One tilt of Carlo’s head and Baldie lowered his hand and started for the door, his shoulder colliding with mine as he passed. He grinned. I didn’t care. I got my one minute.
After they stepped into the hall, Ronnie looked up, opened his mouth.
“Don’t,” I said. I crossed the room, wet a washcloth in the sink, handed it to him. “Shut up and listen. If you value your life, you will answer all of his questions.”
“I thought you said he was a cop? That other guy, he’s no cop.”
“It doesn’t matter what they are or who they are. You might not believe this, but keeping valuable information to yourself isn’t helping anyone. If you think this is bad, wait until they get you into the interrogation room. You know what federal agents call a person with nothing to say?”
He shrugged.
“Guilty,” I said.
“I’m not.”
“I believe you, they won’t,” I said. “And neither will your friends, your family, your parents. How would you like Mom and Dad to see your face plastered all over the five o’clock news?”
He shrugged.
I braced my hands on the sides of his chair, leaned in. “Do you want to help Brynn or don’t you?”
“I am helping her. If I say something…she…that maniac will get to her. He’ll kill her.”
“If you don’t, Carlo will kill you.”
I had no way of knowing how far Carlo would really go, but at this point, I was ready to say anything.
Carlo reentered the room, alone, right on cue. He glared at Ronnie. “I’ll ask you once more: How did he know the phone was in your possession?”
“If I tell you, what will you do to protect Brynn?”
At the mention of her name, Carlo glanced at me, holding my gaze for a few seconds before turning his attention back to Ronnie. “You have no right to ask anything of me when you’ve offered nothing in return.”
“I don’t care.”
“Do you value your life, Ronnie?”
“I value hers.”
Carlo ran a hand across his brow. “Fine. I’ll make sure someone is stationed outside her room.”
“When?”
Carlo closed his eyes, his patience waning. “As soon as you answer my questions.”
Ronnie looked at me. I nodded.
“The photo of Brynn that he sent me—it wasn’t a photo I had in my phone,” Ronnie stuttered. “I recognize the top of her dress. She was wearing it the night before the film premiere at a gala honoring all the films being shown during the festival.”
“Where was this?”
“In a conference room at the Hotel Tremonte.”
“So he’s been watching you—all of you. Taking pictures. Why?”
“I don’t know,” Ronnie said.
“Brynn suggested the biblical threats came from Melody’s stalker,” I said. “Maybe he followed her here.”
Carlo crossed his arms in front of him. “We know about Shane Drexler. He was picked up at his residence in California earlier today. He worked the night shift at a fast food joint every day for the last week. From what we can tell, he’s never even stepped foot in Utah.”
Ronnie piped up. “Maybe he has an accomplice, someone on the outside. It could happen, right?”
“It’s possible, but stalkers don’t usually work in pairs,” I said. “This guy could be some low-level acquaintance she crossed paths with long before she hired him. He noticed her, she didn’t notice him.”
I looked at Ronnie. “You saw him—the bomber—that night.”
“It was dark.”
“Still, you must have picked up on something,” Carlo said. “There are a few overhead lights in the parking lot. How tall would you say he was?”
“About your height.”
“Build?”
“He was wearing a coat. He looked big, bulky, just like everyone else.”
“Was there anything on the coat he wore or any of his clothing—a logo, a brand of any kind?”
Ronnie shrugged. “Like I said, it was dark.”
“Was any of his skin exposed?”
“Almost everything was covered up. He had a mask over the top half of his face. Stopped right under his nose. I think he might have been taking it off when I interrupted him.”
“Anything else?”
Ronnie pointed at me. “Talk to her. She knows everything.”
Carlo plucked a phone from his breast pocket and sent a text. We stood around for a couple minutes, sweat forming on Ronnie’s forehead as he considered what might come next. Two men entered, their federal agent cards dangling from the breast pocket of their dark, uncomfortable-looking suits.
“What’s going on?” Ronnie asked.
“I’ve asked Federal Agents Grant and Lourdes to escort you to the station so they can take your statement,” Carlo said coolly. “I expect you to tell them the truth and answer any questions they have. Understand?”
Ronnie wheezed, reached for his inhaler. I rescued the toupee from the ground, ran my fingers through it and straightened the pieces as best I could. I tried not to focus on the amount of particles and germs I was touching. I’d never actually held fake hair in my hand before. It was surprisingly soft. Who knew?
“The safest and best thing we can do for you is get you out of here,” I said, handing over his hair. “Trust me. The police station is a good place for you to be right now.”
He returned his focus to Carlo. “And Brynn, she’ll be protected, right?”
Carlo smiled, patting Ronnie on the shoulder. The agents accompanied him outside.
When everyone had gone, I said, “He did what you asked. Make the call. I want to keep this girl safe.”
“There’s something we need to talk about first.”
“If this is about your sister, yes, we talked. And no, I can’t have this conversation right now. Your family drama will have to wait until—”
“Sloane, Brynn Rowland is…”
He looked away.
