Silver Sparks (23 page)

“The paparazzi would leave Rafe for a missing girl?”

“When he was the last one who saw her? You bet. Pretty soon the news stations started rolling in here, and before you know it the cops are questioning the
Trust Fund Brats
people, including Rafe. I did, too. All the reporters—they talked to anyone who’d been here the night before. And you saw the rest, I guess, because I saw you both outside when Rafe was doing his Good Samaritan bit for the cameras. I stuck with him, but he grabbed one of the girls from the show and went up to his room. I’m thinking he won’t be down again tonight.”

“But what about two nights ago?” Maggie asked. “You were here. Didn’t you see him leave with Emily Banks?”

Even in the subdued lighting, she saw a blush creep up his neck. “I was distracted for a few minutes, and when I looked for him, he was gone. I don’t know if she was, too, because I wasn’t watching her.” He gave Cal a sheepish look. “I’m really sorry. I know that was exactly the moment I’ve been waiting for, and I totally blew it.”

Cal didn’t look nearly as upset as Rick. “What distracted you?”

“An argument. Some girl started screaming that this guy tore her top. Someone sure did, because her boob was practically hanging completely out. It was, you know . . .” He shot Maggie an embarrassed grin. “Big. The guy was denying the whole thing. Got pretty noisy and aggressive about it, too. And the girl was so pissed she was gesturing all over and just barely hanging on to her ripped top, and, well, it kinda drew everyone’s attention.”

Cal nodded. “Who was the guy?”

“How should I know?”

“One of Rafe’s bodyguards?”

Rick paused, brow furrowed. “I don’t know. Yeah, maybe.”

“How about the girl?”

“I heard she worked with the show’s catering company.” Realization finally hit. “You think that was a setup? A distraction so Rafe could slip out with some girl?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Damn. That was a good one.”

It
was
good, which Maggie found very disturbing. Rafe was always a step ahead of them, experienced both at drawing media attention as he had tonight, and avoiding it when he slipped off with a girl. The scary part was that a notorious womanizer shouldn’t need to slip away unnoticed . . . unless, as Cal suggested, he was killing no longer on impulse but with deliberate forethought. She didn’t feel better having that theory confirmed.

Rick shook his head, looking disgusted with himself. “Christ, I hate falling for the De Lucas’ tricks. I swear I’m going to get that bastard.” He stood. “But I’m done for tonight. I’ll catch up with you both tomorrow.”

They watched him walk away. Maggie turned to Cal hopefully. “Home?”

He smiled. As he opened his mouth to answer, his phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket and read the caller ID. When he looked up his smile had been replaced with a look of resignation. “The Barringer’s Pass police. I think they have questions for me that won’t wait until morning.”

She sighed. “We’re going to be up all night, aren’t we?”

Chapter
Thirteen

C
al called the Barringer’s Pass police and told them where to find his sister. He saw Maggie make a brief call at the same time, and when he hung up, he asked, “Who’d you call?”

“My mom. Feather doesn’t like to be around if the police stop by. I think there’s an old warrant . . .” She slapped her hand over her mouth. “Woops. You didn’t hear that.”

Cal grinned. “It’s probably expired by now.”

“Maybe. But she’ll feel better if we give her time to disappear before they get there.” She stood. “Come on, let’s get going.”

He got slowly to his feet. “Um, Maggie, I know you want to go home . . . ”

She laughed softly. “We’re going to the commune. You need to be there when they question Amber.”

He pulled her close and kissed her forehead. “Thanks.”

A police car was already there when they pulled up, and thankfully, no media vans were with it. Sergeant Kyle Todd sat in the living room, his big body looking out of place on a delicate bentwood rocker. Cal wasn’t surprised to see him; the man had good cop instincts. He had a new ally in his investigation of Rafe De Luca.

The hugs they got were more restrained this time, the faces concerned. Todd had obviously told them about the search for Emily Banks. Cal looked around the room, recognizing the eleven people he’d met on his first visit. Even in the middle of the night, the commune had gathered in support of their guest—everyone except Feather. He smiled.

Cal stood by silently as Amber answered Sergeant Todd’s questions. Yes, she’d met Emily at The Aerie. They’d talked in the bathroom, then gone out to the bar. Yes, they’d both talked to Rafe. No, they hadn’t talked about going anyplace with him—she’d left before that ever came up. Cal got a dirty look. And no, Emily had not mentioned where she intended to go later, or with whom.

He didn’t care that Amber was still resentful about him getting her kicked out of The Aerie. His only concern was with how she would handle Emily’s disappearance and the realization that she might have come close to being the next victim. He wanted to assure her that she was safe at the commune, and that the police wouldn’t let the press know where she was.

He didn’t have to worry. She set him straight about that as soon as Todd left.

“I’m not an idiot, you know.” She sat on the living room couch after everyone else had gone, giving him a look that was both composed and condescending. “And I’m not a child. You don’t have to warn me about strangers offering candy.”

