The Prophet (Ryan Archer #2) (3 page)

It was a perfect day. Sunny and warm. Not a cloud in the sky. Archer leaned against the Prius, staring out at the world through aviator sunglasses. He hadn’t changed clothes to meet an important potential client. They were hiring him for his skills, not his wardrobe. His eyes made the typical quick scan of his surroundings. He folded his arms over his chest.

“I’ve seen every picture this guy has ever made,” Webb said.

“I couldn’t tell you the last movie I saw.”

“What do you do for entertainment?”

“Things that don’t involve paying ten bucks to sit and stare for two hours,” Archer said.

“This place is crazy amazing,” Webb commented, soaking in the view.

“You could feed a small country for whatever they paid for a spread like this.”

“When I die I wanna come back as Jimmy Cloud.”

“I’d bet Jimmy Cloud isn’t praying to come back as you,” Archer said.

Webb cocked his head and grinned. “That’s a safe bet, my friend.”

The house was an impressive example of contemporary California architecture. Lots of glass and dramatic angles. It was huge. There was a separate building for parking, with three garage doors standing open. A Ferrari, a Bentley, and a Range Rover were parked inside.

“Nice toys,” Webb said.

A pair of unsmiling men in dark suits greeted them. Both men were tall and massive.
 

“Mr. Webb? Mr. Archer?” the blond one said. “I’m Griffin, and this is Dax. We are part of Jimmy’s personal security outfit.”

Webb shook hands with both men. Archer stared at them with his arms folded.

“Jimmy and Shay are inside. They’ve been expecting you.”

Shay DaVine was Jimmy’s most recent wife. She was a former swimsuit model turned actress. Each of Jimmy’s exes had been former swimsuit models turned actresses, and each of them had dropped off the Hollywood radar soon after their respective divorces.

Griffin led them through the house, Dax following closely at the rear. The home was furnished in dazzling style. Clearly no expense had been spared. A spiral staircase of glass and chrome ended at the lower level of the house. The back of the house was open to the sea. An infinity pool was visible beyond the patio. The lower level of the house was sprawling and tastefully turned out with an array of comfy-looking overstuffed chairs and sofas.
 

A fit-looking shirtless man was standing outside facing the sea. His hair was brown and bleached by the sun, and long enough to be twisted into a chic ponytail. He was tan and muscular but not overly so. The door to the patio was open and he turned when he heard the guests arrive. His wife was seated on one of the plush sofas with her legs tucked under her on the buff-colored cushions. Both of them looked very tense.

Jimmy Cloud was forty-five years old and desperately holding on to the life of a man twenty years younger. He had been one of the top box office draws in the world his entire adult life but his star power was slowly fading. Nothing lasts forever, even if you’ve sold your soul, which a person of Jimmy Cloud’s nearly supernatural stature had surely done long ago.
 

“Hi,” he said as he walked in, instantly charging the room with undeniable charisma and magnetism. “I’m Jimmy.” He appeared warm and genuine. He shook hands with both men, then introduced them to his wife. “This is my wife, Shay.”

“Please excuse my rudeness if I don’t stand up,” she said, touching a tissue to the flawless flesh under her eyes. She was at least fifteen years Jimmy’s junior. Archer thought he recognized her from a few magazine covers at the grocery store. But then again, all those models turned actresses tended to look the same to him —thin, gorgeous, and haunted by the knowledge that their beauty would fade sooner rather than later and there was nothing they could do about it. “It’s been a difficult few days.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you both,” Webb said. “We completely understand this is not an easy time for you.”

Jimmy was dressed in knee-length board shorts and flip-flops. His eyes were brown and there was a fine dusting of manicured stubble on his chin. He didn’t look forty-five, not even close. He could have pulled off
thirty
-five, easy.
 

“What can I get you guys to drink?” Jimmy offered.

“Water would be fine,” Webb said.

“I’m good,” Archer said, eyes roving from Shay to the multi-million-dollar view beyond the infinity pool.

“One water coming up,” Jimmy said, springing toward the bar on the south wall of the room.

Jimmy returned with the bottle and sent his security detail away so that he and his wife could speak privately with their guests.

