Abandoning the cupboards, she searched the fridge and the trash can. She found a receipt in the trash indicating Trish shopped for her food and personal items at a local Wal-Mart Super Center, but not much else of immediate use.
After the kitchen she turned to the some-assembly-required computer stand that served as Trish's home office. The answering machine yielded only increasingly concerned messages from Diane Walker and Trish's parents. The home computer showed a checking-account balance of four hundred and twenty-six dollars, with no unusual withdrawals or deposits. The bank had also issued her a Visa card. Cleo would check with Detective Devereaux in the morning to see if he'd obtained a record of charges.
The mid-April afternoon had turned steamy by the time she locked the apartment door behind her. Her linen-blend blazer was showing the effects of the muggy heat. Tossing the wrinkled jacket into the back seat, she spent an unproductive twenty minutes with the apartment-complex manager.
The woman vaguely remembered Trish from when she'd moved in a little less than a year ago, but that was it. Security-camera sweeps of the common areas outside her apartment didn't help. No unusual traffic in or out of the apartment. No unfamiliar vehicles parked for long stretches of time in the slots near hers.
Phone calls to local numbers listed in the address book printout produced no leads. Most of them had already been contacted, first by Diane, then by the police. The MotoPhoto that had developed the starfish pix had no unclaimed rolls of film waiting for Trish. No one at the Wal-Mart Super Center remembered her face or her name. Cleo's butt was dragging as she wove her way through the Wal-Mart parking lot toward the Escalade. Her abrupt encounter with the concrete floor of the locker room this morning was starting to make itself felt.
She was tempted to call it a day but decided to tie up one loose end. Easing into the SUV, she turned the air conditioner on full blast while she called for information on Weight Watchers clinics. She was in luck. The nearest location was only a few blocks from Trish's apartment complex and had a meeting scheduled to begin in a half hour.
The clinic was jammed. Long lines of men and women just coming off work waited to weigh in and get their cards stamped. Cleo worked her way to the front of the line and ignored the electronic scale.
"I'm Cleo North." She slid her PI. license to the attendant behind the counter. "I'm looking for a woman by the name of Patricia Jackson. She's dropped out of sight and her family's worried about her."
"I'm sorry, I don't.
"You might know her by the nickname Trish."
"Oh! Trish. She hasn't been in for several weeks. Not since…"
The woman clicked a few keys on her computer and squinted at the screen through the reading glasses perched on the end of her nose.
"Not since April 1."
A little crease formed between the attendant's brows. She pursed her lips, peered at the screen and swung her gaze back to Cleo.
"Did you say Trish is in some kind of trouble?"
"We don't know. She's disappeared. Why? Is there something in the computer about her?"
"I, uh, better get my supervisor."
An investigator who played by the book would wait patiently until the woman returned and then convince the supervisor of the gravity of the situation. One of the reasons Cleo and the air force had parted ways, though, was her tendency to bend, stretch or otherwise torque the rules.
She glanced through the glass window, saw Counter Woman in consultation with Supervisor Lady, and leaned across the counter to sneak a peek.
She left the clinic a few minutes later, armed with the information that Weight Watchers had suspended Trish from its weight-loss program due to her stated belief she might be pregnant.
Chewing on her lower lip, Cleo made for the SUV. As much as she wanted to find Sloan's missing employee safe and unharmed, she didn't like the picture that was beginning to form.
She hoped to God this wasn't another Laci Peterson or Cherica Adams situation. Peterson's husband had been charged with murdering his wife and her unborn child. Adams's boyfriend, an ex-football player for the Carolina Panthers, was serving hard time for his role in the execution-style murder of his pregnant girlfriend. The bastard had arranged to have her killed to avoid paying child support. Doctors had saved the baby, but Cherica died a month later.
As yet there wasn't any evidence linking Irish's disappearance to her possible pregnancy, but Cleo's instincts were starting to rear their ugly heads.
The sun was a flaming red ball hanging just above the harbor when Cleo turned into the alley that led to Sloan Engineering's corporate guest house.
The two-story brick-and-stucco residence was located in the area depicted on the city map as High Battery. The slick little brochure tucked inside the folder with the key-card informed Cleo that the guest residence once served as stables and carriage house for a wealthy rice planter whose town residence was one of Charleston's show-places. After the key card snicked in the lock and Cleo stepped inside, she felt her eyes pop.
