Lethal Outlook: A Psychic Eye Mystery (23 page)

That was helpful. “Whose attorney is he?”

“Kendra’s.”

That was only slightly more helpful. “Her business attorney?”

Candice lowered her shades and gave me a knowing look. “No. He’s her divorce attorney.”

My mouth fell open. “So she
was
planning on leaving Tristan!”

Candice pushed her shades back into place. “Looks that way. Only, the really weird thing is that the papers for her divorce were filed with the county clerk this morning.”

I turned stunned eyes to her and she gave me a sideways grin. “I had a hunch and went fishing down at the county clerk’s office. The girls there are super sweet, and one of them said that she’d received the papers just an hour earlier from Kendra’s attorney. She didn’t put it together that it was the missing girl from TV until I brought it up, and I left her to call the police about it. I figure that since it’s lunchtime, we have maybe an hour before the detective assigned to the case follows up on the lead.”

My brow furrowed. “But how could Kendra file for divorce this morning when my radar is insisting that she’s dead?”

“That’s exactly what I want to know,” Candice told me. “And why I thought it okay to steal you away from your lunch hour.”

“Okay, okay,” I conceded. “You’re right. But can we maybe grab something to go? I’m starving, and you know my low blood sugar plays havoc with my concentration…which I’ll need to use with the old radar.”

Candice zipped us through a fast-food drive-through, and by the time we made it to Mr. Velkune’s office, I’d polished off half my chicken sandwich.

Kendra’s attorney worked in a fairly nondescript building, and according to the signage, he hung out his own shingle on the fourth floor. Candice and I rode the elevator up and moved into a completely forgettable hallway with gray Berber
carpet and off-white wallpaper mottled with a drab silver-blue print.

We found his office near the end of the hall, and I was prepared for a similar decorative vein inside, but I came up short when Candice and I moved through the door.

The interior of Velkune’s suite was a testament to Texas cattle ranching—not something that in any way dominates the ever hip and trendy city of Austin.

Velkune’s twin sofas were upholstered in a caramel-marbled leather with silver studs along the trim. A cowhide rug lay over beech-wood floors, and a longhorn skull with absolutely gigantic horns was mounted to the main wall.

A cowboy hat graced the top of a short bookshelf cluttered with rodeo trophies, spurs, a lasso, a cattle prod, and several photos of bull riders and cowboys.

Taking all this in, I eyed Candice nervously, slightly worried that if we didn’t watch ourselves, we’d be lassoed and hog-tied.

“Good morning!” said a cheery voice nearby. We turned to see a perky young woman with curly brown hair and a little button nose hurrying to get behind the front desk to welcome us. “Can I help you?”

Candice strode purposely over to her. “We have an emergency appointment with Mr. Velkune. I called about an hour ago?”

Perky trained her gaze to her computer, then back up to Candice. “Ms. Fusco?”

“Yes.”

“Please take a seat and I’ll let Mr. Velkune know you’re
here.” She indicated the sofa before picking up the phone receiver.

Candice and I both took a seat, though not a very comfortable one. I was a teensy bit overwhelmed by all the “yipee ki yay!”

Ten minutes passed and I began to tap my foot. I had another appointment in forty-five minutes, and it’d take us at least ten of those to get back to our office. Candice seemed anxious about the time too, because she got up and moved to the desk to ask Perky how much longer it might be, as we were on a very tight schedule.

Perky smiled apologetically and lifted the phone to talk to her boss again. After a short exchange, she replaced the receiver and said, “I’m really sorry. He said he’d be out in just a minute. He’s running behind because he just got back from his honeymoon.”

My brow shot up. “His honeymoon?” I asked. That might explain why Kendra’s divorce papers had been filed only that morning. I suddenly wondered if Mr. Velkune knew that Kendra was missing. “Where did he and his wife go?” I asked abruptly. When Perky turned her surprised eyes at me, I added, “I’m getting married next month and I still don’t know where we’ll be taking our honeymoon.” All true, actually.

“Corsica,” she told me. “It’s one of Mrs. Velkune’s favorite places. Her mother’s family is from that region, so they go there quite a bit.”

