Derby Divas (Zoe Donovan Mystery) (16 page)

“Twenty
-nine? But she went to school with Pepper, who is only twenty-two. It must not be the same person.”

Zak pulled up her photo. I frowned. It
looked
like the same person. Based on the photos I’d found of Pepper in high school, Isabelle first showed up shortly before Pepper’s sixteenth birthday. She continued to appear in photos of Pepper at school and attending social events until after Pepper graduated when she was eighteen. Why would a woman who had to be in her mid-twenties be attending an all-girls’ high school? Unless she was the bodyguard Pepper’s parents had hired, masquerading as an ordinary high school student . . .

“Isabelle must be
—” I started.

“The body
guard,” Zak finished.

“So how does Izick tie into all of this?” I wondered.

“Maybe he doesn’t,” Zak suggested. “According to everything I can find, Isabelle was an only child who was raised by her father after her mother died when she was six. Her father owned a martial arts school, which probably explains how Isabelle was qualified to be a bodyguard. Even though she was in her twenties when she attended the same high school as Stella Worthington, she looked much younger than her age, so I imagine she had no problem fitting in. You mentioned that Stella’s parents fired the bodyguard at Stella’s request. What if Stella didn’t know that Isabelle was hired to keep an eye on her, then felt betrayed by her best friend when she found out?”

“
I had that exact same thought yesterday. It’s like we have the same brain.”

“Trust me
, we don’t have the same brain. You’d probably slug me right now if you could read my thoughts,” Zak teased.

“Why?”

Zak wiggled his eyebrows at me.

“You are such a pervert. Now focus.”

“Oh, I’m focused.”

“On Isabelle and Izick,
” I clarified.

Zak stared at the screen and frowned. “Even if Izick and Isabelle aren’t related
, there should still be a record of Izick unless his license is a fake.”

“Maybe it is a fake.”
That made as much sense as anything.

Zak continued to type. I watched his face as he worked. The slight furrow b
etween his brows was oh so sexy, as was the way he chewed on his bottom lip with his perfectly white teeth. Maybe we should take a break. Scooter was still sleeping, and who knew when we’d have time to . . .

“I think I found something,” Zak announced
, interrupting my fantasy. “Isabelle Stanford let her driver’s license lapse shortly after she would have been fired from her bodyguard job. She didn’t renew it in any other state as far as I can tell. I did, however, find a credit card in her name. The last charge showing up was for five nights at the Ashton Falls Motor Inn.”

“So Isabelle paid for Izick to stay here.
They
must
be related. Maybe they’re cousins, if they aren’t siblings. Maybe Isabelle wanted Izick to spy on Pepper. Maybe he even drugged Pandora and arranged for the car to crash, figuring that Pepper would fill in for her best friend and he could get revenge for what Pepper did to Isabelle. Not that killing someone is equitable revenge for getting someone you cared about fired from your job,” I rambled on.

Zak
continued to frown at the computer screen as he appeared to be analyzing something he was reading. “I think it’s more than that,” he concluded. “I think Izick Stanford and Isabelle Stanford are the same person.”

“The same person?”

Of course. We’d assumed all along that one of the derby drivers showed up to cover for Pandora, but Dezee was the only driver who was missing other than Pepper, and since the victim was female, we figured it had to be Pepper. We never suspected that the victim was Dezee because we all believed he was male. But if Dezee was really Isabelle in disguise . . .

“Why?” I asked.
“Why would Isabelle masquerade as a guy? And if Dezee is a female and Pepper and Dezee are involved, then Pepper must know who Dezee really is. The whole thing makes no sense.”

“I don’t know
why Isabelle did what she did,” Zak said, “but we really should fill in Salinger at this point.”

“So where does this leave us?” I asked Salinger after he’d informed me that based on a cursory investigation of the badly burned corpse, the two could be the same person.

“Isabelle Stanford’s
next of kin will be notified that she was killed in the accident, effectively closing the case.”

“Closing the case?” I asked. “We still don’t know
for certain that the body is Isabelle, and we don’t know who tampered with the car, where Pepper is, who drugged Pandora, or why Isabelle was masquerading as a man in the first place.”

“It
’s not against the law to present oneself as a man and therefore not a police matter,” Salinger informed me. “As for Ms. Worthington, her parents have informed me that they have heard from the kidnapper and are arranging to meet the ransom demand. They were very clear that they don’t want the police involved.”

“Okay then
, who drugged Pandora?” I asked.

“We do
n’t have any proof that she was drugged,” Salinger said. “Drugs were found in her system, but for all we know, she could have ingested the sedatives herself.”

“Why would she do that?”

I was beginning to feel desperate. The sheriff, in a typical Salinger move, was about to sweep things under the rug in order to avoid a controversy.

“People take drugs all the time,”
he pointed out. “Maybe Pandora was so wasted that she forgot she had taken them, or maybe she did remember but was covering her own tracks after a horrible accident that took someone’s life while they were operating her car.”

Salinger had a point
, but I still thought he was wrong. His explanation was
much
too easy.

“Okay
, let’s discuss the car,” I decided. “Someone tampered with the car. Surely you still need to investigate
that
.”

“My guys tell me the br
ake line could have severed on its own if the car hadn’t been properly maintained. The timing of the leak reaching a critical point was unfortunate, but it doesn’t necessarily prove intent.”

“You
’ve got to be freaking kidding me. You’re really closing the book on
all
of this?”

