Swept Away

by Christy Barritt

  Chapter Eight

  So, even though it was four a.m., Riley and I found ourselves taking a romantic nighttime walk on the beach.

  Okay, not really.

  I mean, we were walking on the beach, and it was nighttime, and I suppose the atmosphere kind of made it romantic.

  But we were actually doing something that thrilled me even more: we were following a lead.

  In the distance, I could see the figure I’d spotted from inside the beach house. He stood on the shore, staring at the Looking for Love mansion. If he noticed we were coming, he didn’t try to run away or even flinch for that matter.

  Riley and I glanced at each other, slowing our steps for a moment.

  Who was that? What was he doing? And what exactly would end up playing out over the next several minutes?

  The questions rushed through my mind in an instant. But I wasn’t turning back now.

  “It’s Vince Daley, the guy who was supposed to be Mr. Eligible,” Riley whispered.

  “What’s he doing out here?”

  “Let’s find out.”

  I reached for the gun I’d shoved into my waistband, just in case things turned ugly. A girl could never be too certain.

  “Vince Daley?” Riley called.

  The man turned toward us, and I feared he might run. His body seemed to stiffen with anticipation.

  To my surprise, he remained still. “Yes?”

  “I thought I recognized you,” Riley said. “You were on Looking for Love last season.”

  “That’s right.”

  As we got closer, I noted that Vince’s muscles looked tight, his eyes shifty and uncertain, and his arms frozen. What was he up to out here?

  “I really thought you were going to be the next Mr. Eligible,” Riley continued. “Instead they gave it to Ricky. What were they thinking?”

  It was a good thing he’d watched the show so he could make this sound believable.

  Or Riley might actually believe this, which I found both adorable and disturbing. I’d stick with adorable. It was adorable.

  Vince let out a bitter chuckle. “Yeah, tell me about it. Everyone knows Ricky isn’t looking for love. He’s looking for a good time. I guess producers are okay with that.”

  “You mean, producers like Wally?” I asked.

  He scowled. “Nah, Wally seems like a good guy. It’s Alastair. He’s a money-hungry, soulless excuse for a man. He’ll do anything to make a dime.”

  “Even stage having one of the contestants abducted?” I asked.

  He jerked his gaze toward me. “You mean Vivian?”

  “Yes, Vivian,” I said softly.

  “I wouldn’t put it past him. That’s why I’m out here now. I don’t trust these guys.”

  I noticed the way his eyes filled with emotion and his jaw flexed. There was some deep emotion behind his words. “You cared about Vivian, didn’t you?”

  He remained silent a moment and continued to stare. “We met at a party before the show started and really hit it off, but she was already contracted to come on the show. We agreed if things didn’t work out between her and Ricky that we’d talk again when all of this was over.”

  “You’re the one she was talking to right before the show started airing,” I muttered, putting it together with what Joey had told me.

  He nodded. “That was me.”

  “What did you mean earlier when you said ‘you wouldn’t put it past Alastair’?” Riley asked.

  “I think Alastair is up to something. I’m waiting to see what. When he messes up, I’m going to be there to catch him and shut down this whole operation.”

  “Why do you think you’re going to see something out here now?” Riley asked. “It’s the middle of the night.”

  “I heard some men in the diner talking about how they’ve seen some suspicious boat activity out here at night. I want to see what’s going on.”

  Before we could talk any more, a scream sounded in the distance.

  We all took off running.

  My lungs were burning by the time I reached the other side of the beach near the mansion. The sand slowed my steps considerably, but I was determined not to let the guys get too far ahead of me. By the time we reached the shore, I spotted Joey hunched on the sand, staring toward the water. Her shoulders were stooped, her arms drawn across her chest, and tears flowed down her cheeks.

  Alastair raced from the house, as well as Wally and a few other people I didn’t recognize. They all gathered around Joey.

  So did a camera crew.

  Riley and I knelt by Joey, as did Wally.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  She nodded, even though she looked anything but okay.

  “Vince?” Alastair blurted, jerking his gaze away from Joey. “What are you doing here?”

  Vince ignored him, his gaze going to Joey. “What happened?”

  “I got a message from Alastair saying I should meet him out here,” Joey said. “But when I got here, these men tried to snatch me. They must have been waiting behind those rocks on the jetty.”

  Everyone turned to Alastair. He raised his hands. “I didn’t send any messages.”

  “Your name showed up on my phone,” Joey said.

  “You’re not even supposed to have a phone,” Wally added.

  “Someone else must have sent it. I don’t make it a habit to meet my contestants at night. It’s a lawsuit waiting to happen.”

  I turned back to Joey, figuring I’d mull over Alastair’s role in all of this later. “What happened next?”

  “I screamed, everyone showed up, and the men went running,” Joey said.

  “How many of them were there?” I continued.

  “Three. All wearing masks again.” She shivered. “What am I going to do? Someone is determined to kill me.”

  “Why don’t you release the poor girl from her contract and let her go home?” I asked Alastair.

  “Who are you?” He cocked one eyebrow and stared at me like I was an operative from another network.

  “I’m . . . I’m the girl next door.”

