be pri­va­te, but Di­ane was too well tu­ned to Marc's vo­ice to miss it. Due to ye­ars of prac­ti­ce she ma­na­ged not to frown, but the ma­ni­la en­ve­lo­pe she'd just ret­ri­eved from her desk crum­p­led in her fin­gers.

  He had his hands on her. Al­re­ady.

  Damn him!

  Pa­in spil­led thro­ugh her lungs, so swift and sharp she co­uldn't bre­at­he. How many ti­mes wo­uld she ha­ve to stand on the si­de­li­nes and watch him ma­ke the­se sa­me mo­ves? How many wo­men was he go­ing to tum­b­le in­to bed be­fo­re he got ti­red of the ga­me?

  And it was a ga­me-one she'd se­en him play aga­in and aga­in thro­ugh the ye­ars. She co­uldn't co­unt the num­ber of char­ge ac­co­unts she'd ope­ned for the la­test fla­vor of the month, or the en­d­less or­ders she'd pla­ced at the jewe­ler who han­d­led all Mar
c's bu­si­ness.

  You'd think he wo­uld ha­ve le­ar­ned af­ter the de­bac­le of his first mar­ri­age. He'd still be­en strug­gling to win con­t­racts for the­ir fled­g­ling com­pany at the ti­me, at­tem­p­ting to bre­ak in­to the luc­ra­ti­ve de­fen­se mar­ket. Betsy had al­most mil­ked both Marc and Slo­an En­gi­ne­ering dry.

  Had the idi­ot ta­ken the les­son to he­art? Had he on­ce con­si­de­red go­ing for sub­s­tan­ce in­s­te­ad of sex?

  Ha! He wo­uldn't re­cog­ni­ze sub­s­tan­ce if it kic­ked him in the balls, which was exactly what Di­ane ac­hed to do at this mo­ment.

  So­me­how she ma­na­ged to swal­low the cor­ro­si­ve com­bi­na­ti­on of an­ger, hurt and she­er frus­t­ra­ti­on at his ob­tu­se­ness. Dred­ging up her best pro­fes­si­onal smi­le, she han­ded over the en­ve­lo­pe.

  "This con­ta­ins the keys to a com­pany SUV. It's the whi­te Ca­dil­lac Es­ca­la­de in slot num­ber three on the first flo­or of the par­king ga­ra­ge. The en­ve­lo­pe al­so holds the key to Trish's apar­t­ment. We ob­ta­ined her pa­rents' per­mis­si­on to en­ter her re­si­den­ce if ne­ces­sary. Our cor­po­ra­te at­tor­neys tell us the­ir con­sent do­esn't con­s­ti­tu­te le­gal aut­ho­rity, sin­ce Trish is an adult, but Marc's not wor­ri­ed abo­ut the le­ga­li­ti­es at this po­int."

  "So I gat­he­red."

  "I've al­so got a map of Char­les­ton, a key card for the gu­est ho­use, di­rec­ti­ons to Trish's apar­t­ment, the prin­to­ut of her ad­dress bo­ok and the pho­to you re­qu­es­ted." She pic­ked up a fol­der and slid out a co­lor eig­ht-by-ten. "I ret­ri­eved it from the per­son­nel fi­les, in­c­re­ased the si­ze and prin­ted it out."

  The pho­to ma­de Di­ane's chest squ­e­eze. The wo­man-girl, re­al­ly-who smi­led up from the pho­to was so very yo­ung. Ro­und-che­eked and dim­p­led, she lo­oked at the world thro­ugh eager eyes. Her sandy ha­ir was sha­ped in a pi­xie cut that ga­ve her a lo­ok of ga­mi­ne in­no­cen­ce.

  Had Trish's gir­lish in­fa­tu­ati­on for her boss spil­led over in­to pas­si­on? Had she and Marc be­co­me in­vol­ved? The pos­si­bi­lity gna­wed at Di­ane's in­si­des as she pas­sed the pho­to to the tall, trim bru­net­te she sus­pec­ted was Marc's la­test qu­ar­ry. 'Thanks. Now, if you'll in­t­ro­du­ce me to her mend, He­at­her…"

  3

  It didn't ta­ke Cleo long to con­firm that ne­it­her He­at­her Dal­ton nor any of Trish's ot­her co-wor­kers had a clue whe­re the mis­sing wo­man might be.

  As Di­ane had in­di­ca­ted, Trish Jac­k­son was ap­pa­rently fri­endly and out­go­ing but didn't so­ci­ali­ze much with folks from the of­fi­ce. May­be be­ca­use she li­ved ac­ross the As­h­ley Ri­ver, whe­re the rent was mo­re re­aso­nab­le than in his­to­ric dow­n­town Char­les­ton.