I got up and walked casually over to the desk. “Corsica, huh?” I said. “That sounds nice. You say he just got back?”

Perky nodded. “Late last night, so I’m pretty sure he’s still a little jet-lagged.” Perky then blushed slightly and said, “I think we’re all a little jet-lagged, actually. Mr. Velkune gave me some time off too, and I went to California to visit my parents.”

Candice and I eyed each other knowingly. “Ah,” I said.

At that moment, a very tan, good-looking man in his mid-thirties emerged from an office and flashed us a Texas-sized grin. I noticed his teeth were extra white against the deep tan he’d obviously gotten on his honeymoon. “Hey, there!” he said, hurrying forward to shake our hands and apologize for keeping us. “I’ve been trying to dig my way out from under a pile of paperwork all morning,” he explained in a voice with a notable southern lilt. “I just got back from my honeymoon, and there were a few motions that really needed to be sent over to the courthouse this morning.”

“Congratulations,” Candice said, walking behind him as he motioned for us to follow him.

“Thanks,” he said, holding the door to his private office for us as we entered. The interior here was more of the same decor as out in the lobby, except that, comparatively, I thought he’d held back in the lobby.

Velkune’s office was also cluttered with gift baskets and presents, and there was a banner still on the wall that read, “Congratulations Garrett and Seely!”

“Now, what can I do for you two ladies?” he asked when we were all seated.

Candice crossed her legs to hide the fact that she was switching on her iPhone’s recording device. Anything Mr.
Velkune told us in confidence about his client wouldn’t be admissible in court, but I knew that Candice liked to record all her interviews and type them up into notes for later. “We’re here about Kendra Moreno,” she told him.

Velkune cocked his head and furrowed his brow. “Kendra?” he said. “I just filed those docs this morning. Are you the opposing counsel for Mr. Moreno?”

Candice shook her head. “No, Mr. Velkune, I’m afraid it’s a little more complicated than that. Did you know that Kendra Moreno is missing?”

Velkune’s face drained of color and he sucked in a breath. “Missing?” he said. “When?”

“Almost two weeks,” Candice told him.

He blinked and wiped his chin. “Oh, God,” he said. “I’ve been out of the country. No one told me.”

“We suspected as much when you filed her divorce papers this morning,” Candice told him.

“Are you the police?” he asked abruptly, looking Candice up and down like he expected to see a badge somewhere.

“No,” Candice told him, but she dug in her purse and pulled out her PI badge. “I’m a private investigator looking into Kendra’s disappearance.”

“Do the police even know?” he asked next. I could see the shock on his face. The news really seemed to rattle him.

“Yes,” Candice assured him. “And I expect they’ll be contacting you shortly, but as I’m also investigating her disappearance, I thought we might talk a little beforehand.”

Velkune eyed the phone, and I knew he was thinking of calling the police himself. Candice must’ve caught that too,
because she said, “Please, Mr. Velkune? The more people we have looking for Kendra, the faster we might find her.”

He nodded—a bit reluctantly, I thought—and said, “What do you want to know?”

“When was the last time you saw Kendra?”

Velkune stood and began to pace the floor. “The morning of my wedding day. The twenty-eighth, to be exact. I was wrapping up some last-minute details here before going over to the church to get ready, and Kendra came into the office looking for me. She said she’d completely forgotten about my wedding, but she begged me for a little time because she felt she was coming apart at the seams. She told me that she was actually afraid for her life.”

Candice twisted in her chair to look at him while he paced back and forth. “Afraid for her life?”

Velkune ran a shaking hand through his hair. “Yeah,” he said, stopping to stare into space. “She was terrified.”

“Of her husband?”

“She didn’t come right out and say so, but it was pretty obvious things at home had become untenable. She’d flirted with the idea of leaving her husband a few months before, and I’d counseled her to take her time and make certain that’s what she wanted before she went through with filing paperwork. I mean, the couple had a son together, and it’s tough on a little kid to get shuffled back and forth between two parents. I know because I’ve been there myself. Anyway, I suggested counseling, but Kendra seemed reluctant.”

“Do you know if their relationship was physically abusive?” Candice asked next.

“I honestly couldn’t tell you,” he said. “She never confessed that to me in so many words, and I found it difficult to know what was going on in her home.”