"Whoa!"
Somehow she suspected the horses hadn't enjoyed this elegant mix of heart-pine flooring, washed-brick walls and exposed beam ceilings. Her boot heels sinking in what felt like two inches of carpet runner, she dropped her carryall and went exploring.
The downstairs included a living room furnished with period antiques and high-tech entertainment systems, a dining room with a well-stocked bar encased in an early-nineteenth-century sideboard, and a kitchen with, among many other shiny gizmos, the only appliance Cleo considered absolutely essential. After giving the coffeemaker a friendly pat, she took her bag upstairs.
The choice was between a monster of a suite at the front of the carriage house, complete with four-poster and Jacuzzi tub, or a smaller suite at the rear overlooking a handkerchief-size garden. The garden won hands down.
Drawn by the music of water splashing into the three-tiered, pineapple-topped stone fountain below, Cleo pushed open the French doors and plopped into one of the rocking chairs that marched along the balcony. Feathery ferns dripped from hanging pots and stirred in the breeze. The rocking chair creaked like an old friend. For a few moments she shelved her gathering concerns about Trish Jackson and simply soaked in the perfume of the evening.
"Now, this," she murmured, squeaking away, "is the way to live." "I think so, too."
The amused drawl came from behind her. Her boot heels hit the porch floor with a thump. Some security expert she was. She hadn't bothered to check the guest house's alarm system, much less set it.
If all intruders came packaged the way Marc Sloan did, though, she might just leave the door wide open du
ring her stay in Charleston. Forget Pierce Brosnan. In this setting, with the breeze ruffling his dark hair and his white dress shirt open at the neck, he was Rhett Butler incarnate. All he needed was a pencil-thin mustache to complete the image.
"I saw your car parked outside the carriage house," he said with a smile that was obviously intended to excuse his unauthorized entry. It worked for Cleo. "Thought I'd stroll over and see if you had everything you needed." "Stroll over?"
"I live in the main residence just across the alley. I had the carriage house renovated to use as guest quarters when I bought the estate."
"Convenient."
"At times."
"This being one of them?"
"This being one of them."
In the deepening shadows she could barely make out the glint in his eyes. It was there, though. Too bad Cleo couldn't follow up on it. With a sigh of real regret, she pushed out of the rocking chair.
"Do you recall what you said this morning about not mixing business with pleasure?"
"Yes."
"Same goes."
Despite her liberal approach to rules in general, she did adhere to her own set of professional ethics. Jumping in the sack with a client the first day on the job was a definite no-no, particularly when she was starting to get a goosey feel about said client's exact relationship to his missing employee.
She needed to probe that relationship a little more but wanted to see Marc's face when she did. Casually, she slapped at a mosquito feasting on the underside of her arm.
"The natives are getting restless. Let's go inside and I'll give you an update on my afternoon activities."
"Why don't you update me over dinner?" he suggested as they took the stairs to the first floor. "My chef's prepared sugarcane shrimp in your honor. It's a local specialty and one of his best dishes."
Sugarcane shrimp sounded too good to pass up. Adding spice to the dish was the opportunity to see Marc Sloan in his native habitat.
"Give me fifteen minutes to get unpacked and clean up."
"Just wander across the alley whenever you're ready."
She was ready in considerably less than fifteen minutes but used the spare time for a quick call to her father. Crossing her fingers that Patrick would pick up instead of his bride, Cleo hit speed dial.
The gods were conspiring against her. Wanda not only answered, she was still waffling over wallpaper.
"I just can't make up my mind whether to go with a print or a stripe for the guest room." Surprise, surprise. "What do you think, Cleo?" "Why don't you hang a sample of each on opposite walls and see which works best for you?" "I suppose I could do that. Although…" Cleo smothered a sigh.
"Your father really likes the country-French mural sample I brought home. It doesn't go with the rest of the house, though."
Cleo had to smile at that. After a lifetime of travel, Patrick North had filled his retirement home with mementoes that included everything from an Egyptian obelisk to a water buffalo head. Oscar the water buffalo got relegated to the attic soon after Wanda moved in, but none of Patrick's remaining objets de junk would go with stripes, prints or country-French murals. For a moment, Cleo felt something dangerously close to sympathy for her stepmother.
"When will you be home?" Wanda asked. "I'm not sure."
"Well, there's nothing pressing about this. I'll wait until you get back to Dallas to pick out the paper."