  Cleo ma­de the dri­ve du­ring non­rush ho­ur, yet it still ate up a go­od twenty mi­nu­tes, partly due to the wrong turns she ma­de whi­le ne­go­ti­ating the dow­n­town's rab­bit war­ren of stre­ets. Even with On­S­tar chir­ping out di­rec­ti­ons, she mis­sed the on-ramp for the first brid­ge ac­ross the As­h­ley. The se­cond to­ok her wit­hin sight of the Char­les­ton Po­li­ce De­par­t­ment. Ke­eping a wary eye on the brid­ge traf­fic, she skim­med the list of con­tacts Di­ane had pro­vi­ded, pun­c­hed in the num­ber of the de­tec­ti­ve wor­king the mis­sing-per­son ca­se and in­t­ro­du­ced her­self.

  Slo­an's fri­en­d­s­hip with the chi­ef of po­li­ce had pa­ved the way. In­s­te­ad of re­sen­ting the fact that the en­gi­ne­ering exe­cu­ti­ve had bro­ught in hi­red help, De­tec­ti­ve La­fa­yet­te De­ve­re­a­ux ag­re­ed to com­pa­re no­tes with Cleo at ni­ne the fol­lo­wing mor­ning.

  "As­su­ming the­re's an­y­t­hing to com­pa­re," he sa­id in a de­ep bass drawl that re­so­na­ted li­ke a ket­tled­rum. "So far I'm co­ming up empty."

  "May­be one of us will get lucky."

  "It hap­pens."

  "See you to­mor­row."

  Flip­ping the pho­ne shut, Cleo con­cen­t­ra­ted on ma­ne­uve­ring the Es­ca­la­de thro­ugh the he­avy traf­fic. Her fat­her wo­uld ap­pro­ve, she tho­ught. The ve­hic­le was al­most six tho­usand po­unds of le­at­her and bur­led-wo­od lu­xury.

  Trish's apar­t­ment was lo­ca­ted in a lar­ge com­p­lex a half mi­le or so from a shop­ping mall. Al­t­ho­ugh not as high rent as the dow­n­town area, the pla­ce still lo­oked pricy for a re­cent bu­si­ness col­le­ge grad. Slo­an must pay his of­fi­ce help as well as he did his ex-wi­ves and se­cu­rity con­sul­tants, Cleo mu­sed as she pul­led in­to the slot as­sig­ned to Trish's apar­t­ment.

  Re­ac­hing in­to her ge­ar bag, she ex­t­rac­ted a set of rub­ber glo­ves and her di­gi­tal ca­me­ra. No sen­se ad­ding to the me­lan­ge of prints the po­li­ce we­re sif­ting thro­ugh. Or con­ta­mi­na­ting pos­sib­le evi­den­ce if, in fact, Trish Jac­k­son tur­ned up as a vic­tim.

  This was the grunt work of any in­ves­ti­ga­ti­on. Gat­he­ring in­for­ma­ti­on. Re­cor­ding im­p­res­si­ons. Se­pa­ra­ting the me­rely in­te­res­ting from the po­ten­ti­al­ly use­ful. As Cleo had le­ar­ned du­ring her ye­ars as an air for­ce in­ves­ti­ga­ti­ve agent, this ini­ti­al pha­se re­qu­ired di­li­gen­ce, pa­ti­en­ce and mor­bid cu­ri­osity. Ca­me­ra, glo­ves and no­te­bo­ok at the re­ady, she let her­self in­to the apar­t­ment.

  The first thing that hit her was the musty odor of clo­sed win­dows and used kitty lit­ter. The com­bi­na­ti­on wasn't as bad as the stench at so­me of the cri­me sce­nes she'd be­en cal­led to. She wo­uldn't ever for­get the li­e­ute­nant who'd cho­ked to de­ath whi­le in­dul­ging in a lit­tle auto­ero­tic whac­king off. He'd ho­oked a ro­pe over a do­or jamb and le­aned in­to it to he­ig­h­ten his or­gasm.

  He must ha­ve had one heck of a ri­de, se­e­ing as he'd pas­sed out, slum­ped to his kne­es and stran­g­led him­self. Un­for­tu­na­tely, he'd al­so be­en on two we­eks' le­ave at the ti­me. His put­ref­ying cor­p­se hadn't be­en dis­co­ve­red un­til the folks in the adj­o­ining apar­t­ment had com­p­la­ined of the stink co­ming thro­ugh the air vents.

  Sin­ce the po­li­ce had al­re­ady se­ar­c­hed Trish's apar­t­ment, Cleo didn't an­ti­ci­pa­te fin­ding any put­ref­ying cor­p­ses. What she did find was ne­at, bright and che­er­ful. A co­un­ter with two ca­ne-bac­ked sto­ols se­pa­ra­ted the clo­set-si­ze kit­c­hen from the mo­re ge­ne­ro­us li­ving-sle­eping area. A plat­form bed bac­ked by co­lor­ful pil­lows oc­cu­pi­ed a ra­ised da­is and do­ub­led as ex­t­ra se­ating.

