“He’s not—”
“Ms. McMillan,” Mark interrupts, “conversations with Detective Miller are better left to your attorney. My understanding is Detective Miller prefers him to you anyway.”
The shock I feel at the surprising comment rolls over the detective’s face, too, and the remark and her reaction confirm what I’d suspected during my interview. There’s something between her and my attorney, and it’s working against me. How Mark knows this, I’m unsure, but I’m betting Tiger has something to do with it.
As I step around her and exit the office, I hear Mark say, “Let’s cut to the chase, Detective Miller. You don’t want the lawsuit that damaging any of the art here will bring. There will be—” Then the door shuts, cutting off the rest of his sentence.
Alone in the gallery, I shove a hand through my hair and lean on the wall. Ava’s attack, Dylan, Michael . . . all of it happened in just a two-week period, and I had needed the time away to be ready for this nightmare. To be ready to fight—and that is exactly what this is. The fact that we’re being treated as guilty until we prove we’re innocent totally shakes my belief in our legal system.
• • •
Fifteen minutes later, I’ve endured a search that makes airport security look like the candy store, and I exit into the chilly afternoon air, huddling into my trench coat. There are police cars and officers everywhere, but thankfully the street is blocked off and the press is nowhere to be seen.
I see Ralph and Amanda huddled near the alleyway leading to the back parking lot between the coffee shop and us. Ralph waves me over, but my cell phone rings with a call from Chris. Answering, I ask, “Where are you?”
“Outside the barriers. I’m going through hell to get to you.”
I massage my forehead. “They won’t let me go to you, either. We’re stuck here until they release us.”
“Just don’t answer any questions without David.”
“Detective Miller tried to trap me. And do you know she and David—”
“Yes. We’ll talk about it in person.”
His tone says “end of subject,” and I read between the lines. He thinks, or knows, that our phones are tapped. “I feel like we’ve gone down the rabbit hole,” I murmur. “Hurry up and get here. I’m by the alleyway.”
“I’ll find you.”
I stuff my phone in my coat pocket and see that Ralph is still where I expect him to be, but Amanda has disappeared. Going to his side, I glance down the alley and frown. “Where’s Amanda?”
“They said we could go.” He motions toward the coffee shop, and my gaze follows to see Amanda at the curb. “She’s waiting on her ride,” Ralph continues. “My car is out back. Joe’s supposed to take me back there in a minute.”
“Who’s Joe?”
As if on a timer, a burly police officer appears. Ralph motions to him and announces, “Joe. My knight in shining armor.” The man’s stony face doesn’t change and Ralph glances at me. “Don’t worry, you’re still my saving grace. I assume work as usual, tomorrow?”
“I don’t know. I’ll have to call you.”
He hugs me and whispers, “Ryan’s picking up Amanda. I think he’s a problem.” He leans back and looks at me. “You should go find your sexy artist and get out of here.”
He and Joe walk down the alleyway while I rush across it to join Amanda, not a second too soon. Ryan’s silver BMW pulls up to the curb just as I reach her side.
I step in front of her and knock on the window. Ryan rolls it down. “What are you doing?” I demand.
His brown eyes sharpen but his tone is casual and cool. “She needs a ride.”
“You know what I mean. Isn’t it enough that one innocent young girl is dead?”
“Rebecca wasn’t innocent. She was smart, worldly, and headstrong.”
“Which we both know you helped Mark punish her for, over and over.”
“Erotic punishment: pleasure, Sara. If you don’t know that, Chris is getting something wrong.”
Again with the attacks on Chris. It infuriates me, but I’m holding my own today and don’t take the bait. “Amanda is young and impressionable. Don’t take advantage of her.”
“Why don’t we let her decide what is right for her.”
“She’s not deciding. She’s under your influence, and you’re deciding.”
“I told you, that’s not how it works with me. Look hard and long at whom you’re accusing of what. Mark is never involved in anything he doesn’t instigate and control, especially where Rebecca was concerned. I wasn’t her Master. Think, Sara, and be smart. Be careful.”
