Let Me Go (7 page)

Susan had been to the island before. Once. Archie had gone to Jack for help on an investigation, and Susan had tagged along. That's how she had met Leo. Leo had introduced himself as Jack's attorney. He'd conveniently left out the part about being Jack's son.

She hadn't even known there were any islands in Lake Oswego before Archie had driven her over the bridge that first time. Lake Oswego was a large private lake run by the Lake Oswego Corporation and ringed by tony lakeside residences. The city of Lake Oswego, where the lake was, was a wealthy suburb of Portland, a place where Trail Blazer players lived, and people waited twenty minutes in line for a croissant. Most of the Portlanders Susan knew didn't even know that Lake Oswego had a lake.

Susan hadn't gotten to see much of the five-and-a-half-acre island that first trip. They hadn't been invited inside the 1929 nine-thousand-square-foot Tudor mansion at the center of the island. Instead she and Archie had talked to Jack and Leo near the castlelike stone boathouse on the private dock next to Jack's sailboat. Susan had Googled the island several times since then, and through old real estate records and Google Earth she had put together a pretty complete mental picture of what she had missed the first time—namely, the helipad, formal rose garden, guesthouse, waterfalls, lakeside pool, sauna, and the nearly one mile of walking trails.

She and Leo had been dating for nine months and he had yet to invite her to the family compound. She got it. His father was a drug lord and Leo was secretly working for the DEA. There were a lot of secrets to keep straight. He was probably afraid that she'd blurt out something she shouldn't over canapés with dear old Dad.

Cooper parked the car next to a smaller Tudor structure, built out of the same old-growth timber and basalt as the main house. This was the guesthouse. Susan had seen pictures of it online in an old issue of
Oregon Home
magazine. Apparently Jack Reynolds entertained a lot of guests—his guesthouse looked twice as big as her mother's place.

Cooper got out of the car and came around and opened the backseat passenger-side door for her.

“This way,” he said, lifting his chin toward the guesthouse. She followed him without question. It wasn't that she didn't have questions; just that she had so many that she didn't know where to begin. Activity swarmed around them. The guesthouse was situated behind the main house, and was clearly being used as a staging area for the party. A caterer's truck parked next to a florist's truck parked next to an event supply truck. Men wearing windbreakers with the word
SECURITY
across the back muttered into walkie-talkies. Caterers in black pants and white shirts and black ties unloaded cases of wine.

“When can I see Leo?” Susan asked.

They had reached the guesthouse. The entry was an enormous arched oak door, framed with stone. Wrought-iron lamps hung on either side of the door under gargoyles that had been carved into the stone. It all seemed a little ostentatious for a guesthouse, even an obnoxious one.

Cooper turned the knob and went inside and Susan scuttled in after him. The door opened into a cavernous room with a half-timber-and-stucco ceiling and walls paneled with gleaming dark wood. Arched leaded glass windows looked out on the lake. Twilight was giving way to bona fide evening. Susan could see the lights of the houses along the shore. The lake was black and empty, like a patch of starless sky.

“You were right about her size,” she heard Cooper say.

Susan redirected her attention inside the room. It was the living room, or parlor, or whatever the very wealthy called places where they came together and drank sherry after eating escargot. The furniture was all dark wood and worn velvet and cracked leather. Oriental rugs blanketed the floor at carefully quirky angles. Antique books lined the built-in shelves. A young woman with long wavy dark hair rose from a chair and walked toward Susan. She paused at a portable garment rack, on which several evening gowns hung, and pulled one from its hanger. Susan saw the professional-looking makeup box on the coffee table—a tackle box full of blush and oily sticks of foundation. The woman strolling toward her with the gown looked familiar. She was tall and fit, in her early twenties but with the effortless confidence of someone older. Her black pants and black T-shirt were nondescript, but still showed off her curves. Her makeup was natural, her hair was loose, but there was something about the way she moved—she had the self-possession of someone used to people watching her. Maybe it was the way she flipped her hair, or the sway of her hips—but something clicked. Susan recognized her. And as soon as she did, Susan felt her cheeks burn. She was the stripper from the night before, the one who had given Archie a lap dance.