  “The girl next door?” His features perked with interest. “I had a series called that about ten years ago. It was about these girls who lived—”

  “I’m not really interested in any of your shows,” I interrupted. “I just want to know what’s going on here.”

  “We wish we knew also,” Wally said. “We’ve hired the best to get to the bottom of this.”

  “You mean Elite?” I wanted to snort. I hated to admit it, but I had a bit of an edge to my voice. I didn’t realize it until this very moment, but those guys rubbed me the wrong way. PI work was anything but the glamorous job they made it out to be.

  “Yes, Elite.”

  “I heard those guys are just trying to get their own reality show,” Vince said. “No substance, all flash.”

  “Where is this Elite team when you need them?” Riley asked.

  “They’re staying at a house down the street,” Alastair said. “We didn’t think the other girls were in danger. We had no reason to. The police indicated that this was an individual crime, not some kind of vengeance against the show.”

  Vince snorted. “You’ve made plenty of people mad and given them motive.”

  Alastair turned to him, fire flashing in his eyes. “How do we know you’re not behind this?”

  “We were talking to him when everything went down,” Riley said. “I can vouch for his whereabouts.”

  “He has friends,” Alastair muttered. “I think he was standing over there just watching everything go down like the Godfather or something. Narcissists. Everyone who’s ever been on this show turns into one.”

  “You knew I should have been Mr. Eligible,” he growled. “But I wouldn’t go this far. In fact, I think you’re the one who staged all of this for ratings. I’ve noticed that your viewership is up by about 50 percent since all of this happened. I heard from inside sources that the network was going to pull the plug on the show if y
ou didn’t kill it this season.”

  I turned to him again. “Is that true?”

  “Again, who are you?” Alastair asked. “Besides the girl next door.”

  “She’s a forensic scientist,” Riley said. “I wouldn’t ignore her theories.”

  That seemed to make Alastair think twice. He shoved his shoulders back and stared at me for a moment.

  “Ratings have sunk in recent seasons. It’s not our fault that no one has actually gotten married after meeting on our show and that our audience is losing faith in this process. But I would never take things that far.”

  Wally, who’d stepped away from the crowd, hung up his cell phone and joined our conversation again. “I called the police. They’re on their way.”

  “Joey, could I have a word with you?” I asked.

  She stared at me a moment before nodding. “Sure.”

  We walked away from the crowd. I didn’t want to do this here and now, but there was no other time. I had pressing questions, and, once the police arrived, I’d most likely be silenced.

  I wasn’t officially investigating this, but I’d been pulled into the thick of things enough times that I deserved some answers.

  “Joey, there’s something I can’t figure out,” I started.

  I stared at the woman a moment. She was wearing another dress, this time a short blue number with strappy sandals. Mascara ran down her cheeks, and her hair had been tousled by the wind. She was definitely shaken.

  She sniffled. “You can’t figure out something? What’s that?”

  “No one knew you and Vivian were going to go for a walk that night. No one except you and Vivian. That means that whoever snatched Vivian somehow was privy to that information.”

  Her face seemed to pale enough to match the full moon overhead. “What’s that mean?”

  “Who knew you were meeting, Joey?”

  “No one.” She shook her head a little too adamantly.

  “Did anyone overhear you?”

  She remained quiet a moment. “No. I mean, I don’t think so. I’m still not following, though. What are you saying, exactly?”

  I shifted, hating to say what I was going to say next, but I knew I’d have to say it anyway. “Joey, is there any chance that those guys who snatched Vivian grabbed the wrong girl?”

  “What?” She gasped, her hand going over her O-shaped lips.

  “In the dark, you and Vivian would have looked a lot alike—but what if they grabbed the wrong person? In order to remedy this mistake, someone lured you out here tonight to finish the job. Maybe you were the intended victim all along.”

  “Why would anyone want to snatch me?” Her hand traveled from her mouth to her heart.

  “You tell me. Can you think of any reason?”

  “N—n . . . no. Of course not. No.” She denied it a little too adamantly.

  She was hiding something, I realized. But I had no idea what.

  “You also said, on that night Vivian was abducted, something about the men ‘doing their jobs’ and leaving. Why the odd choice of words?”

  She shrugged. “It’s just an expression.”

  “Is it?”

  “Oh, look.” She nodded in the distance. “The police are here. I’ve got to run.”

  Before I could ask any more questions, she ran toward the approaching officers, sand flying behind her. She may have been running toward the police, but in another way she was fleeing from something else, something I’d only scratched the surface of.

  What was I missing here?

  Chapter Nine

  “So, what are you thinking?” Riley asked as we sat across from each other at the breakfast nook.

  Behind him, colors of the morning that had earlier smeared the sky into lovely shades of pink and gray began to fade as the day drew on. I was on my third cup of coffee, and my thoughts buzzed along with the caffeine shooting through my blood.

  “We can essentially rule out Homer,” I started, taking a sip of my coffee. As I moved my arms and my shirt scraped across my skin, I cringed. Seriously? When would this sunburn get better? “He was in police custody when this happened.”

  “Correct.”