“Is…what?”
“Gone.”
“What do you mean, Carlo?”
Without looking back at me, he said, “She’s been taken.”
CHAPTER 18
“What do you mean—taken?!” I demanded.
“She was abducted from the hospital a short time ago.”
“But…I was just there.”
“I’m aware. The team is going over the surveillance footage now.”
“You knew all this time, and yet you led Ronnie to believe you could protect her. I don’t care about your passion to find Melody Sinclair. It’s wrong, Carlo. Ronnie trusted me. He deserves to know the truth.”
“And he will.”
“When?”
“As soon as they’re done making sure there’s nothing else he’s hiding. Until then, there’s no reason to agitate the man more than he already is at present.”
I wanted to walk out, leave him standing there, and I almost did, until he offered to give me the details about Brynn’s abduction.
The hospital surveillance footage, he explained, showed a severely drugged Brynn being wheeled out of the hospital, her head slumped to one side. For a minute she looked like she was about to collapse. The person pushing her, clad in light-blue medical scrubs, held her shoulder as he sauntered his way through two hallways and down the elevator like he had every right to be there. And it had worked.
The man managed to keep his head down, shielding his face from several predictably-placed cameras. Investigators hoped they’d find something, anything they could use. For all the advancements in technology, I wondered why no one used wall cameras. I’m talking the moveable kind, ones with the ability to record a person from all different angles, like the kind used in the sea of reality television.
Carlo said the man had made it outside with Brynn in tow without so much as a second glance from the hospital staff. A surgical mask covered his face, providing the perfect shield to protect his identity, just as the ski mask had done before.
He had dark hair, brown from the looks of it. Whether it was real or not or how long or short it was had yet to be determined. Outside cameras showed Brynn being rolled to the edge of the parking lot where he picked her up out of the wheelchair, cradling her in his arms, before he walked through a patch of trees, fading into the night.
CHAPTER 19
Shelby tapped the tips of her fingers on the counter, her unpolished nails looking like they’d been gnawed down to the bone. She groaned like she was in physical pain. “How long are you gonna keep me cooped up in this house?”
I pulled a barstool out, sat next to her. “You know I can’t take you with me while I’m working. It’s too dangerous.”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it. You have more important things to do.”
“Shelby, there’s a lot more to life than your teenage drama with your boyfriend. I’m trying to save lives.”
She slurped a few sips of soda, then chucked the empty can across the kitchen. The can tinged against the outside of the garbage container, then fell to the ground, splashing brown liquid all over the tile floor. She didn’t get up. Upon hearing of the spill in aisle one, Lord Berkeley trotted over, licked a few drops of soda from the floor, and then pushed the can around with his nose. I hopped off the stool, discarded the can, toweled up the mess.
“You can go home whenever you like.” I nodded toward her phone on the counter. “Call your father right now.”
She snickered, but didn’t reach for the phone. “It’s late. I’ll wake him up. Maybe tomorrow.”
“Do you really think he’d care about the time? He’d be in his truck and on the road in less than five minutes.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Look,” I said, “I know what you told me the other night about the fight you had with your father, and maybe that’s a small part of it, but I don’t need to be the mother of a teenager to understand there’s more to it. It’s hard for me to believe this little act of defiance is only over a boy.”
She looked like she wanted to cry. I expect she needed to.
“Do you see your mom often?” she asked.
I couldn’t tell whether she was trying to change the subject or bond with me.
“My mom passed a long time ago,” I said.
“Oh.”
“Why do you ask—have you heard from your mom recently?”
“Nope. Don’t care to either. She walked out on us, and as far as I’m concerned, she can keep on walkin’.”
Over the last two years, she’d been abandoned by her mother and watched her grandfather pass away. The strain, the acting out, made more sense to me now.
“I’ve never met your mother,” I said, “but I was grateful to have known your grandfather before he died.”
“I’m just so tired, ya know?” Her voice was shaky.
“Why don’t you get some rest? We can talk more in the morning.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“How do you get over it?” she asked.
“Someone dying?”
She nodded.
“You don’t. I don’t think we’re supposed to. Your grandfather would want you to keep him in your heart, but he would also want you to move on with your life. He’d want you to make good choices. Focus on what you have, not what you don’t. Look around. Your father, your grandmother. They’re still here, and they love you.”
“I know.”
I now saw something else in her—shame.
“I lost my sister to a serial killer several years back,” I said. “For a long time, it consumed me. I felt everything—pain, regret, hate, revenge. I felt crippled. I couldn’t move on. It wasn’t until I learned to let go and to focus on what I have instead of what I lost that I started to get myself back again. We get what we give in life. Find what inspires you, what motivates you to get out of bed each day. Even if it’s one thing at first. Learn to appreciate the small things in life.”
In the middle of my “boost your confidence” speech, Shelby split open my bag of Cheetos, crunching her way through a quarter of the bag. Maybe I was wasting my time.