  Evi­den­ce of Trish's hobby sho­wed in the prints of star­fish hung over the so­fa and the fra­med spe­ci­mens ar­ran­ged on lit­tle easels on the cof­fee tab­le. Along with the star­fish, Trish had col­lec­ted an as­sor­t­ment of uni­que and co­lor­ful se­as­hel­ls. Tho­se she dis­p­la­yed in a glass apot­he­cary jar in her bat­h­ro­om.

  The bat­h­ro­om was al­most as lar­ge as the li­ving area, with a ni­ce-si­ze oval tub. Cleo po­ked thro­ugh the bat­h­ro­om ca­bi­nets and fo­und plenty of den­tal floss, over-the-co­un­ter cold re­me­di­es, as­pi­rin and Tam­pax, as well as a box of bir­th-con­t­rol pat­c­hes.

  Ma­king a no­te of the OB-GYN who'd pres­c­ri­bed the pat­c­hes, Cleo lo­oked for fur­t­her evi­den­ce to sup­port the fe­eling among Trish's co-wor­kers that she was se­e­ing so­me­one. If she was, she didn't ha­ve any pho­tos of him in the pac­ket of re­cently de­ve­lo­ped pic­tu­res Cleo fo­und in the nig­h­t­s­tand. They we­re mostly shots of star­fish, al­t­ho­ugh one snag­ged Cleo's in­s­tant in­te­rest.

  "Well, well," she mur­mu­red. "What ha­ve we he­re?"

  The pho­to sho­wed a tra­il ma­de by two sets of ba­re-to­ed fo­ot­p­rints in wet, glis­te­ning sand. One set was re­la­ti­vely sm
all and da­inty, the ot­her con­si­de­rably lar­ger.

  Unfor­tu­na­tely, the ca­me­ra had be­en aimed at a low an­g­le that cut off most of the sur­ro­un­ding sce­nery. All that sho­wed we­re sandy du­nes, a cur­ving stretch of sho­re and a por­ti­on of a pi­er in the dis­tan­ce.

  La­ying the pho­to on the bed, Cleo snap­ped a dup­li­ca­te with her di­gi­tal ca­me­ra. The­re was a chan­ce-a re­mo­te chan­ce-she co­uld match that bit of sho­re­li­ne to sa­tel­li­te ima­gery of the Char­les­ton area.

  Do­re­en had lo­aded Cleo's lap­top with a prog­ram she'd con­s­t­ruc­ted using NA­SA's Ge­op­h­y­si­cal Sa­tel­li­te Ima­ging Da­ta­ba­se. The prog­ram was sup­po­sed to be ab­le to com­pa­re a des­c­rip­ti­on or pic­tu­re of just abo­ut any to­pog­rap­hi­cal fe­atu­re on the sur­fa­ce of the earth to the ima­gery in the da­ta­ba­se and ex­t­ra­po­la­te pre­ci­se lon­gi­tu­de and la­ti­tu­de. The only ti­me Cleo had tri­ed to use the prog­ram, tho­ugh, it had di­rec­ted her to a used car lot in­s­te­ad of the dry gulch she'd be­en se­ar­c­hing for.

  But what the heck. She didn't ha­ve an­y­t­hing to lo­se by gi­ving it anot­her shot. She got the ad­dress of the Mo­toP­ho­to lab that had de­ve­lo­ped the pho­to from the pac­ka­ge, in ca­se Trish had drop­ped off anot­her roll when she pic­ked this one up.

  From the bed­ro­om area Cleo mo­ved to the kit­c­hen. She spent anot­her half ho­ur po­king thro­ugh dra­wers, pe­ering in­to cup­bo­ards, jot­ting down brands and la­bels. In one of the cup­bo­ards, she spot­ted a pink plas­tic child's buc­ket and sho­vel. Was­hed cle­an, it was pro­bably last used when Trish went hun­ting for her shells and star­fish.

  The thir­ty-two-oun­ce plas­tic wa­ter jug next to the buc­ket held mo­re in­te­rest for Cleo. She re­cog­ni­zed the dis­tin­c­ti­ve lo­go in­s­tantly.

  "Go­ing to We­ight Wat­c­hers, are you?"

  Cleo had suc­ked on a wa­ter jug just li­ke this one in a fu­ti­le at­tempt to sha­ve off the ex­t­ra po­unds she'd put on af­ter le­aving the air for­ce. Af­ter se­ve­ral months, she'd jet­ti­so­ned that ef­fort and hi­red Go­ose to whip her in­to sha­pe in­s­te­ad. With a twin­ge of sympathy for a fel­low war­ri­or in the bat­tle of the bul­ge, she ma­de a no­te to call In­for­ma­ti­on for the ne­arest We­ight Wat­c­hers cli­nic.