“This week has been a living hell,” Jimmy said, taking a seat on the sofa next to his wife. “Tatum is our pride and joy. She’s my only daughter.”

Shay glanced up. “She’s not my biological daughter,” she said, “in case you were wondering. But that doesn’t mean that I love her any less.”

“Her mother lives in Miami,” Jimmy said. “We’ve been divorced a long time. Tatum and her mother have never gotten along, so she lives with me year round.”

“How long has Tatum been missing?” Webb asked, breaking the seal on the bottle.

“I last spoke to her on Monday,” Jimmy said. “She called my cell. I was at work. It was a brief conversation. They needed me on set and I didn’t have time to talk. We were filming in San Diego. I rushed home two days ago.”

“Mrs. Cloud?”

“I didn’t take his name,” she corrected. “This town is all about business, so I held onto DaVine for my career, but a lot of good that has done me in the past five years. I can’t get arrested, even married to Jimmy. Please call me Shay.”

“I apologize, Shay,” Webb said. “When did you last see or speak to Tatum?”

“It’s been weeks,” she said. “I know that sounds awful, but I’ve been in Italy. I’m working on starting a fashion line and have been traveling nonstop. So I’ve spent most of the past month in Europe.”
 

Webb had hooked his sunglasses on the breast pocket of his suit. His eyebrows went up. “So both of you have been out of town?”

They nodded.

“Who takes care of your daughter?”

“We have staff for that,” Jimmy answered. “It’s not as bad as that might sound. Tatum has tutors and a full-time nanny. We have a chef and housekeeping staff. All of them are like family to us.”

“How did you find out she was missing?”

“The nanny. Her name is Consuela. She’s Hispanic. She went to Tatum’s room Monday evening and found her bedroom window open. Tatum was gone. No one has seen her since.”

Archer watched and listened but didn’t add to the conversation. He was aware of Shay’s eyes on him but ignored the interest. He was absorbing the details of the narrative and trying to get a vibe about what might have happened.

“I’ve read a copy of the police report,” Webb said. “Did you tell them everything you know?”

“Absolutely,” Jimmy answered.

“Did you leave anything out?”

“No.”

“Please be sure,” Webb insisted, “this is very important.”

Jimmy looked to his wife for support. She nodded at him, crumpling the tissue in her hand.

“We told them everything we know,” Jimmy said.

Archer had drifted to the periphery of the room, away front the others but still within earshot of the conversation. He let Webb do the talking. Archer wanted to get a sense of who these people were and whether or not he thought he believed their story.

“So it is my understanding the FBI is involved and that they are already working the case,” Webb said.

Jimmy nodded. “That’s correct.”

“And they’ve already interviewed your entire staff. Is that correct?”

“Yes, I believe they’ve talked to everyone. Multiple times, in fact. Everyone in my employ has been more than happy to cooperate. The priority is to bring Tatum home safely. She is very dear to everyone. I’m sure you can understand that, Mr. Webb,” Jimmy said.

So far, Archer was impressed with Jimmy Cloud. He wasn’t the type of individual he had expected from the biggest movie star in the world. He was very well spoken and polite. There was no mumbling, and nothing to suggest that he used drugs or might be much of a drinker. He seemed friendly and forthcoming. These were purely surface impressions, of course, but the actor was making a positive impression on him, and that wasn’t necessarily easy to do.

“Do you understand what Mr. Archer and I do?”

Jimmy shrugged. “You’re into personal security, right?”

“We aren’t bodyguards, Jimmy. We don’t walk with you down the red carpet, and we won’t escort you to the Oscars,” Webb said. “What we do, among an array of other things, is teach an individual such as yourself—who lives in the spotlight yet has a desire for privacy and personal safely—how to live in a world that doesn’t always respect your wishes. And we are also very good at solving particular problems, such as dealing with situations such as verbal and physical threats, and kidnapping.”

“Do you think she might have run away?” Archer asked, staring out toward the horizon beyond the water.

Both Jimmy and Shay were quiet.

Then Shay said, “It’s possible.”

“How possible?” Webb asked.

“She’s never been a happy kid,” Jimmy said. “And she doesn’t always hang with the best crowd. She has some serious issues and has spent a lot of time in therapy.”
 

“How old is she?”

