The Stolen Bride

by Jacqueline Diamond

  “Really,” she said in pretended agreement. They both grinned.

  Joseph presented a cool, self-possessed appearance today in a jacket, slacks and polo shirt, she thought. Her father would have welcomed him.

  Jean Van Fleet was another story. When she met them at the door with her silver hair sprayed into place and her still-slim figure graceful in a skirt and silk blouse, she barely acknowledged him.

  “It’s such a lovely day, I thought we’d be more comfortable on the terrace,” she told Erin after they exchanged greetings.

  She was getting her wish to sit outside. “I’d like that.”

  “We haven’t made many alterations, you’ll notice.” Their footsteps slapped across the marble-floored entryway, past a sunken pool and classic fountain. “This was always a showplace.”

  “It couldn’t be in better hands.” Erin’s compliment drew a pleased smile.

  To the left of the entrance stretched what Alice used to refer to as the public rooms, a series of living and lounge spaces that led to a catering kitchen. To the right, away from view, lay the family quarters plus guest chambers, a smaller kitchen and a housekeeper’s suite.

  They emerged onto a curving terrace set with white wrought-iron tables and chairs. Below, ferns edged the meandering pool, which disappeared into a hidden bower where Erin had once kissed Joseph. To one side stood the pool house, which contained a large entertainment room, a kitchenette and dressing rooms. Beyond the pool stretched a spec tacular vista of the country club and golf course, all the way to the distant blue serenity of Sundown Lake.

  At least, it appeared serene at the moment.

  Jean poured coffee and offered them an array of Danishes. When they’d been served, she proceeded directly to the reason for her call

  “I was shocked yesterday by the change in your mother,” she said. “Erin, she must be ill.”

  “She has lost weight.” Erin set down her cup. “She’s been fighting off bouts of bronchitis since she fell in the lake.”

  “I hope that’s all it is,” the woman said. “She seemed—well, I can’t put my finger on it. I’m seriously distressed.”

  “How long had it been since you’d seen her?” Joseph took out his notebook.

  “Five or six months,” said their hostess. “Since her accident.”

  “You’re kidding!” Erin hadn’t realized her mother had withdrawn from Jean as well. “I thought I was the only one she cut off.”

  “We’ve talked on the phone a few times, but that awful man—” she obviously meant Lance “—doesn’t like me hanging around.”

  “Did he order you to stay away?” Joseph asked.

  “Not in so many words. How did he put it? The last time I dropped by, he blocked the doorway and announced that Alice’s old friends tired her.” Jean sniffed. “She was sitting right there in the living room. I could hear her coughing. Erin, I wanted to say, I’ve wondered if he’s drugging her.”

  The suggestion hit Erin hard. Her mind searched for anything she’d noticed that might substantiate Jean’s suspicion. Could her mother have been drugged right under her nose? It would certainly account for her unpredictable moods.

  Joseph wrote something down. “Did you notify the police?”

  “Certainly not!” Jean glared as if he’d suggested she burn down the house. “One doesn’t do that sort of thing.”

  “She mentioned she was taking something for anxiety,” Erin said.

  “It would explain how he’s controlling her,” Jean said. “Joseph, I suppose it’s a good thing you’re here after all. You should look into this. Discreetly, of course.”

  He made another note on his pad. “I have no authority. Chief Norris put me on leave, and I doubt he’d let anyone else investigate. He’s very protective of his social circle.”

  “Chief Norris needs to keep in mind that he’s a policeman first and a member of the country club second,” Jean snapped. “As her closest relative, Erin, it’s up to you to protect your mother.”

  “Lance won’t let me get near Mom, either.” She searched for possibilities. “Maybe Chet can help us. He said he would, but I don’t want to call on him unless I have to.”

  “Who else could intervene?” Joseph asked. “Mrs. Van Fleet, I should imagine you know her friends as well as anyone.”

  “Indeed I do. We grew up together, you know,” their hostess said.