“No, you’re not a child. Neither was Emily—she was twenty-one.”

“Yeah. I hate to tell you, but Emily was a real noob.”

“A what?”

“You know, a newbie? Naive? She probably could have used that stranger-danger info.”

“Amber . . .”

“I know how to take care of myself, Cal. I was doing it for almost seventeen years before I got dumped on you, and I’ll do it again when I go back to L.A.”

He didn’t try to tell her that Julie had felt the same way, because he hadn’t really known Julie. Maybe she hadn’t been as hardened by life as Amber seemed to be. And it was true that once she went back to L.A., she’d be on her own. He studied her determined expression. “So how are you doing here? You haven’t expired from boredom yet.”

She shrugged, looking suddenly more vague. “They keep me too busy to get bored.”

“Milk any goats yet?”

She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t do goats.”

She hadn’t pierced her lip yet, either, and he decided not to mention it. “Make any jewelry?”

She hesitated. “Not yet. I’m still learning the techniques.” He saw a second of self-consciousness before annoyance flashed in her eyes. “This isn’t summer camp, you know. They don’t just thread beads on a string. Jewelry’s an art.”

He bit back a smile. “So I guess you’ll be okay for another three days.”

“I can manage.”

“Okay.” He stood. “I’ll just take Maggie home, then. It’s late, and we’re keeping you all up.”

Amber stood, too, jamming her hands in the pockets of her jeans. “Nah, they stay up late here. Header plays a mean guitar, and Ron and Marcy play, too. They do these old rock songs. That’s what we were doing before you got here. It’s kinda, I don’t know, fun.”

“Header?”

“That’s Paul. Header’s his nickname.”

“Oh.”

Before he could look too pleased with the changes in Amber and ruin the whole thing, he went off to find Maggie. He was already looking forward to coming back in three days.

The beauty of being on leave was that he could set his own hours. And if he wanted to spend an extra hour in bed with a woman who could set him on fire with just one heavy-lidded glance, he would. When that woman also had a flexible schedule because half her store had been destroyed by a truck, they could make it two hours. It was a pretty good way to start a day.

Life seemed almost normal now that they could walk out of Maggie’s house without encountering the media hordes who’d abandoned them in favor of the parking lot at the resort. Maybe it was a journalistic tenet—celebrity plus abduction trumped celebrity and bad girl.

While Maggie drove into town undisturbed, Cal met Sergeant Kyle Todd at the police station.

Todd had cleared it with his chief, calling Cal an outside consultant. Cal didn’t care what they called him. All that mattered was that he now had access to information he couldn’t get on his own, information that came only as a result of police questioning. Like which employees at the De Luca estate might have seen Rafe the night Emily Banks disappeared, and whether he was accompanied by a blond girl.

Cal met Todd at his desk, pulling up an extra chair. Todd was already going through the case file. “What did you find out?” Cal asked eagerly.

Todd tossed a sheaf of papers down in disgust. “Nada. No one saw Rafe that night.”

He didn’t want to believe it. Rafe had to have taken Emily someplace where he wouldn’t be seen by paparazzi, reporters, or fans. A remote road or vacant building was risky when he might be recognized coming or going. The estate was the only safe place. “His family could be covering for him.”

“Maybe. Harrison—that’s the cop who questioned the employees—said there were two live-in housekeepers. They have more when the De Lucas are in town, but the parents are in Switzerland now. So it’s just these two women and one of the beefy De Luca guards living in the house. Two other guards stick with Rafe these days, but they stayed at the Alpine Sky that night. Verified by the hotel.”

“Shit,” Cal muttered. “So we’ve got nothing?”

“Not quite.” Todd pulled out a typed report. “The three De Luca employees never saw Rafe that night, but someone saw his car. A kid, eighteen, lives with his parents just down the road from the De Lucas’ place, last house before their private drive. He and his girlfriend saw Rafe’s car go by about one thirty in the morning.” Todd raised an amused eyebrow. “Parents weren’t home. The kids say they were watching TV.”

“Great. So while two teenagers are screwing their brains out on the living room sofa, they happen to see Rafe’s car? On a dark mountain road with no lights?”

“Actually, they were in the kid’s upstairs bedroom. Harrison says he’s got a fifty-two-inch flatscreen on the wall. More important, he’s got a big balcony that overlooks the front of the property and the road. The only vehicles passing their house are the ones going to the De Luca estate. The kid says he had the French doors open and heard the car coming before he saw it.”

“Open doors sounds a bit fishy. It’s still hitting the freezing mark here at night.”

Todd shrugged, smiling. “Gotta air the place out when you’re smoking weed in your bedroom.”

“Ah. Good point.”

“Anyway, he hears this engine roar, says he recognizes it as Rafe’s car, and pulls his girlfriend out on the balcony to see it go by. Says there was enough moonlight to recognize it.”