The hussy.

Susan had tried not to wonder what had gone on in that room. What, exactly, the woman had done to get Archie off, and if he'd liked it. Susan had tried, but she couldn't get it out of her head. Archie had seen this woman almost naked. She had rubbed herself against him. Had he put his hands on her? Had Leo?

Susan took a long breath, willed her face to cool, and smiled.

The hussy stuck her hand out and smiled back. “Hi,” she said. “I'm Star.”

 

CHAPTER

10

 

A valet had taken
Archie's city-issued Taurus. He often felt the need to apologize when valets took his car. They always looked so disappointed. He wanted to explain that it wasn't his car; that it belonged to the city—but the truth was, if he ever bought his own car, he'd probably end up with something just as boring.

The invitation had gotten him over the bridge.

Now a thick-necked man wearing a dark suit and an earpiece looked Archie up and down. He had a broad chest and deep-set, watchful eyes, and his hair was shaved down to a stiff bristle. He looked like a cop—though Archie didn't recognize him—or maybe ex-military. “Name,” he demanded.

“Archie Sheridan,” Archie said.

Archie produced the invitation Sanchez had given him but the man waved it away, and instead scanned a printed list he had on a clipboard. Archie could see the bulge under his suit where he was wearing a gun. That kind of thing could be hidden, but he wasn't trying. “I don't see you,” the man said. Archie saw his body language shift. He straightened up, his chest expanded. He rotated a finger in the air, and two other men in suits looked up and started to make a beeline for them.

“I'm a friend of Leo's,” Archie said quickly. “Maybe you should check with him.”

Archie had a brief fantasy of the man with the clipboard calling Leo down from the house and then Archie and Leo jumping into a car and driving away together. Could it be that easy?

The other two suits arrived on either side of Archie. They looked like they'd come out of the same Humvee that the first guy had—same body type, same general facial structure, same military bearing.

“Stay with him,” the first suit told the other two, and he gave Archie a skeptical look and stepped back, already lifting a cell phone to his ear.

The two new suits crossed their arms in unison. Party guests streamed past them, jewelry glinting in the torchlight. They were all wearing masks. Archie was pretty sure his tux hadn't come with one. Maybe he could cut two holes in his sock and tie it around his head. He thought about making that joke out loud, but he had the feeling it would go unappreciated.

“So,” Archie said. “Nice place, huh?” The island was over five acres. Archie wondered how many bodies were buried on it.

They didn't answer.

“Have you seen Leo around?” Archie asked. Just an old friend, dropping by for a visit.

Nothing.

The first suit returned. “You're wanted inside,” he said.

*   *   *

Jack Reynolds was
waiting in his office for them, wearing a tuxedo and puffing on a cigar. Music from the party was a distant thrum through the textured stucco walls.

It had been over a year since Archie had seen Jack. When they'd first met, almost fourteen years before, Jack had been leaner, almost hawkish. He was one of those men who seemed to get better-looking as they aged. Though he was sixty-five, the lines around his eyes and mouth, the silver in his dark hair, only made him look more dashing. He looked like one of those grinning silver-haired men in Viagra commercials who were always getting off motorcycles and heading inside to get it on with their waiting wives.

Now Jack sat on the edge of his desk, the desk lamp behind him the only light on in the room. Cigar smoke hung like a cloud over his head.

Archie had been in this room before. It was a masculine lair, the stucco walls hung with photographs of Jack's sailboats. A built-in bar sparkled with crystal glassware and expensive liquor bottles. Leather chairs and a leather sofa created a sitting area in the middle of the room under a massive wrought-iron light fixture. Behind Jack's desk, the room's leaded glass windows looked out into darkness.

Jack grinned and rolled the cigar between his fingers. “Do you know who this guy is, Karim?” he asked. He wasn't talking to Archie. He was talking to the caramel-skinned man sitting next to Archie.

“No, sir, I do not,” Karim said in a British boarding school accent.

Archie eyed Karim. He had a knife-cut part in his dark hair and perfectly erect posture. His tuxedo fit him well. He didn't look like Jack's usual muscle. Archie had a feeling that he did something more important.