Those last two words sound more like a threat rather than a warning. We glare at each other, an act I seem to be excelling at with others today.
I turn away and face Amanda, whose hands are stuffed in her long black jacket, her face pale, eyes wide. She looks every bit the frightened mouse, and it drives home my worry that she doesn’t belong with Ryan.
“Sara?” she prods tentatively.
Try as I might, nothing I think she’ll listen to comes to mind. She’s infatuated, and as I know from my days with Michael, that’s the kiss of death where good sense is concerned. I step closer to her and soften my voice. “Don’t do anything that you don’t want to. Understand?”
She frowns. “I’m not. I wouldn’t.”
Until she’s so enamored that “yes” is the only word she knows in the moment, and regret is the only word she knows the morning after. “Charge your phone and call me if you need me, even if it’s the middle of the night.”
Without a reply, she gets into the BMW and there is nothing I can do but pray she’s safe. I watch the car leave, and fight the urge to run after it when it pulls away.
Turning to search out Chris, I find Mark towering over me, his eyes glinting like hot steel. His hand shackles my arm, his touch firm. “Come with me,” he demands, and I double step to keep up with him.
“Where are we going?”
He just keeps moving, and the next thing I know he’s pulling me into a doorway alcove. The same alcove Chris had once pulled me into, which makes the moment all the more uncomfortable. I don’t want to be here with him, or for him to flatten his hands on the wall by my head as Chris had, but I am and he does. And I definitely don’t want his big body this close to mine.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” he demands.
I’m confused. “What are you talking about? With Detective Miller?”
“With fucking Ryan, Ms. McMillan. I told you to let me handle it.”
Unbidden, Ryan’s words spring into my mind. Mark is never involved in anything he doesn’t instigate and control. I shake them off. “Amanda was leaving with him.”
“I said I’d handle it,” he repeats tightly. “Do you really think Ava made Rebecca disappear on her own? Someone helped her make it happen. Don’t go tempting fate.”
Another subtle thread weaving through a cloth of mystery. “If you’re saying you think it was Ryan, then we can’t let Amanda leave with him!”
“If I knew it was him, he’d wish he was dead by the time I got done with him. I don’t know, Ms. McMillan. But he told the police he knew Rebecca was back the night she returned. And he told them Ava took her to me.”
“Oh God. Mark, I—”
“She’d fucking be alive if Ava took her to me.”
I dare to rest my hand on his arm in comfort. “I know.”
He gazes at my hand, and I pull it back. “We don’t know—that’s the point,” he says. “We know nothing except that she’s gone.” He pushes off the wall. “I warned you to stay the hell away from me. You are failing miserably. I’ll make it easier on you. Organize the staff to work from home after tomorrow.”
He ends the conversation by disappearing around the corner, and I gasp as Chris immediately appears in the alcove.
Twelve
“What the hell was that?” Chris demands. The fact that he doesn’t touch me tells me how pissed off he is.
�
��I’m not completely sure. He’s a live wire ready to explode, Chris.”
“That’s not what I want to know. How did you get into the alcove with him?”
“He grabbed my arm and pulled me along with him, and I’d have had to make a scene in front of the police to avoid it.”
“Why, Sara?”
“He got pissed because I confronted Ryan over Amanda.”
“What do you mean, confronted him?”
“He came to pick her up, and he’s creeping me out. Why choose now to pursue her, with all of this going on? I can’t sit by and watch her be a victim.” My throat tightens. “I don’t want her to end up being another Rebecca. And though Mark was lecturing me about letting him deal with Ryan, he didn’t put my mind at ease. Something is off with Ryan.”
“What does that mean?”
“He told the police that Ava told him she saw Rebecca the night she returned, and took her to Mark. He never mentioned this to Mark, though—even though he was a part of their ménage. What sense does that make? I’m worried he helped Ava do whatever they did to Rebecca. And now he’s hyperfocused on Amanda.”