  Erin remembered pictures from her mother’s 1970s-era yearbook at Sundown Valley High. Alice Flanders and Jean Russell, both from prominent families, had been active in numerous clubs.

  “Can you give us any names?” Joseph tapped his pen on the table.

  “As you know, the obvious person should be your Aunt Marie.” Jean addressed Erin instead of him. “But they never got along. She didn’t even attend your father’s funeral.”

  “I know.” Erin hadn’t considered contacting her aunt, who was two years Alice’s junior, because of their prickly relationship. “I asked Mom if she’d been invited and she said Dad wouldn’t have wanted her there.”

  “Why not?” Joseph asked.

  “Dad never liked her, although he used to tolerate her for Mom’s sake,” Erin said. “After I went away to college, they had some kind of fight. I never knew the details.”

  She’d figured it was the culmination of a long-standing antipathy. Marie Flanders was a free-spending, flashy dresser who’d landed a series of small roles on TV. It wasn’t her career or her grooming that had irked Erin’s father, however, as much as her attitude of entitlement.

  She’d resented her sister’s comfortable life and demanded to borrow money, which she’d never repaid. Andrew, who believed in working hard and in being grateful for whatever good fortune came one’s way, hadn’t been shy about criticizing his sister-in-law.

  Nevertheless, Erin had always had a fondness for her aunt. When she was younger, Marie had sometimes taken her out to a movie or an ice cream parlor.

  Jean clinked her coffee cup onto its saucer. “I’m glad I thought of her. Frankly, that’s another worry.”

  “Yes?” Joseph encouraged.

  “If someone deliberately hit Erin and if Alice’s boating mishap wasn’t an accident—well, if someone’s targeting both of them, Marie might be in danger, too.”

  That possibility hadn’t occurred to Erin. “Why? I doubt she has much money and we haven’t been in touch for years.”

  “There’s always the possibility that someone bears a grudge against the family,” Jean pointed out. “Also, your grandparents left both girls a small trust fund. It might be enough to tempt someone in the crowd she runs with.”

  “What crowd would that be?” Joseph asked.

  “I haven’t been in touch with her recently,” Jean said. “But I do recall one fellow she dated off and on since high school who was always in trouble. About eight years ago, she brought him on a visit and he acted so obnoxious, he and Andrew nearly came to blows. Erin, he and your aunt left in a huff.”

  That must have caused the rift, Erin thought. She wondered how the man had managed to antagonize her father, who’d usually been slow to anger.

  “Can you give me his name?” Joseph glanced up from his note taking.

  Jean reflected. “Todd,” she said at last. “Todd Wilde. The Wilde part certainly suited him.”

  Erin recognized the name of Joseph’s suspect from the jewelry store slaying. If he’d beaten a shopkeeper to death, he could certainly pose a threat to Marie. And perhaps to the rest of the family.

  “I doubt we have to worry about him,” Joseph said.

  Jean frowned. “Why not?”

  “He was sent to prison about six years ago.”

  Her eyebrows rose. “Well, he’s out.”

  Joseph leaned forward, his notebook forgotten. “How do you know that?”

  “I saw him a few weeks ago,” she said. “Right here in Sundown Valley.”

  Chapter Eight

  On the drive back to his house, Joseph kept turning over Jea
n’s revelation in his mind. The Van Fleets had been boating with friends when they’d spotted Todd walking along the shore not far from the Boldings’ house, carrying binoculars.

  So Todd was out of prison. Why would he be spying on the Boldings? Did he have anything to do with the attacks on Erin and her mother?

  The part that both disturbed and excited him was that there really might be a link between recent events and the robbery-murder eleven years ago. Still, he didn’t want to make assumptions.

  In the passenger seat, Erin sat hugging the high school yearbook she’d borrowed from Jean. A thirty-year-old photo of Todd might not be much help, but it was better than nothing.

  “I have to find out when he was released,” he said aloud. “These events began five and a half months ago.”

  “It can’t be him who attacked my mom,” Erin answered. “She claimed she was alone in the boat. Why would she lie to protect someone she disliked?”

