Crimson Rain

by Meg O'Brien

  “God, no,” Paul said. “If only one lead proves to be true and helps us find Rachel, it’ll be worth it. I’m just…I’m really worried about Gina.”

  “My guess is she’s a gutsy lady,” Duarte said. “You might be surprised to discover that about her. You might be surprised by some other things, too.”

  Daniel and the other employees were told they could go back to work. Paul sat in his office, thinking, while Duarte helped the other detective bag evidence in the Crystal Cave.

  “I don’t think we really need the crime lab here,” he had said. “The chance of finding any clean prints on this stuff is practically nil. First off, there are too many pieces. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of them, if you count all the smaller shards. It’d take a year to dust them all, and we haven’t got the manpower. Chances are it’d be a waste, anyway, because the perp probably didn’t even touch them—just went around swinging that tire iron. We’ll take the tire iron, of course, and check for prints on it. Other than that, our only hope is that we might find something else significant. Something personal the perp dropped accidentally, for instance.”

  Paul called to let Gina know what was going on, and that he was going to stay at Soleil until the detectives left and things settled down. There had never been so much as a theft at Soleil, and the clerks and Annie were all having a hard time concentrating. He also wanted to hang around in case Janice tried to reach him here after the police talked to her. Janice had been his assistant for years, and while it was true that she almost never took a sick day, Paul didn’t believe for a moment that she was in on this vandalism. It had to be a coincidence that she had taken today off.

  “We’re pretty sure Angela did this,” Paul told Gina. “In fact, Duarte said to tell you that he’s sending an officer to the house. He’ll be outside in a car.”

  He didn’t say that if Angela had done something to Rachel, Gina could be next. His voice was calmer than he felt when he said, “Don’t open the door to anyone you don’t know, even the police if they don’t have ID. I’d rather you didn’t go out today, either, at least until I get home and we can go together.”

  Gina agreed, and promised she’d be careful. “I just can’t believe it,” she said sympathetically. “That someone would destroy something that means so much to you…? I’m so sorry, Paul. You must be heartbroken.”

  Getting an officer to watch the house had been Duarte’s idea, and he’d had to tell his lieutenant the whole story about Angela, in order to get someone assigned to that duty. Rachel’s disappearance was official now; as Al had said, there was no keeping it quiet any longer. An APB had been issued throughout Washington State, and the FBI had been called in.

  Before hanging up, Paul told Gina that he loved her. The words sounded strange to his ears after such a long time.

  “I love you, too,” Gina said softly.

  He could tell she was crying. He tried to think of other words to say, but nothing seemed right for this moment. He set the receiver down gently and rested his head on his folded arms, praying. Help us. Somebody, please help.

  Several minutes later, Duarte entered Paul’s office. “We’ve got something, but I’m afraid it isn’t good news.”

  “What is it?”

  “You know that tire iron? There weren’t any prints on it, but it had a Ford stamp, showing it was issued from the Ford factory, probably when the car was new.” He paused a moment. “Rachel was driving a Ford car. A Mustang, right?”

  “What are you saying?” Paul asked. “Don’t tell me you think that Rachel did this! For God’s sake, Al, there must be thousands of Fords on the road, right here in Washington State.”

  “Yeah, but how many of them have drivers who wanted to destroy that room in there, something you held near and dear?”

  Paul’s nerves were on edge, but he tried to temper his anger. “Rachel would not have done this, Al. She loved that room, too.”

  “Well, that brings me to the alternative,” Duarte said, not quite meeting his eyes.

  “Which is?”

  “Which is, maybe Angela’s been driving Rachel’s car.”

  Paul stared at him. Just the thought of Angela driving around in Rachel’s car, and what that might mean, made him feel light-headed. Sick.

  “You mean that she’s gotten rid of Rachel,” he said. “That’s why she’s got the Mustang.”

  “Or, she could have just holed her up somewhere,” Duarte said. “Long enough to make you suffer, thinking she’s dead.”

