Cynthia Hamilton - Madeline Dawkins 01 - Spouse Trap

by Cynthia Hamilton

  She sat on the chaise longue, a foot planted on each side, as if she were in the middle of standing up. There was so much going on in her head, her body was left in limbo. She forced herself to focus on the here and now and hoisted herself to a standing position. From there, her body took over, guiding her past the pool, out onto the pathway to the sand.

  Without realizing what her intentions were, she waded into the water, a smile of delight and surprise breaking out across her face as a wave hit her in the waist. She waded out farther than she thought was possible, then the sand fell away from her feet as the deeper, cooler water enveloped her.

  She swam out far enough that she could see all of the hotels along Tumon Bay. The hulking resorts looked so small from that distance. She executed an underwater turn and floated flat on her back, her head pointed in the general direction of the shore.

  It was so soothing being out in the pristine water, with only the bright blue sky and amorphous white clouds overhead. Out there, away from everything and everyone, she could think—really think—her thoughts coming in an organized fashion, without the background noise of sundry worries.

  In her mind, a chain of actions fell into place, as orderly as name cards being placed on a dinner table. The first card: the arrival of the scanner, followed naturally by the scanning of her computer. This left her to consider the next card: either it would be an uninvited guest, or it would be relief at finding the computer free of any bugging device.

  If she found something on her laptop, she would have to determine if it was an audio or visual device, or a GPS tracker. If it were a tracking bug, then all her efforts of evasion were worthless. She could take the computer back to her room at the Westin and attach the bug to something else. That would work. The other option would be to abandon that room and the suite at the Hilton and check in somewhere else, which was unappealing on all levels.

  Either way, she had a plan in place for the unwanted guest. Next card: finding out if her room at the Westin had been tampered with. That had to be done to ascertain how threatened Steven felt by her mere existence. The divorce was the only piece not securely in place, and it wouldn’t be until she’d completed her residency requirement and the attorney took the case through the court system, which she now knew could take as little as 30 days. Then he’d have nothing to worry about…unless she could somehow pin him to her rape… There would be room at the table for that, but it would be further down the line.

  Next place card: a Santa Barbara P.I. There was probably a 50-percent chance that spot would be a no-show. She did the math in her head; she had at least thirteen hours until she could reasonably expect a callback or an email response. Then it was a matter of selling her case, which at this point was rangy and unpalatable. Right now, her chief reason for engaging a detective would be to find out if Burt Latham tragically fell to his death or was pushed.

  Now it was time to invite law enforcement to the table. If she could remember the name of the detective Burt had lined up, that would help her immensely in the credibility department. If she could successfully persuade him that she was set up to be raped while being photographed, then perhaps Detective…Blank might take an interest in Burt’s lethal plunge.

  So, accompanying this guest would be the autopsy results. She had doubts she’d be satisfied with a conclusion of accidental death by drowning. Burt was obviously very familiar with the Douglas Preserve; she had met him there twice. He would know to stay away from the steep drop-offs.

  Her gut told her that Burt had arranged to meet the fourth or fifth duped borrower he had uncovered at the park—or maybe that was the set up. He had gotten too close to getting the dirt on Steven. That would never do, not after all the trouble Steven had taken to secure a solution in the form of a rich new wife.

  She abandoned the guest list and started thinking about necessities, like a place to live and transportation. In just three days she’d be headed back to Los Angeles, where she’d probably be waylaid by Mike for a few days. That thought caused her some anxiety, but trying to envision arriving at the Santa Barbara airport with no final destination in mind was equally troublesome.

  Maybe it was okay to hang out with Mike for a few days. She’d be starved for companionship by then and being around him would be a comfort. She wouldn’t have to put on a front for him; she could unburden herself of all the pent up rage and remorse. He’d been through months of counseling, so he’d know how to drag it all out of her. It would be cathartic. Plus, he could help her shop for a new car…

  Madeline’s eyes sprang open. She raised her head and listened. She heard the faint sound of splashing. She rolled over, her face in the water, her eyes open. She saw something—a pair of legs bobbing just below the surface. She popped up, gasped enough air to fill her lungs and went back under, swimming at a right angle from the intruder. Fear gripped her so hard, she had to use every bit of willpower to get her arms and legs working in unison.

  She came up for air again, taking the opportunity to scout out her pursuer. He had turned in her direction. Please God, no, she prayed silently, as she envisioned a watery death at the hands of a stranger.

  She plowed her arms through the water as fast as she could, but a second glance confirmed he was gaining on her. He had the advantage of coming from the shore, which meant she had to travel in an arc to get around him. She came up for air again and her heart stopped. There was no possible way to out-swim him. She changed to the breast stroke, but she starting swallowing water as great sobs of panic broke from her chest.

  “Hang on!” she heard the man say. She turned her head to face him and for the first time saw the red rescue tube sticking up in front of his chest. “Stay there—I’ll come to you.” Madeline treaded water as she cleared her nose and tried to calm herself. The lifeguard reached her in seconds, thrusting the rescue tube toward her. She grabbed it and held on.