Jack stood up and walked over to them. “This is Archie-fucking-Sheridan,” he said. “He ran the Beauty Killer Task Force. That bitch took him hostage and tortured him for ten days. Took his fucking spleen out and sent it to his partner. So Archie here is strapped to a gurney in a basement in Gresham and he convinces Gretchen Lowell to let him go. She calls 911 and turns herself in. Saves his life.”

Archie wished it had been that simple. “That's not exactly how it happened,” he said.

Jack put his arm around Archie's shoulders, like a proud father showing off his son. “A few years later the bitch escapes from prison, and you know what this motherfucker does?” Jack asked Karim. “He catches her again!” Jack clapped Archie so hard on the back that he lurched forward. Archie coughed and straightened up. “So they send her to the nuthouse the next time,” Jack continued. “And a year later, damned if she doesn't slaughter a nurse and saunter the fuck out of there.”

Karim caught Archie's eye. “Next time you catch her, you should consider shooting her,” he said.

“Thanks for the tip,” Archie said.

Jack took a puff off his cigar and grinned.

Archie wondered if it would be impolite to ask for a drink.

The music seemed to be getting louder.

“So why are you here?” Jack asked, settling back on the edge of his desk.

Archie didn't miss a beat. “Leo invited me,” he said. Archie fished the invitation from Sanchez out of his tuxedo pocket and handed it to Jack.

Jack smiled and tossed the invitation aside. A circle of his cigar smoke floated past Archie's face and then dissipated. “You working Vice now, Archie?” Jack asked.

Archie waved the smoke away, out of his eyes. “I don't care about your business, Jack,” he said. It was true enough. All the years that Archie had come to this house, updating Jack on the investigation into his daughter's death, he had always treated him like any other bereaved family member. It didn't matter to Archie what Jack did for a living. Jack had lost his daughter. So Archie overlooked the rest of it.

Jack nodded to himself. “Leo invited you,” he repeated skeptically.

Archie played his ace card. “It's my birthday.”

Jack studied his cigar for a moment. Then he nodded at Karim, and Karim stood up and took a step toward Archie.

“May I?” Karim asked pleasantly.

Archie stood as well and lifted his arms. “Inside left pocket,” Archie said.

Karim reached inside Archie's jacket and pulled out his wallet. He opened it and extracted Archie's driver's license and then took it to the desk lamp to study it. After a minute he returned the wallet and the license to Archie. “Happy birthday,” he said to Archie.

“He must have forgotten to put you on the list,” Jack said.

“Must have,” Archie said.

“You'll need a mask,” Jack said. He reached around and picked a mask off his desk and handed it to Archie. It was a shiny black plastic oval, with two holes for the eyes and a curved mold over the nose. A white elastic band was stapled to each side. Archie took the mask, but he didn't put it on.

“If he's not on the list, he hasn't been vetted,” Karim pointed out.

“He's a cop,” Jack said. “I think we can trust him not to steal the silverware.”

“I don't like it,” Karim said. He glanced at Archie. “No offense.”

“He caught my daughter's killer,” Jack said. “I think he's earned access to the no-host bar.”

No mention of Jeremy, Archie noticed. Jack had edited out that part of the story. Archie couldn't help himself. “She killed your son, too,” Archie said.

“I owe her for that one,” Jack said. He said it easily, like it was something he said all the time. Then he directed a shrug in Karim's direction. “My waste-of-space youngest went apeshit last year,” he explained without emotion. “Tried to kill our friend here with an ax. Turns out he was harboring an unhealthy fascination with the Beauty Killer.”

Aren't we all?
thought Archie.

“The shrinks blamed his sister's murder,” Jack continued, “said he never got over it. But he always had a weak mind.”

Archie had no doubt that Isabel's murder had fucked Jeremy up; but his father had played a role in Jeremy's deterioration, as well. “I guess that explains why I didn't see you at the funeral,” Archie said.

“That's your problem, my friend,” Jack said, reaching forward to straighten Archie's bow tie. “You don't know when to give up on people.”