“She just turned fifteen.”

“Okay, right, and her father is one of the most famous people on the planet,” Webb said. “I can see how that would fill a kid’s head with plenty of self-esteem problems.”

Jimmy nodded. “It’s hard to make real friends,” he admitted. “Everybody wants to hang with her to be close to me. She has serious trust issues.”

“Tatum wants to be loved for who
she
is, not who her father is,” Shay said.

Archer had lived around Hollywood long enough to hear this kind of story too many times before. It was almost always sad, and usually the ending was sad.

“But that’s not the worst of it,” Jimmy added.

“Is she into drugs?” Webb asked.

“I don’t know, but I don’t think so,” Jimmy said. “I’ll confess I’m not always the most engaged father most of the time. But that’s not where I was going with this. Tatum has a rare condition.”

Archer turned away from the view.

“You mean other than being a spoiled rich kid with the typical life-crap of any other fifteen-year-old?”

Shay appeared restless and decided to stand. She was one of the most beautiful women Archer had ever seen. She was not necessarily his type, but still she was absolutely stunning. She’d been a model and he couldn’t imagine her growing up to be anything else. How did a person like that walk around in the world? He could only imagine how people stared.
He
certainly would have enjoyed a nice long look if he’d spotted her on the street. How could you not? Shay DaVine wouldn’t exactly blend in at the market or on a street corner. She had a face and body that truly stood out. A woman like that was created to marry an Arab prince or the biggest movie star in the world. There were no other reasonable options. But still, she wasn’t his type.

“Tatum suffers from heliophobia,” Shay said.

Webb glanced at Archer with raised eyebrows. Archer had no reaction.

“So is she like filled with helium?” Webb asked. “Like a
balloon?
”

“Helio, not heli
um
,” Shay corrected. “Heliophobia. It means she is afraid of sunlight.”

Webb’s eyebrows went up again. Archer again showed no reaction. Nothing really shocked him anymore. The world was full of so much dysfunction that science was running out of labels to stick on everything.

“I know how it sounds,” Jimmy said. “Like she’s a vampire or something. But it’s nothing like that. It’s all in her head. It’s a phobia. She was diagnosed when she was very small. There is no actual physical danger, any more than for anyone else. She simply has a fear of sunlight. So she only goes out at night and wears long sleeves, long pants, and always wears a hooded sweatshirt.”

Tears formed in Jimmy Cloud’s eyes as his emotional burden for his daughter began to surface. He could no longer suppress it.

“It’s a rare condition,” Shay said. “And there’s no cure or treatment other than therapy.”

“Shrinks have put her on all kinds of pills,” Jimmy said, “But I’m against all those pills. I hate meds. I hate what that shit does to our bodies. It’s poison.”

“Jimmy is a vegan,” Shay was quick to point out. “He is opposed to anything that isn’t all-natural.”

“Any suicide attempts?” Archer asked.

“Yes, but only nothing anyone considered serious. They were more like cries for help.”

“The police think there will be a ransom demand,” Jimmy said.

“If this is a kidnapping, there absolutely will be,” Archer said.
 

“Clearly your daughter has experienced more than her fair share of trauma during her short life,” Webb said. “So again, I ask, do you think Tatum might have run away from home?”

“No way,” Jimmy said, with an edge of indignation in his tone. “Something’s happened to her.”

“And you’re sure about the drugs,” Webb asked. “Seems like a reasonable assumption that a teenager with the hand she’s been dealt in life might gravitate toward self-medicating.”

Jimmy shrugged, “I honestly can’t say.”

Shay stared at her husband. “Anything is possible, I suppose.”

“Time is the enemy in a case like this,” Archer said. “We have to move fast. Every hour that passes, the likelihood of a positive outcome becomes more and more bleak. Does she have a cell phone?”

“Yes,” Shay said.

“Does it have a location feature?”

She nodded.

“I’m assuming you’ve already tried to track her,” Archer said.

She nodded again. “It’s been disabled.”

“What about last known location?” Webb asked.

“Like we told you, she was in bed. Then she went out the window and no one has seen her since.”

Archer walked toward the stairs.

“Do you think she’s alive?” Jimmy asked.

“Yes, I think she’s alive,” Archer answered.