She's Not There (24 page)

Ten days ago, on the night of her accident:

Sorry I missed your call. Send me flight info. –J

The last one came twelve days ago, forty-eight hours before the accident in the Everglades. It was the only e-mail not in bold face, which meant it was the only one Amelia had opened and read—and then saved as “new.”

Kiss a lover,

Dance a measure,

Find your name,

And buried treasure.

Love, –J

Buchanan leaned back against the headboard, remembering what Esperanza had said about finding Amelia crying in the bathroom, holding her Kindle. Was this what she had been reading? This had to be the “J” whose birthday Amelia had noted in her Day Runner. He had always felt in his gut that Amelia had a lover. And it was probably this man, this “Dancing King,” who clearly had deep affection for her. But who was he? And where was he?

Buchanan went to his Acer, connecting again with his iPhone, and pulled up a browser window. But when he typed in “Dancing King,” all he got were gyrating teenagers on YouTube and some lyrics to a song with the same name. He added the letters “SFB.”

The first site that came up was for the San Francisco Ballet. He called it up and clicked on the link that listed the artistic director, dancers, administrative and artistic staffs, and board of directors. He scanned quickly through the dancers but there was no man with a first name that started with
J
. He bypassed the administrative staff and board and brought up the artistic staff.

Then, there he was. His name was Jimmy Reyes, and he was a ballet master. He was maybe forty, with a craggy thin face, wavy dark hair, kind eyes, and an easy smile. A man comfortable in his skin. A man the complete opposite of Alex Tobias.

Buchanan’s gaze moved back to the mementos spread out on the bed.

So now he had it.

Amelia’s story, from her closed-fisted and closed-hearted childhood to the hypnotic spotlights of first New York and then Miami, where she crawled across the stage and into the arms of a man who cut up her soul and had the shards reconstructed into that ugly portrait hanging on his bedroom wall.

Buchanan picked up his burner phone and punched in McCall’s number.

“Yeah?” McCall answered.

“I know where she’s headed,” Buchanan said. “It will be over in a couple days. The next time I call, all I want to hear from you is where the fucking locker is.”

He hung up.

Maybe it was a stupid move, playing both sides at the same time and still expecting to get the two million. But he needed to buy some time. Flying was out of the question because he didn’t want McCall to know where he was headed. He would have to drive, and San Francisco was eighteen hundred miles away.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

It was almost ten when Alex Tobias walked out of his office and punched the “Down” button for the garage elevator. He had spent the last hour on the phone with a Chinese investor and between his mind wandering to Amelia, watching the stock market drop two hundred points, and trying to understand the Chinese man’s heavy accent, he was tired, disgusted, and discouraged.

Alex stepped from the elevator into a cool rush of air. Even though he was in the garage of his office’s high-rise, he could hear the wind from Tropical Storm Bruno whistling through the concrete corridors. He shifted his briefcase and reached for his keys.

“Mr. Tobias, sir?”

Alex’s head shot up. Huddled near a concrete pillar was a man. He was tall, big shouldered, wearing a dark jacket. But his face was lost in the shadows.

“Come out where I can see you,” Alex said.

The man moved into the gray light, slowly withdrawing his hands from his pockets. His face was round with skin the color of oak, his black hair dripping rain onto his collar. He was Latino, maybe mid-thirties.

Alex stepped closer. “Who are you?”

“Jack Pineda.”

Alex stared at him.

“Jack Pineda, Mrs. McCall’s driver,” the man said. “We met before, at the house.”

“Right, sure,” Alex said, still not remembering the man with any clarity. “What are you doing here?”

“I need to speak with you, sir.”

“Look, Jack, it’s late. Maybe you can come to the office tomorrow. I have to go.”

Alex stepped around him and continued toward his car.

“It’s about your wife, sir.”

Alex stopped walking and turned back to Jack. The man’s hands were stuffed back into his pockets and he looked ready to cry. Alex moved back slowly.

“Mel? What about her?”

Jack ran a sleeve across his face and shifted his weight. Somewhere above them, the squeal of tires echoed through the garage.

“Talk to me, Jack.”

“Mrs. Tobias didn’t just have a car accident, sir,” Jack said. “I was out there that night.”

“Out where? In the Everglades? Why?”

“Oh Jesus,” Jack whispered. “I didn’t want to do it. I swear to God I never wanted—”

“Stop it,” Alex interrupted. “Start at the beginning. What happened that night?”

“I was washing the Crossover, you know, Mr. McCall’s SUV, and Mrs. McCall comes out to tell me she won’t need me to drive her to Marco Island, that she is—”

“Marco Island?” Alex asked.

“Yes, sir. That’s where you and Mr. McCall were supposed to be, celebrating that big business deal your firm had.”