  Paul fell silent, and Duarte leaned forward and ran his finger over the satin inlay on the travel desk. “What’s this?”

  “It’s called a travel desk,” Paul said. “Or a lap desk. Someone left it here the other day.”

  “Just left it? Without saying anything?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t you think that’s sort of odd?”

  Paul sighed. “I guess I haven’t had much time to think of it at all, lately. When it first came in, I figured the owner was in a hurry and would come back later. When he or she didn’t, I forgot about it. I haven’t been here that much. Anyway, it’s not important.”

  “You don’t think so? Aren’t those cherubs, there, in the design?” Duarte said.

  Paul looked—really looked—at the satinwood inlay for the first time. “Yes,” he said. “Cherubs and flowers. Why?” His brow furrowed with bewilderment.

  “Well, think, man,” Duarte said, obviously trying hard to contain his impatience. “What are cherubs? Angels, right?”

  Paul’s face cleared. “Right.”

  “Don’t tell me you didn’t even look inside it,” Duarte said. “Didn’t it occur to you that Angela might have left this? That it might be important somehow?”

  “No, dammit, it didn’t!” Paul said tersely. “I just told you, I forgot about it.”

  “Okay, okay,” Duarte said. “I just wondered if you looked inside.”

  “No. Well, actually, I did, but I had other things on my mind, and I didn’t check all the drawers. Just the two larger ones.”

  “You mind checking the rest of them now?” Duarte asked, drumming his fingers on the desk.

  Paul gave him an irritated look but pulled the travel desk closer. He studied the outside before opening it. Approximately ten inches deep, twenty wide and eighteen long, the desk was in excellent condition. Opening the rectangular box, he set it up so that the cover slanted to make a writing surface. Then he pulled out every obvious drawer.

  One still held two silver candleholders, in excellent though tarnished condition. Another held an empty crystal ink bottle with a silver cap, and a similar bottle filled with sand for drying the ink.

  “These longer drawers,” he said as he pulled them out, “would have held paper and envelopes. See, there are red wax drippings showing that a wax seal was used at one time.”

  While Duarte watched, he began to pull out the smaller drawers and feel around inside the cavities they left. “Often, these desks have secret drawers,” he said. “Travelers used to hide their jewelry and other valuables in them when they were on the road. Usually there’s some sort of spring mechanism.” He frowned. “This lap desk seems to have been rigged differently, however.”

  He found the first secret drawer by pressing on the right side of a cavity until the drawer popped out. The second and third secret drawers worked the same way. They were all empty, however, and with the fifth, Paul was ready to quit. If Angela had meant to send him a message, he couldn’t imagine what it was.

  Carelessly he pulled the fifth drawer out for one more try, and felt a jolt like electricity run through him. A yellowed candid snapshot lay in the drawer.

  He pulled it out and stared at the little girl, perhaps eight or nine, who stood alongside a stream, surrounded by the feathering leaves of trees. She had long dark hair and her features were very much like the Angela he remembered at the age of five.

  “My God,” Paul whispered. “Al, look.” He held the photograph up for the detect
ive to see. Duarte studied it a few moments.

  “Damn,” he said. “Sonuvabitch. Is that Angela?”

  “She’s older, and she looks different, of course, but the hair, and something about her expression…yes, I think it’s her.”

  Under other circumstances, this could also have been a halcyon scene: a little girl in the countryside, enjoying a warm summer day. But the girl was entirely naked. Only the dappled shade from the trees covered her, and that just slightly. Her hair was long and dark, and her expression, Paul thought, was one of part fear, part shame. She was slightly stooped, her hands together in an obvious attempt to hide her groin area. Her breasts were bare. They protruded slightly, casting a small shadow.

  Paul’s hands shook. Who the hell took this? was his first coherent thought. Then, Why? His mouth went dry and tears filled his eyes. Was this Angela? And if it was, who had done this to her? Who would have made her pose unwillingly for such a photograph?

  And what else had that person done to her?

  Paul closed his eyes, clenching his fist. The photograph twisted and crackled. What did we do? What did we leave her to?

