A First Date with Death (19 page)

When no one answered Cheryl’s rhetorical question, she said, “Why do you think it’s Ty?”

“We don’t have time to explain right now.” I turned to Scott. “Did Ty say where they were going?”

Scott said, “I haven’t talked to him since he was eliminated.” He rubbed at his head a moment, closing his eyes. “Let’s see. If I were him, where would I go?”

We all stared at him.

He made a face and shrugged his shoulders. “I have no idea. What does he want from her?”

“He must think she knows something,” Cheryl said, turning to me. “What does he think she knows?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe she put a few things together like we just did.” I pulled out Becca’s phone and looked at the last missed and dialed calls. Cheryl squinted over my shoulder at the phone.

“Those top three calls were for the show. Reservations and such, but what is this?” She pointed at a call and pulled up the information on it.

“Car rental,” the cameraman behind me said.

An awful feeling was building in my gut. They’d rented a car. Where had they gone and what was Ty going to do with my best friend?

W
e all agreed that calling the Carmel police was our only option. Unfortunately they weren’t exactly fast acting, and the fact that they had to coordinate with SFPD and LAPD made it all the more excruciating.

Paul had been brought in and I finally got to hear from his mouth that he hadn’t been on official business during the show. Cheryl for her part looked completely perplexed that Paul was a cop.

“I wished I’d known that,” she said.

I glanced at her. “Why, you wouldn’t have put him on the show?”

“On the contrary,” she said. “We could have used it. Imagine a real-life whodunit on TV. In fact, we could even have the viewers vote on who they think the bad guy is.”

She had a faraway, pensive look on her face and I suddenly got the idea that she was plotting an entirely new show.

I buried my face in my hands, but wasn’t able to hide my frustration. “Becca is missing, right now! Do you understand that we need to get to her before anything happens?” I screamed.

Cheryl looked shocked. “Of course I understand that. I was only saying—”

Scott put a hand on my shoulder. “It’s okay. We’re going to find her.”

Paul stepped up and said, “What do you mean, we’re going to find her? The police will find her. You need to butt out.”

Scott and Paul stood facing each other. It looked like a fight was about to break out. I stepped between them. “Hey, hold up. No fighting. We all have to work together.”

“This is official business,” Paul yelled.

“You’re not on official business,” I said. “You’re on paid leave or whatever.”

“Well, you’re not official at all!” He sneered in my face.

I wanted to rip his throat out, right there and then, but the thought of Becca being God knows where with Ty snapped me back to reality. Anxiety grabbed at my chest and I feared I’d hyperventilate.

Scott placed a hand on the small of my back. “We need to collect ourselves. Focus and think. That’s the only way we’ll get your friend out of trouble.”

I pressed my forehead into his chest and breathed in his scent. I could hear Paul grumble something, obviously angry that I’d decided to seek comfort in Scott rather than him.

The Carmel police officer who was helping us came into the room with a folder in his hand. “Well, we’ve been able to track down Ty’s record.” He placed it on the table in front of us. We all eagerly snapped for it, three pairs of hands working frantically to pull at the folder.

I noticed that Cheryl was busy tapping away at her iPhone and taking notes on a yellow pad.

I glanced at the sheet that Paul had scored on Ty. “Guy had problems,” Paul said. “It look likes Ty had invested money with Aaron and Aaron lost it all.”

“There’s motive for you,” I said.

“What’s that got to do with Becca?” Scott asked.

In an unrehearsed dance, we all traded sheets of paper from the file and studied them.

“He lives in Texas,” Scott observed.

“Check the flights in and out of Dallas and Austin,” Paul said to the officer.

Cheryl looked up from her iPhone. “I can do that!” she said, swishing a finger across the screen on her phone.

Oh! She’s going to help us now?

“Next flight out is in an hour,” she said.

We all looked at each other and leapt up from the table.

The cop waved his hands around. “Wait, wait. I’ll radio!”

“Do that,” Paul said, leading the charge for us as he ran outside and looked for a vehicle. There was a crew van parked on the corner.

Cheryl called to a runner nearby. “Who has the keys to the van?”

The runner looked alarmed and confused. It was probably the first conversation he’d ever had with the boss. “I do, but why? It’s parked legally . . .”

Cheryl waved a hand to quiet him. “Drive us to the airport, now!”

Scott, Paul, Cheryl, and I tumbled into the van.

My stomach was doing circles. If Ty was off to the airport, then there was a good chance he’d already gotten rid of Becca. There was no way she’d leave and not tell me.