The Leggett merger, Alex recalled. The plan had been to celebrate with Leggett at his estate on Marco Island through the weekend. Amelia had told him she didn’t want to go. He had used her absence to go to Palm Beach to get a fuck in with Megan before flying over to the West Coast on Saturday night to join the party.

Then something Jack had said finally registered. “Mrs. McCall? What did she have to do with this?”

Jack hesitated. “Mrs. McCall told me she didn’t need me to drive her to Marco Island because your wife was going to pick her up.”

Jack stopped again and wiped a hand over his sweating face.

“Go on,” Alex said.

“Mrs. Tobias came by around six. I helped Mrs. McCall put her overnight bag and her leg crutches into the back of that little blue Mercedes car, and they drove away. About two hours later, I got a phone call.”

“From who?”

“Mrs. McCall,” Jack said. “She tells me she needs me and to come quick, that she had an accident and she’s stranded out in the Everglades, on 29.”

Alex was quiet, his neck growing warm with anger. Why hadn’t McCall told him Joanna and Amelia had been together that night?

“So I go out there quick as I could,” Jack said. “Mrs. McCall is sitting in the car, all banged up and wet, but okay. Mrs. Tobias is lying on the ground, and at first I think she’s dead, but then she makes a sound and tries to get up but she can’t.”

“And you didn’t help her?”

“Mrs. McCall told me . . . Oh, Jesus, oh, Jesus.” Jack’s eyes filled with tears and he started walking a small tight circle.

“Jack!” Alex snapped.

Jack faced Alex, drawing hard breaths. “Mrs. McCall told me to kill her,” he said.

Alex stared at Jack, not sure he’d heard him correctly. Joanna—his partner’s wife, Amelia’s friend. And Owen—his partner, confidant. Alex couldn’t count the number of times they had vacationed together, shared dozens of dinners, hundreds of bottles of wine, and millions of dollars in profits. It didn’t make sense.

“You’re lying,” Alex said. “What are you trying to do? Shake me down? Shake Owen down?”

“I’m not lying, sir.”

Alex spun around and blew Jack off with a wave of his hand. “Get lost!”

Jack yelled after him, his voice hollow in the empty garage. “I can prove it!”

Alex turned back. “How?”

“I have your wife’s phone.”

Alex walked back to him and threw out his hand. “Give it to me.”

Jack reached into his jacket and withdrew an iPhone. He set it gently into Alex’s hand.

Alex set his briefcase down and looked at the cell. It was encased in a pink cover, like Amelia’s Kindle. The cracked screen was spattered with mud. It was hers, Alex was sure.

His eyes moved back to Jack’s face. The man was standing very still, with slumped shoulders. Tears streaked his face.

“Tell me the rest,” Alex demanded. “Tell me all of it.”

Jack ran a sleeve under his nose and took a moment to pull himself together. “Mrs. McCall told me to take Mrs. Tobias far off the road into the saw grass weeds and kill her, to hit her with a rock or something and make it look like she stumbled out after driving into the ditch.”

“Did she tell you why?” Alex asked.

“She said Mrs. Tobias was going to ruin our lives, that she was going to put you and Mr. McCall in jail and that if that happened, me and my wife might be sent to a detention camp—”

“Stop, back up,” Alex said. “Joanna told you Amelia was going to put us in jail? Did she say how?”

“No, sir. She just said our lives depended on Mrs. Tobias dying out there and that it had to be done.”

“So what did you do?”

“I told her that I couldn’t kill anyone, especially a nice lady like Mrs. Tobias. But Mrs. McCall told me she would have my wife deported if I didn’t do what she said. Pegha’s carrying our first child, sir, and she doesn’t have any papers and I—”

“
What
did you do to my wife?” Alex asked.

Jack wiped his face. “I dragged her to the swamp and I picked up a rock and lifted it up but then I saw her looking at me and I felt so bad I almost run off. But then I thought of Pegha and I knew I had nowhere to go, so I hit Mrs. Tobias.”

Alex stood there, one hand gripping Amelia’s phone, the other curled into a fist. He wanted to punch this piece of shit, to kick his ass all the way back to El Salvador or wherever the hell he came from. But he couldn’t. He needed to hear more. He needed to hear it all.

“What happened then?” Alex asked.

“I was kneeling there in the mud, and I could hear Mrs. Tobias crying, and I couldn’t hit her again so I went back to Mrs. McCall and told her Mrs. Tobias was dead. Mrs. McCall told me to take out her suitcase and crutches from behind the seats and to get Mrs. Tobias’s purse and her overnight bag. Then I helped Mrs. McCall into my car and we drove home.”

They drove
home
? They just left Amelia there.
They just fucking left her there.

“Did Mrs. McCall say anything to you on the way home?”

“She said if I kept my mouth shut, she would make sure Pegha got legal and that our baby would be a US citizen and that we would never have to worry about being deported again, that we could stay here in America.”

