Kiss of death

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

TYLER LEANED BACK, his feet propped up on the rail, and gazed out at the harbor lights from the balcony of his condo while he sipped his beer. A cat’s paw of a breeze brought the briny scent of the ocean across his face. God, he loved this place.

He turned his head and intently watched Holly. She’d seemed preoccupied all evening. He wished she would be a little more open about what she was thinking.

“Should we eat, then hit one of the clubs?” he asked in case she was bored. The great thing about living here was being close to the best restaurants and a hot club scene.

She shook her head and sent her silky brown hair fluttering across her bare shoulders. “No. Let’s catch a bite, come back and watch a movie.”

“What do you feel like eating?”

“How about Wok ’N Roll?”

“Sounds great,” he agreed, even though the Thai café with its aquarium walls and trendy sushi bar wasn’t his favorite.

Holly stood up and pulled down the skirt of her dress with a smile that made eating Thai food worth it. “I’m going to grab my pashmina. I’m a little chilly in this dress.”

While she went into the bedroom to get her shawl from the closet she used when she was here, Tyler closed the sliding glass door to the balcony. The cell phone on his hip jingled and he pulled it off his belt. It had better not be Butch at the command post. He didn’t want to tell Holly that he had to fill in for a no-show again.

He’d told Butch to hire a few guys with minor violations on their background checks. He’d also authorized Sherry to pay them to stay on call during the graveyard shift. As he checked the caller ID, he saw “blocked” and knew it wasn’t the command center.

“Did you talk to Adam about that backup disc?”

As usual, his father was all business. No inquiries about how he was or how things were going. No question about whether he was interrupting anything.

“I spoke with Adam.” Tyler kept his tone low. He didn’t want Holly to overhear him. Maybe it was just his imagination, but he wasn’t as comfortable with her as he had been before Adam’s return. He half expected her to say they were through. They’d been together for over two years. He had no reason to think she would leave but the idea kept popping into his mind. “He says the burglars took most everything, but he’ll look-”

“I’m going to call him and tell him that I’m coming over to help search. Do you have his number? There’s no listing for Calvin Hunter. Knowing Calvin, he must have had an unlisted telephone.”

Holly walked out of the bedroom, a bright pink shawl draped over one arm. She’d put on fresh lipstick and sprayed on the perfume he’d given her for her birthday.

“I have his cell number back at my place,” he fibbed. “I’m on my way to dinner with Holly. I’ll call you with the number later.”

“Later? I’d planned on going over there tonight.”

Christ almighty. This missing info must be really important. Quinten Foley usually spent his evenings at the officers’ club with his cronies when he was in town.

“I doubt he’s home.” Tyler deliberately did not use Adam’s name. Holly was standing next to him now, waiting to leave for a late dinner. “He has a girlfriend.” This was a stretch. Adam had mentioned a woman who was living in the cottage behind his uncle’s house. Something in the way Adam had said it had made Tyler wonder.

“All right. Call me with his number as soon as you get home.” A faint click followed by a burst of static told Tyler that his father had hung up.

“Who’s that?” Holly asked.

“My father. He’s in town for a while.” He hadn’t mentioned his breakfast meeting with his father. Holly’s parents lived north of San Diego in Newport Beach. They frequently invited Tyler and Holly for dinner or barbecues on the deck of their home on Linda Isle. Tyler was embarrassed at the way his father blew into town but never considered entertaining them, even though Tyler had made it clear he was serious about Holly.

“Who has a girlfriend?”

They were in the hall now and Tyler was locking the condo door. He considered lying, but not telling his father the truth was one thing. The bastard deserved it. Holly meant too much to him. Besides, it might be better if she thought Adam was seeing someone else.

“Adam.”

The word detonated on impact. Tyler could see it in the spark of light that suddenly fired Holly’s brown eyes. “Really? He just got back.”

“You know Adam. He’s a fast worker.”

Holly didn’t respond until they were in the elevator on their way to the street level. “Why don’t we get together with Adam and his new girl? Let’s have them for dinner. I’ll make lasagna. He loves it.”

“Okay,” Tyler replied without any enthusiasm. The last thing he wanted was to have Adam around Holly.

RYAN SAT AT THE KITCHEN TABLE and watched Ashley rinse off their dinner dishes before putting them in the dishwasher. It was after nine, a little late to be eating, but Ryan had been with Walter Nance discussing new equipment for the cosmetic surgery facility they’d be opening soon. He’d sidestepped the money question, but Ryan wondered how much longer this would work.

“My mother made Swedish meatballs whenever we had a place with a kitchen,” Ashley told him. “That’s where I learned how to cook them.”

The meatballs made of hamburger rolled around in his belly like golf balls. “We’re going to need to eat home more,” he told her. “For a little while.”

Ashley looked over at him with wide blue eyes. “Okay. Whitney left several cookbooks in the cabinet over there. I’ll try some new recipes. Mother didn’t teach me much. We ate fast food mostly.”

Ryan smiled and noticed Ashley didn’t question his reason for eating at home, which made it more difficult to segue into a financial discussion. “We’re a little tight for money until Whitney signs those papers.”