"Oh. Okay."
"Your dad just came upstairs. Here he is."
He picked up, wheezing a little. "Hey, kiddo."
"Hiya, Pop." Cleo hid her instant worry behind a breezy irreverence. "Sounds like you're puffing.
Are you hitting the chocolate fudge sauce again?"
"Not hardly. Wanda's got me counting fat grams and carbs and calories. All I eat these days are raw carrots and ice cubes."
She knew that wasn't true but had to give her stepmother points for trying to curb her father's hearty appetite.
"What are you doing in Charleston?" "Working a locate."
"Sounds pretty tame compared to some of your recent cases." "It is."
So far, anyway.
"You sure you're feeling okay, Pop?" He heaved a melodramatic sigh. "One little heart cramp, and a man can't even huff without everyone reaching for the nitro."
"Just take it easy, okay? And don't down too many Viagras."
It was a measure of their unique relationship 1 that Patrick only laughed. He would no more discuss his love life with Cleo than she would hers with him.
Not that she had anything to discuss these days. The Texas Ranger outfielder she'd gotten involved with shortly after leaving the air force was now only a distant memory. The lawyer she'd been dating off and on for most of the last year had also bitten the dust.
Things had heated up considerably when Special Agent Jack Donovan had appeared in Santa Fe a few months ago. The embers were still alive, but fading fast.
"Come over when you get home," her father instructed. "We'll fire up the grill and do ribs."
"How about we do chicken or fish?"
"Whatever. Tachi-dao, kiddo."
"Tachi-dao, Pop."
They'd adopted the phrase years ago. Roughly translated, it meant sharp sword in the language of the Ryukyu Islands. Patrick had extracted the phrase from an ancient proverb that advised travelers to maintain vigilance and keep a sharp sword. For father and daughter, it was shorthand for take care, stay safe, I love you. The two simple words always put a smile in Cleo's heart.
It stayed with her as she headed downstairs and across the alley to Marc Sloan's house.
4
v_rossing the passageway between the former carriage house and the main residence took Cleo from the merely elegant to the exquisite. She wasn't real up on formal gardens and colonial architecture, but the brickwork in the path leading through the roses and gardenias was as intricate as the leaded fanlights over the windows.
Marc met her at the front door, which happened to be at the side of the house. Wide brick steps led up to a porch flanked by Doric columns that soared for three stories and supported the upper piazzas. Inside the door was a circular staircase that spiraled upward with no visible means of support.
"The house was built in 1825," Marc said in answer to her question. "The original owner was a nce planter with considerable property upriver.
His father was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence."
"No kidding?"
"No kidding. Interestingly, the owner's grandson was a cadet at the Citadel. Rumor has it he was one of the kids who took aim at a Union supply ship entering the harbor in January 1861, thus participating in the first barrage of the War of Succession. My father would have app
reciated the irony," he added dryly. "The general was a connoisseur of such historical paradoxes."
The comment triggered a memory of a similar remark he'd made in Santa Fe. Evidently neither Marc nor his twin harbored warm, cuddly memories of the man who'd adopted them at birth.
"Would you like a drink before dinner? I mixed a pitcher of martinis but have been known to pour a mean Scarlett O'Hara."
"What is it, aside from redundant?"
"Southern Comfort with a splash of cranberry juice and a twist of lime. Delicious to look at, but tart and potent. Very much like you."
"Why, thank you, sir."
Batting her lashes, she did her best Texas-girl hair fluff. It was an acquired skill, since Geo had only taken up permanent residence in the Lone Star State after leaving the air force.
"I'll have a martini. Straight up, with a twist."
Marc swept a hand toward a high-ceilinged room across the foyer. "The bar is in the music room."
Her brow hitched, but when she stepped into the long hall she saw it really was a music room, complete with a cluster of lyre-backed chairs, music stands and a harp, for God's sake. The instrument was one of those big jobbers, taller than Cleo, with two thousand or so keys running down its spine or neck or whatever it was called.
"Do you play?" she asked, trying to picture Sloan with the harp between his knees.
"I take a stab at it occasionally." A grin slashed across his face. "When I'm feeling really pissed about life in general and marriage in particular. My first wife insisted we purchase the harp with the house. She thought it added to the ambience. I pluck the strings every once in a while as a reminder of what ambience can do to a marriage."
THE MIDDLE SIN Page 4