  “He might be blackmailing her,” Joseph pointed out.

  “With what?”

  He tried the first surmise that came to him. “He could be holding Marie hostage.”

  “You think so?”

  “It’s just a wild guess,” Joseph said. “Are there any skeletons in her closet, any deep dark secrets Marie could have confided in him?”

  She shook her head. “That’s the thing about coming from a prominent family. You can’t get away with secret babies or lovers or any of that stuff.”

  “Don’t be too sure.” Still, during her interview with Joseph, Alice had maintained a composure incompatible with her having been threatened and attacked. “Let’s hope Wilde is violating parole by hanging around here. At least we could get him back into custody.”

  “I’d like that,” Erin said. “He sounds creepy.”

  Of course, Joseph thought, he’d have to find a way to report the man without revealing that he was continuing to investigate. He had to walk a tightrope or risk harsh consequences. Not as harsh as Erin or Alice faced, however.

  He scanned the woods on either side as they approached his house. Now that they knew Todd Wilde was on the loose, it paid to be even more cautious. Although nothing appeared out of place, he checked inside the house too before giving the all clear.

  “You should install an alarm system,” Erin suggested as they went in.

  “Maybe so.” He hadn’t considered it necessary in such a safe community. With a woman living here, it might be a good idea.

  She wasn’t going to stay, he reminded himself. The Marshalls’ former pool house dwarfed this entire home. The idea of Erin Marshall residing in such a tiny house on anything but an emergency basis was preposterous.

  “I’ll see if I can track down my aunt.” She took out her cell phone.

  “Good idea. I’m going to find out more about Todd Wilde.”

  He sat at his desk on one side of the main room, switched on his computer and accessed a police database. Fortunately, it still accepted his security code. Wilde, he learned, had been released on parole two months earlier. He was assigned to a parole officer in the Sundown Valley area, so he hadn’t left his jurisdiction.

  The dates indicated Wilde had been freed before Erin’s accident but after Alice’s. That seemed to weigh on the side of innocence; if he held a grudge against anyone, it was more likely to be the mother than the daughter. Yet it struck Joseph as an odd coincidence that he’d been walking near the Boldings’ house with binoculars. In his experience, violent ex-cons didn’t usually take up pacific activities like bird-watching.

  It was time to play the what-if game. What if somehow both Chet and Todd had been involved in the jewelry store case? What if, after his parole, Todd had returned to shake down Chet, Chet refused to pay and Wilde attacked Erin as a warning to her fiancé?

  Joseph added the idea to his notebook. The theory gave Todd a motive for spying on the Bolding house, since Erin had been recuperating there when Jean saw him. That didn’t make it the truth, but it was pretty darn plausible.

  Besides, there was nothing to pin on Chet except some doubts about how he got so rich. Joseph had committed the mistake of getting too attached to one theory because it suited him emotionally. Bad idea.

  He glanced across the room, past the glass divider to where Erin curled in a swivel chair with the yearbook in her lap. Hair clipped back neatly with a barrette, she sat talking on her phone while doodling on a scratch pad. He wondered whom she was talking to.

  A loose strand of hair tickled her nose. She swatted and dislodged it, but a moment later it settled back into place. Although her nose crinkled, she was too absorbed in her conversation to bother with it again.

  She clicked off and noticed him watching her. “What did you find?”

  “Todd’s been out of prison for two months,” Joseph said. “He’s not violating parole by hanging around here.”

  “Two? Well, that’s good. Kind of.”

  “Who was on the phone??”

  “Aunt Marie’s roommate. I found her number in the L.A. directory,” she told him. “Crystal says she left about five months ago to go on a trip with a friend for a few weeks.”

  “And?”

  “She never came back.”

  “Did this roommate file a missing person report?” Joseph asked.

  “I don’t think so.” Erin tucked the errant strand behind one ear. “She mostly seemed annoyed that Marie had stopped paying rent. Eventually she found a new roommate, but she was out quite a bit. I left her my phone number in case she thinks of anything else.”