She closed the dishwasher and started it. “I was thinking. Maybe we should sell this house and rent until we can afford to buy a place like the one we loved in Coronado.”

He tried to keep his expression neutral. This was exactly what he’d been on the verge of proposing. Not that selling this place would net them much money after the loans were paid off, but at least he wouldn’t have those huge payments clobbering him each month.

“You don’t like this house much, do you?” he asked.

She sat down on his lap and stroked the back of his neck. “It’s okay, but I’d rather take the pressure off you while you’re getting the new practice up and running.”

“Then I’ll buy any place you want.” Ryan kissed Ashley and cradled her in his arms for a few minutes. “I’ll call a Realtor tomorrow-”

“I’ll do it. You’re too busy.”

He met her gaze dead-on and saw how much she loved him and wanted to help. “I need to cut a deal. I don’t want to pay some dufus Realtor full commission. Once I’ve settled-”

“I’ll take care of it. My mother and I had to make lots of deals for clothes and things so I could compete.”

“Okay,” he said slowly. She’d been a great saleswoman for the cosmetic surgery firm when he’d met her. That meant selling but in a way that clients never realized they’d been “sold” anything. She might be able to handle this.

Ryan let Ashley lead him off toward the bedroom. He was exhausted. He’d been at the casino until dawn. He’d intended to tell her about his gambling when he mentioned selling this house. Now wasn’t the time. If Lady Luck smiled on him, Ryan’s life would be back on track.

“Did your girlfriend have any trouble getting Lexi back to Whitney?” Ryan was in his closet now, undressing. For a moment he thought Ashley didn’t hear him. She’d gone into her own closet opposite his.

“No. Whitney thinks the dog wandered off.”

Ryan didn’t give a shit what his ex thought. He wanted their marriage to evaporate as if it had never existed.

“I DON’T THINK THE NEW client is going to call.”

It was nearly eleven-thirty. Adam and Whitney had been watching Nuts for Mutts on Animal Planet and talking since dinner. Companion Carnivores was on next. As attracted as he was to Whitney, Adam didn’t think he could sit through another program about dogs.

“It’s late for her to call, but she’ll probably phone tomorrow.”

Whitney nodded. She seemed distracted. She was probably still worrying about her cousin. He had to admit disappearing after concocting such an elaborate story ranked right up there with the bizarre. He’d been in law enforcement since he’d graduated from college and he’d never encountered a disappearance as strange as this.

It wasn’t as if Miranda had left suddenly. You heard about those cases all the time. A woman goes out for milk and vanishes. This wasn’t one of those incidents. Miranda had planned her disappearance probably for some time.

Why?

As if on cue, his cell phone rang. Gus was finally getting back to him. “Find anything out?”

“Yeah. Miranda Marshall didn’t get on any plane.”

“She didn’t board a plane,” he repeated for Whitney’s benefit. “But her car’s at the airport.”

“There’s two, maybe three explanations,” Gus told him. “She could have left the car there to make someone think she took a flight. It’s possible she has ID showing another name, and she used it to board a plane.”

“That’s two possibilities. What’s the third?”

A beat of silence. “Any chance there’s another set of car keys around?”

The light dawned and Adam covered the phone. “Is there another set of keys to your cousin’s car around the cottage?”

Whitney sat up straighter. “I think so. There are several sets of keys in the kitchen drawer. I’m pretty sure one of them is for her Volvo. Why?”

He didn’t answer her. Instead, he told Gus, “We have keys. Thanks for your help. I-”

“Just a minute. There’s something else.”

It had been several years since Adam had worked with Gus, but he recognized the concern in his friend’s voice. “What is it?”

“After I ran Marshall’s name through the system and came up with zilch, I asked around the department.”

Adam listened to what his friend had discovered about Whitney’s cousin, made a mental note of several details, thanked him for his trouble, then hung up.

“What’s going on?”

He regarded her with a speculative gaze, not knowing how to put this exactly. “Gus thinks I should check the trunk of Miranda’s car. He gave me its location.” He leaned a little closer to her. “You see, it’s fairly common for homicide victims to be found in the trunks of their own cars.”

She stared at him wordlessly for a moment. “Why do you think someone killed her?”

“It’s just a possibility. Her name didn’t come up on an ID check for flights. If she was in some kind of trouble, she could have been killed.”

“Ohmygod,” she whispered in a choked voice. “Why didn’t she tell me? I would have done anything to help her.”

Adam put his arm around her shoulders and drew Whitney to him. “Don’t jump to conclusions. This is merely police procedure. We’re eliminating things.”

She pulled out of his embrace and jumped to her feet. “Let’s check it out. I’ll look for the keys right now.”

“Okay,” he agreed even though it was late. “There’s one other thing.”

Whitney must have picked up on the troubled note in his voice. “What? Tell me!”

“Guys on the vice squad told Gus that they knew your cousin. Miranda had never been arrested, but they’d seen her several times when they went out to Saffron Blue. It’s a nightclub.”

Whitney frowned, puzzled. “She never mentioned waitressing there.”

“She wasn’t waiting tables. Miranda worked as a stripper.”