Jack started to cry, openly now, his sobs wracking his chest like he was suffocating. Alex stood there, watching him, thinking about Amelia left out in the Everglades in the rain but suddenly, he wasn’t mad anymore. Not at Jack.

Amelia was in his head, a memory of a moment when she walked into his home office.

Esperanza needs some help, Alex.

Who?

Esperanza, our housekeeper. Her daughter’s been picked up by Immigration and is probably going to be deported because there’s something wrong with her work visa. She needs a new sponsor or something. Can we help her?

I don’t know any immigration lawyers. Tell her to call legal aid.

You’re a lawyer, Alex. You’re important, you know people. Can’t you call someone?

The look on Amelia’s face had been so . . . so beseeching that he had made a couple of calls and ultimately, the girl was allowed to stay in the US. But he knew now he had felt no concern for the girl. In fact he couldn’t even remember her name. He had done it for himself, hoping his actions might touch Amelia and melt the frost between them.

Alex put Amelia’s phone in his pocket and looked back at Jack.

“Why are you telling me all this now?” Alex asked.

“Because I couldn’t live with myself no more,” Jack said. “I did a terrible thing. But this morning, I got Pegha a ticket back to Honduras so she’ll be free of all this and now I’m willing to take whatever punishment you want to give me, Mr. Tobias.”

Jack stared at him, waiting. Alex drew a breath and looked around the garage, watching as a Volvo rounded a corner and started down the ramp. When it was quiet, he reached into his slacks and pulled out his money clip. He slipped the folded bills free—almost nine hundred dollars—and held them out to Jack.

Jack’s mouth dropped open.

“Take it,” Alex said. “Buy yourself a ticket and get out of the country. Go take care of your family.”

When Jack didn’t take the money, Alex grabbed his hand and pressed the bills into Jack’s palm.

“Thank you, sir,” Jack whispered. “Thank you and God bless you.”

Alex picked up his briefcase and walked away, taking long angry strides toward his car. He was having a hard time believing all this. He didn’t want to believe it, didn’t want to believe that Joanna McCall, despite her complete disregard for anyone not in her orbit, could have left her friend—
could have left anyone—
lying in the rain to die.

Alex yanked open the door of his car and climbed inside. McCall’s home was a sprawling mansion set at the tip of Mercedes Drive overlooking the Intracoastal. It was normally a fifteen-minute drive from the office.

Alex made it in ten.

McCall stood in front of him, one hand on the edge of the door, the other holding a glass of scotch.

“Alex,” he said. “Jesus, I thought it was some madman beating on the door. What’s wrong?”

“Where’s Joanna?”

McCall stared at him, his eyes deepening in color, a slash of red rising in his cheeks. Alex had seen the reaction a hundred times before, whenever McCall was pushed or cornered.

“What is this about?” McCall asked.

“It’s about Amelia.”

McCall tensed but did not move. “You need to calm down.”

“I don’t need to do a damn thing,” Alex said. “Where’s Joanna?”

“It’s late. We can—”

Alex pushed into the foyer and started toward the living room. McCall grabbed his sleeve and spun him back around. Alex was soaking wet from the rain and almost slipped on the slick marble when he jerked away.

“Don’t touch me, you son of a bitch. I know what Joanna did. Now where the hell is she?”

“It was an accident,” McCall said. “Joanna never intended to hurt her.”

“But she did. I want to know why.”

Joanna’s voice came from behind him, terse and hollow in the marble hallway.

“She knew.”

Alex faced her. Except for the crutches, Joanna looked like a shop mannequin, draped in a blue silk robe. But there were cracks in this woman now, like she was about to break apart right here in front of him.

“She knew what?” Alex asked.

“She suspected the firm was bilking clients,” Joanna said.

Alex shook his head. “Mel has no head for finance. She never cared about the business.”

“You always underestimated her intelligence, Alex,” Joanna said softly.

“Joanna, that’s enough,” McCall cut in.

Alex moved closer. “No! Let her talk.”

Joanna’s eyes cut to her husband, and Alex followed her gaze. McCall’s face was flushed and he had a death grip on the rock glass.

“What?” Alex demanded. “What else?”

“She knew about Mary,” McCall said.

Alex’s chest tightened. “That’s not possible,” he whispered.

“Tell him about the flamingo,” McCall said.

Joanna shut her eyes.

“Tell him, damn it. He might as well know all of it now. Tell him what Amelia told you.”

But when Joanna wouldn’t speak, McCall stepped forward. “Your wife found that plastic flamingo in your office at home. She knew Mary collected them and she knew Mary didn’t drink. She put it all together.”

For a moment, Alex felt like he was going to black out. But it was just the rush of memory coming back, the memory of that night standing by that canal in the darkness.

It had been an afterthought. The flamingo had been knocked off the dashboard when McCall was beating Mary’s head against the wheel. Alex had picked it up off the ground so the cops wouldn’t find it. He had picked it up to protect himself and McCall. And he had kept it because . . .