  And what is it she wants from us now?

  “Paul?” he heard from a distance. “Paul, snap out of it.”

  Duarte’s voice reached his ears, but he seemed unable to bring his focus back. He felt numb all over. Numb, and without any emotion whatsoever. He thought that if he did start to feel something for the little girl in this photograph, he would crack—like Humpty-Dumpty—and nothing, or no one, would ever be able put him together again.

  11

  As the numbness wore off, determination replaced it. If Angela was the girl in that photograph, and if she was playing some sick kind of game, it was all that much more important to focus on finding Rachel now. Angela might or might not be involved in her disappearance, but either way, Rachel had to be found. All of his efforts must go to keeping her safe.

  Paul pointed the rented Pontiac, which he’d been driving since the accident, in the direction of Lacey’s apartment. Taking the elevator up to the third floor, he geared himself to tell her that he had to make an attempt at saving his marriage. He wouldn’t be able to see her any longer. He would keep up the apartment for her, and all her expenses, until she found a good job and could take care of herself. He wouldn’t just walk off and leave her with nothing.

  Paul hoped she would be all right with this. She had, after all, said from the beginning that she knew what they had couldn’t last. In fact, she had told him that if he ever needed to leave her, she just wanted him to tell her so, rather than lie about it.

  When she opened the door and he smelled her perfume, saw the golden halo of blond around her head, he almost lost his resolve. But he stepped inside, kissed her on the cheek and let her take his coat and gloves.

  “Golly Molly, Paul, your hands are freezing, even with gloves!” she said, holding them both. “It must be below freezing out there.”

  “I guess,” he said, realizing for the first time that he was chilled clear through.

  “Let me get you some brandy.”

  “Coffee’s okay,” he said, wanting to keep his head straight for this.

  “No,” she insisted. “You need something to warm your blood, not your stomach.”

  He acquiesced and watched her pour a hefty amount of brandy into a snifter.

  “Here, sit down,” she said, leading him over to the sofa. “You drink this while I take your shoes off. Where in the world have you been, Paul? And why didn’t you wear boots? Your feet are soaked!”

  “You know I never wear boots,” he said. “It doesn’t usually snow here.”

  “Maybe not, but it sure is wet. You know, when I was a kid we had to wear boots ten months out of the year. Anybody who could afford them, that is.” Momentarily her face clouded over. “Anyway, I can’t get used to people out here just walking around in the rain like it didn’t even exist…”

  Her brow furrowed. “Paul, what’s this on your pants? It looks like blood.”

  “It is. I cut myself on some glass.”

  “Oh, you poor thing! Let me make it better.” She lifted his pants leg and planted a soft kiss on the cut, which had dried over. Then she reached up a hand and stroked his cheek.

  Her touch was soft as a feather, calming and soothing. Between that and the brandy, Paul felt his nerves begin to relax. But as her hand slipped down to his belt, then farther down, stroking, he pulled away awkwardly.

  Standing, he carried the brandy snifter to the peninsula between the living room and kitchen, setting it down.

  “I just stopped by to see how your computer search was going,” he said, his mouth dry and his hands shaking.

  Lacey was still where he’d left her, on her knees by the sofa. She looked at him quizzically. “You aren’t yourself today. What’s wrong? Beside the obvious, I mean…Rachel and all that.”

  He told her about the vandalism at Soleil. “I can’t think what else to call it,” he said, “though vandalism doesn’t seem to be quite strong enough.”

  “Oh, Paul! That beautiful room, especially the Gallè vase, the one that was so hard to find. Was that broken, too?”

  “Everything,” he said, sighing, but grateful that she cared. “How did you know about the Gallè?”

  “You and your memory!” she said in a mildly teasing voice. “We drank to your finding it, one night at Gordon Biersch’s. We had just met, and you were so excited. You said you didn’t have anyone else to talk to about it. Remember? Gina wasn’t home, and Rachel was away at school.…I think it was the second or third night after we met.”

  He shook his head. “My mind must be mush, after all that’s happened lately.”