  “Are you alright?” he asked. Madeline nodded her head as she panted. Her heart felt like it was on the verge of exploding.

  “From the shore, I couldn’t tell if you were in trouble or not,” the lifeguard said. “I started worrying I might have a dead body on my hands,” he said with a chuckle. Madeline chortled weakly.

  “Not yet, though when I saw you coming after me, I thought I was going to have a heart attack.”

  “I’m not that scary, am I?” he joked. Even soaking wet, Madeline could see the Chamorro native was quite the looker, with his dark skin and dazzling smile. “C’mon, I’ll give you a lift back,” he said as he braced Madeline’s hands on the rescue tube. He stroked away from her until the line on the tube became taut and she felt him tugging her toward the beach.

  “What hotel are you at?”

  “The Hilton,” Madeline said.

  “I can take you as far as the Holiday Inn—that’s where my post is.”

  “Once I get to the shallow part, I’ll be fine,” Madeline assured him.

  She swam along with him, not letting him shoulder the extra burden by himself. When they started to rise and fall with the incoming tide, she knew she was getting close to being on her feet again. They rode a wave in partway and she stood up, shaky and nauseated, but okay. She thanked her rescuer and waved goodbye as she trudged through the water, heading at a diagonal toward the Hilton.

  When she finally reached the beach in front of her hotel, she felt as though she’d just swam the English Channel. She staggered back to the chaise she had abandoned an hour earlier and was relieved to find her bag and its contents still there. She rinsed off at the shower stall and lay down to dry off. She checked her iPhone; still no text from the front desk. She closed her eyes and fell into a deep but brief sleep.

  When she awoke, she was disoriented and famished. She ordered a mineral water and a hamburger from the cocktail waitress. While she downed the water she got a look at her neglected nails. It had been over two weeks since
she had a manicure and pedicure, and her toenails were especially battered from tromping through the sand.

  That’s an easy fix, she thought as she devoured her burger. When she was satiated and had recovered her senses, she gathered her things and headed for the salon, where she could treat herself to the works. And hopefully when she was finished, her package would be there and she could finally get down to the serious business of amateur sleuthing.

  FORTY-SIX

  The text came through as the manicurist was finishing her toenails. She had spent almost three hours in the salon, starting with a massage, then a shampoo, a facial and the mani/pedi combo. She had splurged again, but it was worth it. She felt like the semi-Bionic Woman—no new parts, but a full rehab.

  She hastened back to her suite, where she set about unwrapping her package. The main problem was finding something sharp to cut through the packing tape. She couldn’t travel with her Swiss Army knife anymore, and she didn’t have any keys because she no longer owned anything that required one. She ended up poking the parcel open with a pen, which took an inordinate amount of time and made her edgy.

  When she finally pulled the contraption from its box, she was breathless with anticipation. She messed with the controls for a minute before resorting to the “quick start” guide and instructions. She became frazzled when she discovered the unit had to be charged, but once it was plugged in she was able to use it. Immediately it started beeping, startling her half to death.

  She read through the info impatiently and figured out how to stop the beeping. She changed the setting to “flash only.” That solved, she read on, gleaning just enough to understand how the device operated. It could detect bugs at 30 feet. That could be anywhere in the suite.

  She picked up her computer and brought it closer. The scanner flashed faster the closer she got. With shaky hands, she opened the laptop. The flashing continued, but she wasn’t sure what she should be looking for. She consulted the brochure again.

  She laid the scanner down and flipped her computer over. She carried it over to a window and examined it in the light. Everything was black and there weren’t that many raised surfaces, just the rounded feet that elevated it. On closer inspection, she detected that there were five raised bumps, four on the corners and one placed rather oddly that didn’t really look like the others. It was larger and wasn’t the same depth. And there appeared to be a hole in the center…

  She turned off the scanner and switched on the desk lamp. She placed the laptop upside down on the desk in preparation of debugging it. Again she was vexed at the lack of proper tools. She looked at her freshly manicured fingernails and sighed. They could always be touched up, she decided as she ran her thumbnail around the edge, looking for a loose spot. Finding none, she took a sharp jab at it and off it flew, breaking her nail in the process. It landed on the rug and rolled under the coffee table.

  Madeline suppressed a whoop of triumph, mindful of what she had uncovered. She picked up the black disc and scrutinized it. There was no way she could be sure when it had been attached; it could have been put on while she was still at the Park Lane house or while she was staying at the Westin.

  Assuming the former, what conversations could it have picked up? Madeline racked her brain trying to recall everything she had said in the presence of her computer. She watched the events of the last two weeks as they raced through her mind.

  She stopped the playback as bits and pieces of her phone conversations with Mike came back to her. What had she said? Had she tipped her hand in any way? She froze as she remembered telling Mike she hired her own private investigator. Had she ever mentioned him by name? She thought hard. It seemed like she had. Damn! And she definitely recalled breaking the news to Mike that “Burt” was dead.