“We need to find her,” I said. “I’m sure she’s not at the airport.”

Scott put a hand on my knee. “We have to find him first. Maybe we can figure out where she is from there.”

Paul glared at us as he watched Scott’s hand on my knee.

The nearest airport was in San Jose. Traffic was backed up on the 101. I felt like I would come out of my skin.

“It’s not right,” I said. “It’s not right. I don’t think he’s there.”

“Why don’t we let Paul and the police try and track Ty down at the airport,” Scott suggested. “And you and I can work on finding Becca. Divide and conquer.”

“Yes,” I said, relieved. Finally I felt like someone understood me. “Pull over, please,” I said to the driver.

“Oh, stop it,” Paul said. “You don’t need to prove anything. You think you’re going to find her any faster than we are? You have to let the professionals do their work.” He leveled his gaze at me. “You’ve never been any good at investigations, Georgia. Face it. You thought Teresa Valens was the bad guy.”

I felt rage building inside of me and fought the urge to lash out at him. Part of me wanted to bash his head in and make him pay for the hurt he’d caused me. But it didn’t seem important right now. It was more important to find Becca and I wasn’t going to argue with this man about my supposed incompetence.

“Pull over. Let me out,” I said to the driver.

The driver glanced in his rearview mirror at me. “Uh, I’d have to take the next exit and I have a mile of traffic ahead of me. Is that really what you want me to do?” He glanced at Cheryl for an answer.

Cheryl nodded. “Yeah. You can take Paul on to the airport. It’s probably best if we split up. I’ll arrange for another car.”

She tapped again on her phone, bringing it to life. No wonder the thing didn’t have any battery power left at the end of the day!

The next mile in traffic was excruciating, the three of us having a silent staring contest while Cheryl called a car service.

Finally the driver exited and let Scott, Cheryl, and me out. Paul barely glanced at us as we got out of the van.

“What now?” Cheryl asked as we climbed into the waiting Town Car.

“Let’s get my dad,” I said.

“Your dad?” Cheryl asked with more than a little trepidation in her voice.

I waved a hand around. “Don’t worry. I know you two are an item.”

Cheryl smoothed down her skirt, looking a little embarrassed, while Scott chuckled. “He’s a very nice man, your father,” she said.

“I know.”

There wasn’t much traffic southbound on 101, so we arrived at Dad’s hotel relatively quickly. Cheryl had phoned him in advance and he was waiting for us in his room. We figured we’d be able to work there and at least focus.

I quickly introduced Dad to Scott.

Dad quirked an eyebrow and looked back and forth from Scott to me. “The writer?” he asked, not making an effort to mask his shock.

I frowned and brought a finger to my lips, trying to give Dad a signal not to repeat our earlier conversations.

Scott chuckled, not missing a beat.

Cheryl and I brought Dad up to speed on the details as best we could.

Scott got comfortable near the window and stared out at the street. He was lost in thought and I suddenly felt bad. I’d thought the worst about him. Thought he’d lied to me and accused him of being a killer.

He looked in my direction and caught me staring at him. He offered me a smile with a small nod. “I think we should head back to La Playa Carmel. Maybe one of the crew saw something. Saw them together or overheard their plans.”

“Good idea,” Dad said, clapping Scott on the back. He seemed glad to have something to do and eager to get on with it.

And if I were being honest, I’d say he was probably relieved that Scott was in my good graces and there was no chance of Paul winning the game now.

We all left the hotel and walked the short distance to La Playa Carmel. Cheryl was busy tapping on her phone the entire time, presumably rounding up the crew into the salon for a meeting. Dad held her elbow as she furiously tapped away, so she wouldn’t trip. It was really too cute for words.

Scott took my hand and I felt the now familiar butterflies in my stomach.

When Cheryl finally finished on the phone, she squeezed Dad’s hand and I saw my own expression of schoolgirl delight reflected on her face.

We made it into the salon library; the staff members were already present with worried expressions and gossip afoot. It was a more skeletal staff than we’d had in Los Angeles, but still about twenty people, between the wardrobe and makeup crew, cameramen, lighting, sound engineers, and several runners.

Cheryl stepped in front of the group. “Gang, thank you all for your dedication to the show. We’ve had a bumpy and totally unprecedented ride together. I’m sorry to announce that Becca is missing and we need your help to locate her.”

Kyle, the makeup artist, gasped and shrieked during Cheryl’s talk so much that one of the runners had to hold him and pat his back. “I know, honey, I know. We all love Becca,” she repeated over and over. “We’ll find her.”