  She threw a wet sock at him. “Men! They never remember the important things.”

  He smiled and caught the sock. “Important?”

  “You mean you don’t remember what we did after we had that drink?”

  He shook his head and she threw the other sock at him. “That was our first night together, silly!”

  He thought a moment. “Oh! Well, by Jove, I believe you’re right!” Laughing, he took both socks and went after her. She climbed over the sofa and stood behind it. “Catch me if you can!” she cried.

  “Oh, I can,” Paul said. “Believe me, I can.”

  But when he reached her and held her, catching his breath, it was Gina’s face he saw in his mind, not Lacey’s. Gina, who needed him more now than ever.

  He kissed Lacey on the forehead and said, “How about that coffee now?”

  They sipped the pungent Fidalgo Bay roast at Lacey’s computer, with Paul sitting next to her on the zebra-striped chair. “I was hoping you’d come by so I could tell you what I found,” she said. “If you hadn’t, I was going to call you on your cell.”

  “Sounds important,” Paul said.

  “Well, intriguing, anyway. I’m not sure how important it’ll turn out to be.”

  She set her coffee down and clicked on an icon to connect to the Web. While it was loading, she said, “First of all, Angela still uses your last name, Bradley. They never changed it at the orphanage, and that made it easy for me to do a search. She also has an interest in antiques, believe it or not. Maybe as a way of still feeling close to you?”

  “That’s remarkable,” Paul said. “How did you find all that out?”

  “Simple,” she said. “But also kind of weird. Angela actually has a Web site.”

  “A personal Web site?”

  “Yes.”

  “And it says that she’s into antiques?”

  “Big time. I’ll show you.” She typed in the Web site address.

  While they were waiting for it to load, Paul said, “But she was only five when she left. Children that young usually don’t even know what their parents do.”

  “Well, did you ever take them to Soleil? Show them around?”

  “I…yes, I suppose I must have. But that was a long, long time ago.”

  “Not for
a kid who’s trying to cling to her past,” Lacey said. “Someone whose only good memories were from before the age of five? Something like that, a kid never forgets.”

  Paul watched the Web site load and wondered what other surprises it held. “I suppose you’re right,” he said.

  “Trust me, I am. And Paul, like I said, it’s kind of weird.” Lacey handed him a printout to read. “There are pages on the Web site about antiques, and Angela’s interest in them. But she’s also written this bio, and it’s not like anything you’ve told me about her.”

  “In what way?”

  “Well, she says she was raised in a loving family and given everything a child could dream of. Right on down to singing lessons. Three years of them.”

  “Singing lessons?” Paul felt confused. “We gave Rachel singing lessons when she was a teenager. Rachel had a wonderful voice.”

  “Had?”

  “Well, she almost never sings anymore. I forget when it was that she stopped.” Paul thought a moment. “When she was fifteen, sixteen, maybe. But Angela almost never sang. She was tone deaf.”

  “Look at this,” Lacey said.

  He focused his attention on the screen and read down to where Lacey pointed.

  I lived in a beautiful house on Queen Anne Hill in Seattle, and when I was sixteen, my parents sent me to a music camp in Wisconsin, where I could sharpen my skills. I always wanted to be a professional singer. In fact, it’s the only thing I ever wanted.

  “This is crazy,” Paul said, feeling as if he’d just slipped into another dimension. “It sounds more like Rachel’s life than Angela’s. We sent Rachel to a music camp in Wisconsin one summer. It was her choice, the only thing in the world she wanted. I remember she was about to have her sixteenth birthday, and we wanted to celebrate it with her, but she was determined to go away.” He smiled. “We tried to talk her into a camp closer to home—God knows there were plenty of them—but she pushed and pushed, and finally we gave in.”

  “Why do you think she did that?” Lacey asked.

  “I don’t know. I thought at first it was just some teenage whim. She said she had heard about it from her music teacher, and that it was one of the best. Gina and I looked into it, and Rachel was right. The camp was one of the best. But when she came back…”