I could feel my blood begin to boil as Salinger sat back in his chair with a look of disinterest on his face.

“I’m afraid I
am
going to close the book on all of this, and you should too. You have a derby to run and a sock hop to attend. Don’t waste your time chasing after a conspiracy theory that simply won’t lead anywhere. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a phone call to make.”

Salinger picked up the phone and
, with that, I was affectively dismissed.

After I left Salinger’s office, I called Zak, who had stayed behind with Scooter and the dogs, and asked if he had time to chat. Returning to the festivities until I’d had time to let off some steam was completely unthinkable. I could have called Levi, and he would have come in an instant, but sometimes I just need Zak. He has a way of calming me that no one else ever has.

Luckily
, Scooter was quite contently watching cartoons with the dogs after his big adventure the previous day. Zak and I retired to his office, where we could talk but still keep an eye on the small tornado who still had a tendency to kick up a gust every now and then. Zak sat down in his desk chair while I lay down on the sofa. I stared at the ceiling as I told Zak everything Salinger had told me.

“Salinger is taking the easy way out,” Zak responded after I had finished my tale. “It’s what he always does.”

“So what are we going to do? Walk away like he wants us to?”

“Is there a reason we shouldn’t?”

I sat up. “Of course there’s a reason we shouldn’t. Dezee is dead and we don’t know why. Pandora was drugged and we don’t know by whom. Someone tampered with Pandora’s car and we don’t know who the intended victim was. Assuming it wasn’t Dezee, it’s possible whoever cut the brake lines will try again. And, finally, we don’t
really
know that Pepper is okay. There must be a way to put the pieces together and figure out what really happened.”

Zak hesitated. I knew that look. He had an idea he wasn’t sure was a good idea
, but he knew I’d jump all over it, so he was hesitating to mention it.

“Too late. I recognize th
at look. What are you thinking?”

“Maybe we can let Dezee and Pepper tell us what happened,” he suggested.

“Dezee is dead and Pepper is who knows where. How can they tell us anything?” I complained.

“If we decide that it
’s a good idea to do so—and I’m not saying that it is—” Zak qualified, “I can probably hack into Dezee’s and Pepper’s e-mail and texts. I suppose that might tell us something we don’t already know.”

I smiled. “That’s perfect. Why the hesitation?”

“Looking at someone’s private texts and e-mails is like reading a diary. It’s very invasive and something I really never do. In this case, however, I think it may be the only way to get the answers we need.”

“Let’s do it,” I
said. “How do we start?”

“Do we have access to either Dezee
’s or Pepper’s phones or laptops?” Zak asked.

“I’ll call Pandora and find out.”

An hour later
, we had Pepper’s laptop. Neither phone could be found.

“This feels so weird,” Pandora commented. Both she and Boomer had decided to stay while Zak did his thing. “It really makes me rethink the content of the e
-mails and texts I send.”

“Tell me about it
,” Boomer said. “Is there any way to permanently erase that type of thing?”

“Yeah
, if you know how,” Zak answered.

“The fact that Dezee was a chick is really freaking me out,” Boomer shared. “I keep thinking back to all the times I paraded ar
ound naked in front of him.”

“So?” Pandora teased. “Everyone knows y
ou like to strut your stuff.”

Boomer threw a pillow at her.

“The fact that Dezee was really a chick is strange, but what I’m most worried about is Pepper,” Pandora said. “I know Salinger said her parents have it handled, but to be honest, I don’t really trust them.”

“Do you know why she left? She gave up a lot,” I pointed out.

“Pepper never let on for one minute that she was loaded, but she did say a few things about why she never wanted to go home for the holidays. It seems she was in love and her parents didn’t approve of her relationship, so as soon as she could, she bailed.”

“Did she ever hook up with the guy she left her family for?” I wondered.

“I never saw her with a guy,” Pandora answered.

“Or maybe she did,” Zak interrupted.
“I found Pepper’s diary.”

We all looked at Zak expectantly.

“I’m not going to read any of this to you, or share more details than I have to, but here’s what I think is relevant,” he began. “Pepper did leave her home and her family over an argument she had with her parents regarding a love affair. The affair wasn’t with a guy, however.”

“Isabelle,” I realized. “
Stella fell in love with the older woman her parents hired to protect her. When they found out, they fired Isabelle and refused to let Stella see her, and she ran away so they could be together. It’s so romantic.”

“Okay
, so why was Isabelle parading around as a guy?” Boomer asked.

“And
why was Dezee in my car and where is Pepper?” Pandora asked.

We decided that Zak would keep digging for clues while Boomer, Pandora, Levi, and I went to the derby finals. We figured it was best if we presented a front of business as usual in case whoever was holding Pepper or trying to kill Pandora was watching. What it came down to, we thought, was that there had to be someone on the inside orchestrating the whole thing. Someone with access to the alcohol Pandora drank as well as the cars. Of course, there could be more than one person involved. One partner could have been drugging Pandora while the other was slicing into the brake lines. Zak suggested that we trust no one until we figured the whole thing out.

The derby had been
hyped as the derby to end all derbies once the finalists were announced. The group involved would likely provide a show that was all that and more. The crowd today was even bigger than it had been for the preliminary rounds. As it had been all week, the sun was beating down on the crowd, making me think that perhaps an evening event would have worked out better this year. The bleachers at the fairgrounds in Bryton Lake that we normally used were covered, providing shade for most of the day, while the pasture provided no protection from the sun at all.