“I knew my grandfather was sick. He told me. But I guess I never thought he’d die. Not really. He was more than a grandfather, he was my friend. I told him everything. And now my dad…”
My heart raced. “What about your dad? Is something wrong?”
“He’s all right. It’s just, I worry. He’s all I’ve got.”
Without warning, she sprung from the chair, wrapping her slender, noodly arms around me. At first, I stiffened. I hadn’t recalled ever being embraced by a teenager before. Hugging had never been a strong point with my parents when I was growing up. Neither had compliments or positive reinforcement or the encouragement I needed to believe in myself. I’d learned all of those things from my own grandfather.
So many years between us, and yet, here we were, sharing a common bond. I raised my arms from my sides and did the one thing that didn’t feel natural: I hugged her back.
CHAPTER 20
The chamomile tea wasn’t doing its job. Not even a little bit. I’d downed one cup, then two, and was currently three quarters of the way through my third. My anxiety hadn’t quelled, my mind still unsettled. No word from Giovanni. No word from Melody.
Where was he? Where was she? And where was Brynn?
In full “I feel like a failure” mode, I grabbed the remote, flicked on the television, and clicked through channels like a restless insomniac. It was a little after three in the morning. Soon it would be four, and I’d still be awake. Wrestling.
I dipped my pinkie finger inside a plastic bottle, raised a small, yellow, oval pill from the bottom, and swallowed it.
Xanax.
It wasn’t like I wanted to take it.
I didn’t ever want to take it.
I needed to. And that was the hardest thing to admit of all. I always waited, thinking my mind would clear eventually. Sometimes it did. Other times it just kept spinning, faster and faster like a glass plate on top of a pointy stick.
I suppose that’s what made me a good private investigator. My mind, in its random and sporadic state, had the ability to process several different scenarios at the same time, all with unique, yet plausible outcomes. The scenarios were like doors. The tricky part was deciding which was the right one to walk through, and which was the wrong one. Pick the right door, find the answers I sought. Pick the wrong door, risk a life. Maybe even multiple lives. It was this harsh reality that paralyzed me more than anything.
I leaned back on my pillow, closed my eyes. I saw Melody. I saw Brynn. I saw the scriptures, the words running over and over. Melody’s stalker hadn’t sent those messages like everyone had assumed, and perhaps he hadn’t sent the flowers. There had been someone else on set. But for how long? And why? And why Melody?
I thought about the bombs. They were amateurish in nature, and though they hurt many and in fact killed a few, it could have been much worse. It was almost like the bomber had controlled the chaos to some extent…why?
There was more to it, something I wasn’t seeing.
Maybe the demise of all the people in the theater wasn’t the big motive behind the blast. I asked myself: What else had been accomplished by this bomb?
The film had shut down, possibly for good.
I needed to see that movie.
CHAPTER 21
Morning blew in the bitterest chill of the year and a low, dense fog clinging to the air like a veil that couldn’t be lifted. Two hours earlier, Shelby had finally succumbed to sleep after trying to make it all the way through a slasher marathon on TV. At least she was sleeping. She needed it. Then again, so did I.
I scooped Lord Berkeley into my arms, grabbed the phone off the nightstand, and wrapped an afghan around myself. Then I stepped outside and dialed Cade.
“I was just about to call you,” he said. “How is she?”
“Fine. She thinks she runs the place.”
He laughed.
I filled him in on what meager details I had.
“Sounds like you’ve got your hands full. I’ll come get her.”
“If you want the truth, I think she’s ready. We had a nice talk last night. I won’t say I was able to impart a lot of female wisdom, but something got through.”
“She say much about the trailer trash she’s been hangin’ around with lately?”
“A little. She was more interested in talking about your father. If you want my opinion, what she’s really after right now is your attention. She’s getting it from this Jace guy, but I think she’d rather get it from you.”
He sighed. “There are better ways to let me know.”
“And maybe when she’s thirty she’ll grasp that concept. Right now, she doesn’t know any different.”
“What do you suggest?”
I never thought I’d be the one giving advice.
“Your father’s death has made her think a lot more about everyone in her life. She worries about you.”
“Me? Why?”
“Think about it. Your wife walked out, your father passed away. She’s scared, Cade.”
“I’m not goin’ anywhere.”
“I know.”
“Can I talk to her now for a minute?”
“She’s asleep, but I can wake her.”
“No, don’t. I’ve got a meetin’ at noon with Chief Rollins and some of the other guys about a case we’re workin’ then I’ll head your way.”
“Call me before you get here. I’ll come home.”
“Will do. And Sloane…thank you.”
CHAPTER 22
Giovanni sat beside me in the car, his hands interlaced together, resting on the knee of his light grey tailored suit. We’d just finished having breakfast at a diner where neither of us talked. I mistakenly thought food would help soothe my nerves. It hadn’t. I felt worse. If it would have been dinner, I would have called it the last supper, because that’s exactly what it felt like.
“I’m leaving,” he said.
Outside, snow began to fall.
Bed of Bones (A Sloane Monroe Novel, Book Five) Page 8