  She had also told Mike that she had moved to the Hilton. Damn, damn, damn! she cursed herself. But then she realized she had called him from the bedroom, while her computer was on the desk at the other end of the suite. That was a small relief.

  She sank to the sofa, hands clasped to her face as she remembered her last conversation with Burt. Whoever had been listening would’ve only heard her speaking, but what had she said? She knocked the sides of her head, trying to shake pieces of their last exchange loose. She rose up like a zombie as snippets came back to her. “I’m afraid Steven will manage to come up with the money needed to pay off the notes before we have enough evidence of what he’s done.”

  A strangled cry escaped her as she staggered toward the French doors. “If we don’t catch him on this, then we’re not going to catch him on anything…”

  She covered her ears in a vain attempt to block out what she had tried so hard to remember. But now that the last conversation came flooding back, she couldn’t stop it. She had tipped off whoever had planted the listening device on her computer. They could’ve easily pieced together everything she and Burt had been up to from her dialog alone.

  “Are you worried they know you’re investigating Steven’s company?” she remembered asking. She wanted to end it right there…but she hadn’t. No, she wanted to get Steven for some of the crimes he had committed. She turned ghostly pale as her inner voice replayed the final coup de gras: “Continue as planned. A man like that can’t be allowed to go free and seek other victims.”

  She gingerly picked up the tiny microphone, wondering what she should do with it. Could the brief beeping of the scanner and the fall from the back of the computer alerted anyone listening in? The beeping could’ve come from a variety of electronic devices, and the mic had landed on the carpet. She was probably in the clear, but she couldn’t decide if it were better to pitch the bug outside or play dumb.

  She set it down on the coffee table and changed out of her swimsuit and tunic. She thought for a moment while she dressed in clean shorts and a T-shirt. She decided to leave the listening device alone and go check out her other hotel room. She wouldn’t have any concrete answers until she knew if Steven had local surveillance on her too.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  Madeline parked her rental car at the Nikko Hotel and walked through the Aurora grounds to the Westin, her mind churning. There were so many possible scenarios at play here, she could barely keep them all straight. What she really needed was a professional to put the pieces together. But she would have to rely on her new gadget and her own intelligence to determine how far Steven had gone to assure her cooperation.

  She spent a few minutes dallying in the lobby of the Westin to make sure no one was following her. There was quite a crowd waiting in front of the bank of elevators, as a new influx of vacationers was shown to their rooms. Fortunately, no one else got off on her floor.

  In her absence, the maid had cleaned and tidied her room. Madeline set her bag down on the desk as she made a visual assessment of all the places one might hide a bugging device. In the process, she kicked off her sandals and turned on the television. She used her flashlight app on her iPhone to discreetly look behind the dresser and armoire.

  She felt completely out of her depth as she ran her hand under the desk and turned the telephone upside down. She could spend an hour going over the room and never find what she fervently hoped didn’t exist. Someone could’ve placed a video camera or a microphone almost anywhere. Or this could just be an exercise in paranoid futility.

  She sat on the edge of the bed and considered the most probable locations to plant a bug. She looked up at the sconces above each bedside table. Both would be an ideal place to hide a voice recorder. But what she wanted to rule out before searching for them was any possible video cameras.

  She checked all around the mirror above the dresser and the two framed prints. She shone the flashlight over the A/C vent, but it would be impossible to eliminate it unless she got up there and took the grill off. On second thought, the rushing of air when the A/C was running would hamper the sound quality. She also wrote it off as a poor vantage poin
t for a camera.

  She turned on the bathroom light and did a visual inspection. All her toiletries had been lined up in an orderly fashion that showed the care the maid had taken with her things. She checked all sides of the makeup mirror and every other fixture in the room, including the blinds that covered the ocean view window over the bathtub. Nothing out of the ordinary.

  She turned up the volume on the TV as she headed for her tote bag. It was time to break out the spyware. If the room was bugged at all, it would probably be with a wireless microphone. What she had to say to someone would be more relevant to Steven’s concerns than images of her walking around in her underwear. She switched the scanner on and it immediately began to flash.

  As she walked toward the bed, the flashing increased. She stood on the mattress and peered inside the up-turned glass shade. She couldn’t see anything. She walked across the bed to the other sconce, the tracker flashing faster with each step. She tested the sturdiness of the side table with her foot, then shifted her weight to give her another couple inches in viewing height. She dropped the scanner to the bed and used both hands to probe inside the sconce.

  Down toward the base, stuck to the wall, her fingers ran across the uneven texture of the mesh covering a mic about the size of a quarter. She hopped back to the bed, retrieved the scanner and held it up to the sconce. The flashing light became a solid beam of red. She’d found her bug. She turned the scanner off and lowered herself to the bed.

  Now that she knew what she was dealing with, it was easier to surmise Steven’s intentions. It wasn’t good enough to know that she was in Guam proceeding with the divorce as agreed. For whatever reason, he felt it necessary to make sure she didn’t have a counter attack in the making. She couldn’t fault him for being stupid, only evil. His goons had used her expectation of privacy to their advantage, which in turn led them straight to Burt.