“So that last day, Kendra came by and…” Candice let the rest of her sentence hang.

Velkune shook his head sadly. “We talked for about half an hour, and she said she was done with her marriage. It was over. She’d made up her mind and she was leaving her husband. She looked so upset that I agreed to file the papers for her as soon as possible. I told her that I’d do it the minute I was back from my honeymoon.”

“Did that calm her down?” Candice asked.

Velkune shook his head, still staring at the floor with that haunted look on his face. “No,” he whispered. “She seemed to get even more upset about having to wait.”

“Then what?” Candice asked when Velkune paused.

“I told her that I could recommend someone else for her, but she insisted that she only trusted me, so I told her not to do anything drastic. I asked her if she’d talked to her parents, and she said she hadn’t. I thought that she should’ve done that, you know? Anyway, I told her that it was impossible for me to file anything that day—I had to be at the church—but I promised to put the paperwork in the minute I got back from my honeymoon. I even came in at five a.m. this morning to prepare the motion even though I didn’t get home last night until midnight, just to draw up the papers and rush them over to the courthouse the minute they opened.”

“Did you recommend she get a restraining order?” Candice asked next.

Velkune went back to his chair and plopped down like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. He shook his head reluctantly and looked at us with guilt-riddled eyes. “You see, Kendra is a really sweet girl, but she’s also quite young and somewhat immature. There’d been no talk of Tristan ever being violent or abusive with her, so I wondered about this sudden urgent need to get the papers filed and this announcement that she was afraid for her life when she’d never suggested that Tristan was in any way physically abusive with her. I’m sorry to admit that I may have suspected this sudden display of emotion wasn’t just a way to gain custody of Colby and get out of a marriage that wasn’t working for her anymore.”

“Her story about being afraid for her life seemed fabricated?” Candice asked.

Velkune sighed. “You have to understand,” he said, as if Candice’s last question were an accusation. “I was a very distracted that day, and maybe I was less patient with her than I should have been. That morning there were things that I absolutely had to attend to before I left on my honeymoon, and I didn’t have the time for an upset client who burst into my office and announced that she suddenly wanted a divorce. I sat with her as long as I could to talk some patience into her, and still ended up being a little late to my wedding because of it. If my wife found out that I’d come here and met with a client on my wedding day, she’d kill me.” He then lifted his eyes to us, and they were clearly pained. “Do you think I’m partly to blame?” he asked in a breathy whisper.

That caught us both off guard, and neither of us answered him.

“I should’ve told her to get a restraining order,” he said, staring back down at his desk. “I should have insisted that she to go to her parents if she was scared.”

“You couldn’t have known what would happen to her,” Candice told him kindly.

But he just stared forlornly at the floor. After a bit he asked, “Do you or the police have any leads?”

“The police seem to be very interested in Kendra’s husband,” Candice said. “And the press has already made up its mind that he’s responsible. But no arrests have been made and there’s no sign of Kendra or her car.”

Velkune looked up. “Her car’s missing too?”

“It is,” she told him.

He seemed to brighten. “Well, then maybe she left on her own.”

“But her purse, wallet, credit cards, cash, and cell phone were left behind.”

Velkune seemed to think of something. “Is the little boy accounted for?”

“Yes, he’s fine,” she answered. “We’ve spoken to Mr. Moreno and he says that on the day of his wife’s disappearance, he found Colby in his crib, the front door of the house unlocked and slightly ajar and the back door wide-open with no sign of his wife anywhere on the premises. There was also no sign of a struggle or forced entry, and Kendra hasn’t been seen or heard from since the twenty-eighth.”

Velkune seemed to take all that in. “That doesn’t sound good,” he said at last.

“Nope,” Candice agreed. “The official status for Kendra
is still a missing person. Without a body or direct evidence of foul play, that’s how she’s likely to remain.”

“I really should call the police,” Velkune said, reaching for the phone. “They need to know what Kendra told me.”

Even before he lifted the handle, there was an urgent knock on his door and Perky opened it without waiting for an answer. “Mr. Velkune?” she said. “I’m so sorry to interrupt, but the police are here and they want to talk to you right away.”