Damn, just when he’d thought it sounded promising. “Hell, that could be anyone. He couldn’t even be sure it was Rafe’s car.”

“Ever see Rafe’s ride?”

“He’s always in a limo, with a driver.”

“That’s what the studio provides. But sometimes he goes off in his own car. He drives a bright yellow Lamborghini. V-10, 530 horsepower.”

Cal smiled as he got it. “Loud?”

“Nothing like it. And fast. Asshole’s gonna kill himself on these roads someday.”

From the mild tone, Cal gathered that no one in the Barringer’s Pass PD would much care. “Does anyone else drive it?”

“Not as far as we know.”

“So we’ve got Rafe driving to the family estate about one thirty a.m., maybe looking for a little private time with Emily Banks. Could he get into the house without the guard or the maids knowing?”

“That’s what Harrison wondered. ’Course, if we assume the neighbor kid recognized the car when he was most likely stoned and more than a little preoccupied with the girlfriend, we have to assume the household staff would also hear the car pull up.”

“Right.” He frowned, thinking. “Where else could he go? Are there any other buildings, maybe a guesthouse?”

“No, but there’s a pole barn where they store their snowplow. Not the most romantic location, but if your idea about him advancing to deliberate kills is right, it wouldn’t matter. Not being seen would be his priority.”

“And he wouldn’t drive by the house to get there?”

In answer, Todd got to his feet. “Let me show you.”

Cal followed him to a small conference room that was nearly filled by a long table and ten chairs. They walked around the table to a large map tacked to the far wall. It looked like a satellite image with the town of Barringer’s Pass at its center. Slightly above the town to the north and west, large swaths of bare ground marked ski slopes. In the winter they would stand out like wide, white roads. In the summer view, they were broad gashes in the forested slopes.

“Here’s the De Luca property.” Todd drew a small circle with his finger on Two Bears Mountain. The area sat on a fold in the mountain where rocky promontories jutted out, no doubt providing spectacular views of the ski resorts on both Two Bears and neighboring Tappit’s Peak, and the town in the valley between them. “This thin line is the private drive to the house. The barn is off to the left, here.” His finger pointed to a dark square just off the drive before the house.

Cal examined the property, trying to envision Rafe driving there at night with a very willing Emily Banks. She probably wouldn’t protest even if he drove to the pole barn instead of the house. She’d been coming on to Rafe hot and heavy.

He hadn’t wanted to believe that Rafe would move from impulse killing to deliberate murder, but every piece of evidence pointed toward it. Motive, opportunity, means—Rafe had them all. He had to operate on the assumption that he’d done it. He didn’t know how far Rafe would take it, if he’d kill her outright or have sex with her first. Either way, the barn was private, a definite possibility.

“You search it yet?”

“Getting the warrant as we speak.”

Cal nodded, envisioning his scenario. Rafe would have to dispose of Emily’s body. He squinted at the featureless mountainside, wondering if the one-dimensional image hid ravines where someone could dump a body, and where animals would soon scavenge it to an unrecognizable pile of bones. He pointed to a small black shadow on an otherwise bare spot of ground. “What’s that, another building?”

Todd shook his head. “It’s just an old mine entrance. They’re all over the place. Used to be silver mines in this area until they all played out about eighty years go. Mostly, they’re boarded up. A few are open for tourists.”

A mine could hide a body, especially if it was on private land. “Has anyone been inside it?”

“On what grounds? The De Lucas aren’t about to let cops go tramping all over their land, looking for bodies. Maybe if we find something in the barn.”

He was already looking for other dark spots that might indicate a mine. Unfortunately, the angle of the satellite image made the property to the north look foreshortened, and he couldn’t see details on the wooded slope. He tapped the spot. “Who owns this land?”

Todd peered at the map. “Let’s see . . .” He mumbled road names as his finger traced the route to the land on the other side of the promontory. After a few seconds, he snorted out a laugh. “That’s the commune where your sister is staying. Kind of a neat place if you’re there in the daylight. You ever see it?”

“What I’ve seen is their old silver mine. It’s right in those trees on the other side of the De Luca land. Maggie and I explored their mine. There’s another entrance to it that we never saw. It just might be on De Luca land.” Sergeant Todd gave him a quick look. Cal said thoughtfully, “I think I might explore that mine again, maybe see if I can find the other entrance.”

Todd looked thoughtful. “If you came out a different way, you wouldn’t even know whose land you were on.”

“Right. I’d have to look around a bit, see if I could find my way back to the commune.”

“That’s right. When do you think you might do that?”

He did a mental inventory. “Tomorrow, soonest. I need to get supplies first—ropes, lights, and maybe even pitons and a hammer. There’s a shaft I have to go down, with water at the bottom. A small inflatable raft, too, since I don’t know how deep it is.”