  “Vince was with us, although I suppose he could be working with someone. I still don’t know what his motive would be, unless he wants to ruin the show so badly that he’d do all of this. It would be extreme, but I have seen extreme before.” As I mulled that over, I picked at a cream cheese danish in front of me.

  “Vince is a strange mix of concerned about Vivian and angry with the show,” Riley said. “Could he and Vivian have been plotting something?”

  “My gut tells me he’s not involved,” I said, picking off a piece of glaze. “Guts can be wrong, but I don’t think we should focus on him.”

  “I agree. How about Alastair? Did he really send that message to Joey?”

  “He has no way of proving he did or didn’t. I mean, sure, the message was sent from his phone, but that doesn’t mean he sent it. Did he take it this far for ratings? It’s a possibility.”

  Riley let out a sigh and rubbed the side of his ceramic coffee mug. “He seems so adamant against lawsuits that I think he’d be more careful.”

  “If none of them are involved, then where does that leave us?” I asked.

  Riley leaned back into the white upholstered chair. I could tell his thoughts were heavy as he tried to figure all of this out. I valued his opinion and gave him time to process what we knew.

  “What were you talking to Joey about?” he finally asked.

  “About the fact that either Joey or Vivian may know the person behind this. Since those two were the only ones who knew about their meeting, then it only makes sense that one of them accidentally tipped off the abductors. Otherwise, how would they have known where to be and when?”

  Riley frowned. “Maybe it was random. Maybe these guys were just looking for a victim, and those two were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “I suppose that could be true, but why? There are plenty of other beaches that would have their fair share of single, beautiful women walking around. This beach is mostly for retirees. People who are vacationing would be hit-or-miss, especially at this time of year.”

  “That’s a good point. So you think that Vivian was purposefully targeted?”

  “Or Joey. In the dark they would look alike.” I kept going back to that. I couldn’t help but think there could be something to that theory.

  “That’s true. They do have similar features.”

  I remembered my earlier conversation with Joey and her reaction to my questions. “I asked Joey about it, and she acted really weird, like she knows more than she’s letting on. I wish I could figure out a way to get the truth out of her.”

  “Sounds like a lot of theories. Now we have to figure out how to get some answers. We only have four days left here. The sooner we get this done, the quicker we can enjoy ourselves.”

  After I took a nap, I had an idea. But first I had to do some research.

  I hopped on a computer in the corner that Mr. Murphy had given us permission to use and did an Internet search on Joey Hedges. The official show page had a glowing bio and lovely pictures of the Wisconsin girl. But I wanted to find the other blogs that liked to exploit the ugly side of contestants.

  And there were plenty of them.

  I found one particularly interesting. It was supposedly from someone “in the know” and who regularly hung around past contestants. However, this person remained anonymous.

  Mr. In-the-Know claimed that Joey might have been from Wisconsin but, like most of the contestants on the show, she now lived in LA as she tried to make it big in show business. According to this guy, that was why most of the contestants went on the show—they hoped it might be a stepping stone to greater things.

  Joey—a former teacher—was apparently working as a waitress now, and she’d had a small part in a made-for-TV movie. Old pictures showed her partying with another man.

  I c
hecked the date in the description of the social media photos. If that data was correct, she was dating someone else right up until two weeks before the show started filming.

  I zoomed in on the pictures of her boyfriend. He looked like the kind of guy who liked to be on the party scene, with his expensive clothes, flashy jewelry, and a cocky expression. He also looked like the type who could be trouble. There was just something about the glint in his eyes that seemed to scream, “Don’t mess with me.”

  “What did you find out?” Riley said, leaning in behind me.

  Don’t touch my shoulders. Don’t touch my shoulders.

  Thankfully, he didn’t.

  “Not much,” I told him. “But maybe a lot. I’m not sure yet. I just know I really need to talk with Joey. I can’t help but think she has some answers.”

  “I can probably arrange that. You remember when she asked me to be her lawyer, and I hooked her up with my friend Devin? I could probably pull some strings for you and arrange a meeting.”

  I felt my eyes light with hope. “Would you?”

  “Anything for you.”

  “You’re the best.”

  He smiled down at me. “You mean that?”

  “Always and forever.”

  We were able to meet with Devin and Joey two hours later at the Looking for Love estate. Alastair escorted us—including Devin—into a private room away from cameras and any nonessential personnel.

  I’d been fascinated on the way through the house. Little confessional booths had been set up in a couple of the rooms, and women cried in those corners as they talked about how much they loved Ricky. A cameraman filmed it all. Wine glasses and bottles were everywhere—and I did mean everywhere. Even the bathroom. I supposed the producers counted on the fact that alcohol brought out a more interesting side of their contestants—which made for better TV.

  The rest of the women had gone outside for a pool party. Elite was wandering around the premises, but I felt like they were flirting with the ladies more than acting as PIs or bodyguards. Wally schmoozed with Ricky, as well as the ladies.

  As I sat on a plush couch beside Riley, I observed Joey a moment. She still looked scared. Her eyes were wide, her chin trembled every so often, and her arms were drawn across her chest.