  “Did your aunt mention where she was going or with whom?”

  “Neither.”

  Although troubling, the woman’s disappearance didn’t necessarily indicate foul play. “Judging by Mrs. Van Fleet’s comments, your aunt might be the type to just take off.” Most people reported missing turned up on their own sooner or later. “In any case, the friend she left with couldn’t have been Todd. He was still behind bars.”

  “Speaking of him, I updated his picture as best I could.” Erin brought over the pad. She’d made a creditable sketch from his high school photo, which she’d altered by shortening the 1970s long hairstyle, adding creases around the eyes and receding his hair at the temples to allow for his age.

  The face that stared out resembled a sneering man more than a cocky boy. “Good job. At least now we’ve got some idea who we’re searching for.”

  “Are we searching for him?” Erin asked. “I mean, we have to keep this low-key.”

  “There’s no law against going for a boat ride.” Another idea occurred to Joseph. “Suppose he wasn’t spying on your folks. Suppose he was looking for something.”

  “Like what?”

  “Buried jewels? Who knows.” Joseph logged off the computer. “I want to check out the area where Mrs. Van Fleet saw him and the section where your mom’s accident occurred.”

  “Didn’t you already go there?”

  “Yes, and after all these months I know I’m not likely to find anything new.” He’d explored that area of the lake both by boat and on foot without finding any evidence. The whole time, however, he’d been haunted by the sense that he was missing a vital clue. “Still, we might come across someone who’s seen this guy. If he’s staying in the area, I’d better talk to him.”

  “We just won’t mention that you’re off the case,” Erin said.

  “Exactly. Hang on while I arrange a boat rental. You can poke around on the Internet while I’m gone. Your aunt’s an actress, after all. There might be some mention of her.”

  Erin folded her arms. “I’m coming with you.”

  “I don’t want you along if I run into Wilde.”

  “You said it was too dangerous to leave me here by myself,” she reminded him. “Too isolated.”

  He debated. Since the perils appeared to balance each other out, he decided to give in. “Okay. I can always use another pair of eyes.”

  “Your eagerness is overwhelming.”

  “I
should have said, another pair of sharp eyes.”

  “That’s better—I guess.”

  At the noise of a car rumbling up the driveway, he sprang to his feet. Gesturing to Erin to stay back, Joseph parted the front blinds and peered through.

  Up the gravel driveway jounced a compact convertible with a long-haired blonde at the wheel. Half the police force would have been tempted to make wolf whistles—until, of course, they recognized the chief’s daughter.

  “It’s Tina,” he said.

  “Alone?”

  “Unless somebody’s accordion-pleated himself on the floor, yes,” Joseph said.

  “It is kind of an impractical car, isn’t it?” Erin said.

  “My mother said she’d drive a car like that if she looked like Tina.”

  “Your mom knows her? Oh, right. I forgot they volunteer together.” Erin glanced at the yearbook and the sketch of Todd, testimony to their forbidden snooping. “I’d better keep her outside.”

  “Good idea.”

  While she scooted out, Joseph flipped through the Yellow Pages to the Sundown Boating and Fishing Center. It was a pretty day to go sailing, if nothing else.

  “I WANTED TO MAKE SURE you’re all right.” Filtered sunlight played across Tina’s fair skin. “Gene told me what a good sport you were yesterday about the press release. I heard they issued it last night.”

  “That was quick!”

  “Considering the story made today’s front page, they were wise not to wait,” Tina said. “Gene liked the way it came out.”

  “Your brother’s put his heart into Chet’s campaign. I hope it works out for him.” Erin wondered how much else she should say, about anything.

  She disliked keeping Tina in the dark, but her old friend still lived at home with her father. Staying there enabled her to save money for a down payment on her own home someday, she’d explained. Since Gene didn’t plan to settle in town, he’d been in residence there also since his return from Sacra mento. That was all very sensible, but it meant that anything Tina let slip was likely to reach unfriendly ears.