Chris’s jaw tightens. “Or Ava’s using Ryan to create an alibi.”
“But he and Ava were intimate with Rebecca and Mark. Ryan could’ve been just as jealous as Ava, for all we know. He could have helped her kill Rebecca. Or he could have done it himself.”
“I’ll make sure Blake’s team keeps an eye on Amanda.” He studies me, his gaze probing. “Back to Mark and the alcove. I don’t like it.”
“I know. I didn’t, either. And,” I hesitate to agitate the situation more, but I know I have to tell him. “I’ve had issues with Mark today. ”
“That makes two of us. Mine starts with the alcove.”
“Mine started with a confrontation in his office, when he confessed that I remind him of . . . of Rebecca. He says he can’t be around me. He wants me to prepare the staff to work from home after tomorrow.”
“You remind him of Rebecca,” he repeats, the words tight.
“Yes.” I hug myself. “I don’t like it for all kinds of reasons. It feels pretty shitty, actually.”
He cuts his gaze away, rubbing the back of his neck, before shaking his head and looking at me again. “We need to leave before they change their minds and try to stop us.”
“You’re not going to say anything else about Mark?”
“What do you want me to say, Sara? I help the man, and he’s constantly trying to bend over my woman. I need to think and figure out what the fuck to do about him. But right now, David wants to meet with us before another client meeting. Blake’s joining us at a restaurant by the police station.”
“What about the press?”
“Let’s hope they’re all here. I hired a car in case they’re trailing ours.”
Ours. The word is a whisper of relief in his present mood. I step to him, twining our legs and wrapping my arms around his neck. “I love you.”
His arm wraps around my waist and he pulls me to him. “I love you, too. But, baby, when a man warns you away from him and tells you why, you have to listen before it’s too late.” He laces my fingers with his and starts walking.
• • •
The setting sun has turned into a misty glow when the private car Chris hired pulls to a stop in front of the restaurant. Tension ripples through me and I half expect a swarm of press that doesn’t come.
Still, I find myself scanning for cameras as we enter the upscale burger joint with dangling turquoise and blue teardrop lights and stone-top tables. “Try to relax, baby,” Chris murmurs as we approach the hostess stand.
She looks up our reservation and we follow her between the tables. Our destination, no doubt by special request, is a small round booth in the very back that has the luxury of being tucked behind a wall. Blake wears his royal-blue Walker Security T-shirt and his long, dark hair tied at his nape has the kind of edginess that says this ex-ATF agent is a rebel with a cause, while David sports a finely fitted dark gray suit, his bald head glistening under the lights. The one commonality is that they’re both garbage disposals who at present seem to be having a “who can eat my bread” faster contest. At our approach, they abandon their food and begin to stand.
“Don’t get up,” Chris says. “We know how much you two like your food.”
Blake settles back into his seat and winks at me. “Empty stomach, empty mind,” he jokes, as Chris and I take off our coats.
David, who’s already busy buttering his bread again, adds, “Being a calculating asshole burns calories. But Sara already knows that about me.” He grins. “Right, sugar?”
Glowering at him, I slide into the booth across from Blake, who chokes on his bread.
“Sorry,” he says, reaching for his drink. “The women in the Walker family would have his balls if he called them ‘sugar.’” He motions to David. “I think he has a death wish.”
Chris sits down and slips his arm over my shoulder. “He does. And full warning, David, Sara had fantasies about pouring a pitcher of beer over your head the last time you called her that.”
“Coke’s better,” Blake offers. “It’s stickier. Ask my wife. She once dumped a pitcher over my brother Royce’s head.”
I laugh. “For what?”
“I’m pretty sure he told her his gun was bigger than hers.”
The entire table bursts into laughter, and I downright get the giggles. “Thank you, Blake. I needed that.”
The waitress appears, and we order promptly due to David’s deadline. “So,” he says the instant the waitress departs. “What happened today that I need to know about? Aside from the search warrant, which was bound to happen.”