I found myself annoyed. We all loved Becca, yes, that was true, but nobody loved her like I loved her. She was like a sister to me and I was going to find her or die trying.

“Stop blubbering!” I said. “We need to focus here, people! Did anyone see her and Ty last night or even this morning?”

“She wasn’t with Ty last night,” one of the runners said. She was wearing a long-sleeved black turtleneck, but I recognized her as the girl with tattoos down each arm. “She was with me. We went out to have a couple drinks. She was trying to hook up with him, but they didn’t connect. In fact, I ended up with her phone. I had it this morning and took it to the mission to give it to her, but she wasn’t there. And then someone stole the phone out of my bag,” she whined.

“That was me,” Cheryl said. “We found your bag with her phone. We took it. Sorry. We were trying to locate her,” Cheryl said.

One of the electricians sprang to attention. “Wait. I saw her this morning. I think it was around eight
A.M.
I was in early to prep for the elimination scene—”

“Is there still going to be an elimination scene?” Kyle asked, eyeing how Scott stood so close to me.

“Of course!” Cheryl said, practically screeching. “We have to have an elimination scene; we have to have a finale!”

“Hold up, hold up. Quiet!” I turned to the electrician. “What were you saying? You saw Becca this morning?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Ty came to pick her up. They looked happy. He had an arm around her waist; they were giggling. I don’t understand—”

“Did they say where they were going?” Scott said.

The electrician scratched his chin. “Coffee, I think. She was talking about a latte. He said he’d fix her up with one right away.”

•   •   •   •   •   •   •   •   •

S
cott and I exchanged glances, our minds already working together.

“There’s a coffee shop on the corner!” he said.

“We need a phone.” I tried to swipe Cheryl’s out of her hand, but she screamed as if I’d stabbed her.

“No! You can’t take mine.”

Dad pulled his out of his pocket. “Here, peaches.”

“I need a smartphone. GPS, Internet—”

One of the sound engineers handed his phone to Scott. “Here, take mine.”

I stuffed Dad’s phone into my pocket anyway.

Scott and I exited the building and ran to the coffee shop on the corner. The afternoon fog, blowing off the coast, was in full force. Goose bumps covered my skin.

Scott shrugged out of his wool crewneck sweater and gave it to me.

“Thank you,” I said, taking his sweater and pulling it over my ridiculous sequined halter top. Now I was feeling more like me, but I would have loved to ditch the stilettos and put on a simple pair of Keds. “I can’t run in these shoes,” I complained.

“You look good in them,” he said. “But you look good even in pink bunny slippers.”

I laughed. “Now is not the time to win flattery points. Oh, and so you know, if I trip and kill myself on the streets of Carmel, I want you to sue. These shoes should be outlawed in every town!”

The coffee shop was open and the acrid smell of roasted coffee wafted toward us; despite it, I found myself craving something hot to drink. I skipped putting in an order, though; that would only slow us down.

“Were you working this morning around eight?” I asked the barista.

“Oh, yeah, been here since six.”

I described Becca, suddenly wishing I had a photo of her or Ty, but as soon as I mentioned Ty wore a cowboy hat and boots, she said, “Yes, they were here! I thought they were so cute.”

Relief flooded my body.

Scott jumped in. “Did they have their coffee here or—”

“Oh, no, they took it to go,” she said.

Disappointment ran through me almost as quickly as the relief had.

“Do you happen to know where they were going?”

“No.”

•   •   •   •   •   •   •   •   •

O
f course things could never be easy for me. I felt like a great big loser. I collapsed at the closest table and banged my head against it. “Think, think, think,” I repeated to myself.

Scott joined me with two foamy cappuccinos. “Caffeine. It stimulates the brain cells.”

“I think you’re lying,” I said. “But I’ll take you up on it anyway.”

I sipped the hot coffee and closed my eyes.

Scott fiddled with the smartphone in his hands. “Okay, they grab coffee. She says something. Something that threatens him. He knows that she knows . . .” He stopped talking and quirked his head. “What does she know?”

“She doesn’t know anything. I didn’t tell her about the file.”

Scott frowned. “What file?”

“The one that said you’d never been married and that Ty lost his rodeo money. The file that was stolen out of my coach.”

“Oh.” He was silent for a moment. “You’ve been holding back on me.”

I sipped my cappuccino. “Fat lot of good it’s done.”

“For the record, I really was married. What I told you about Jean was all true.”