Jumping on the topic most on my mind, I say, “Ryan told the police that Ava told him that she took Rebecca to Mark, the night Rebecca arrived.”
David snorts. “He told them, and she told him, and who’s on first? That’s just hearsay, which never holds water.”
“Besides,” Blake adds, “Mark never talked to Ryan, Ava, or Rebecca the night Rebecca returned. I have the phone records to back it up. And the timeline is clear, too. He flew in from New York six hours after Rebecca arrived. I tapped the database for Mark’s home security company, and viewed the taped footage. Based on the time stamps, he went straight home from the airport and no one was with him, nor did anyone visit him. Conclusion? Ava didn’t take Rebecca to Mark that night. And believe me, if I know this, so do the police.”
“Translation?” David adds. “Ava’s a lying bitch. But we knew that already.”
“What about Ryan?” I ask. “Did he talk to Ava the night Rebecca arrived?”
“Yes,” Blake answers. “It was a ten minute call and again, if I know this, so do the police. The security footage of his apartment says he was at home at the time. He didn’t leave home again until his normal morning departure, nine hours later.”
“But she could have told him she took Rebecca to Mark’s,” I press.
“She also could have told him she just baked apple pie,” David says. “There won’t be a recording of the call. It could have been her way of covering her ass in case she got caught.”
“That’s exactly what I suggested when I heard,” Chris reminds me.
“I know,” I say. “I just have a bad feeling about Ryan.”
“He’s on the police radar,” David assures me.
“What about Rebecca’s travel dates?” Chris asks. “Any update there?”
“They’re just using that bullshit to scare you into talking,” Blake replies. “We did that crap all the time when I was ATF. Rebecca used her cell phone the day we know she arrived here in the city, and she hasn’t used it since. It hasn’t pinged, but that’s not surprising considering how long she’s been missing.”
This punches me in the gut. No one missed her for far too long and I have a jab of anger at Mark for letting his big-ass ego get in the way. He wrote her off, engaging in his typical game of denial. She didn’t exist, so he
r rejection didn’t exist.
“And just to be thorough,” Blake adds, “I checked with the boyfriend she was traveling with before her return. She didn’t have any other phone than the one we had on file. Not that he knew of.”
“I forgot about him,” I say, glancing at David. “Are they investigating him?”
“They’re looking at everyone,” he confirms, “but Detective Miller says he’s been ruled out.”
“Rebecca returned to San Francisco,” Blake inserts. “He didn’t. That’s a pretty solid alibi.”
“What about the past boyfriend Rebecca wrote about occasionally?” I ask. “She met him at a bar and he turned a bit obsessive with her.”
“Moved out of state before Rebecca went missing,” Blake replies, evidently with an answer to everything.
“None of this proves Ava killed Rebecca,” I say, my concern about Ava being set free growing. “Is it possible Ava’s silly accusations could sway a bail jury, or judge, however that works, into discounting four witnesses to her attack on me?”
“I won’t let that happen,” David replies, intending to give me confidence but failing.
“So it could happen,” I challenge.
“I’ve never lost a case,” is his rebuttal.
“You are walking around my question, and it doesn’t make me feel better.”
“We build a case against her,” Blake says. “Piece by piece, we complete the puzzle.”
“I do have some good news,” David adds. “Tiger and I finally connected on a major issue. He has the club situation contained, at least for now. Mark agreed to turn over a membership list if there was a written agreement that it would never be shared.”
Chris leans forward, his hand flattening on the table. “And this is good news why?” The snap to his voice tells me he’s not as unaffected by the club’s exposure as he’s let on. “Can’t the court still subpoena the information?”
“Yes,” David agrees, “but if the police have what they need, the chance it’ll get that far is less likely. And here’s the kicker: That list has high-level judges, doctors, and business owners on it, many who are political contributors. And campaign donors are protected, often to law enforcement’s frustration.”
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