Lynn Osterkamp - Cleo Sims 03 - Too Many Secrets (6 page)

Saturday morning I pushed the whole Sabrina problem out of my
head. I drove over to visit my 87-year-old grandmother at Glenwood Gardens, the
cozy assisted living house she had moved into after her nursing home abruptly
shut down two months ago. I cherish my visits with Gramma, even though
Alzheimer’s has taken away so much of who she was. Sometimes she can’t quite
remember who I am, but we still connect at a deep emotional level that grounds
me in a way nothing else does.

I stepped lightly along the walkway to the door of the little
house, rejoicing once again that she now lives in this homey place with plants,
pets and people who love her. Mary Ellen, the RN who is one of the founders of
Glenwood Gardens answered my knock and gave me a quick hug. “Martha’s in
her room listening to music,” she said. “She was a little tired after
breakfast.”

I found Gramma sitting in her rose-colored easy chair; eyes
closed, head tipped back, fingers clasped loosely together in her lap. The
gentle strains of Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor filled the room. As I
moved slowly toward her, she opened her eyes and smiled. I sat on the arm of
her chair, hugged and kissed her, then leaned back against the chair with my
arm around her shoulders as we listened to the rest of the concerto together.

When the music stopped, I got up to turn off the CD player,
and then sat on her bed across from her chair. “Hi, Gramma. Are you still
tired?”

She looked bewildered. “Is it lunchtime?”

“No. We have some time to visit before lunch.”

Her eyes wandered to one of her paintings of orange poppies
on the wall above the bed. “I like this room,” she said. “I like
the flowers.”

“That’s one of your paintings, Gramma. I like it too. I
think it’s one of your best.”

She turned her gaze back to me. “Cleo,” she said.
“How are you?” I saw a quick flash of recognition and awareness in
her eyes that brought tears to mine.

Suddenly I wanted to tell her everything. I needed to confide
in someone who loved me unconditionally, and would listen without pushing me,
even if she couldn’t understand what I was talking about. The words tumbled out
like they used to when I was a kid with a big problem. “Oh, Gramma. I’m
having a hard time right now. I’m pregnant and I really want this baby, but I
don’t know whether I want to marry Pablo. He wants us to get married, but I
don’t know if that’s what I want.” I stopped and took a deep breath.

“Babies cry.”

Was that a random comment or was she actually cautioning me
about the stress of being a single mom? “I know, Gramma. Babies are a lot
of work. But I’ve been getting to know some single moms lately, who seem to
have kept up with their professions and their kids pretty well, by supporting
each other. Being a single mom would be hard but I could do it. And Pablo would
help even if we weren’t married.”

“I’m married to James.” Gramma doesn’t remember
that Grampa died five years ago, and I never contradict her about that. If her
memories of their life together feel like today to her, why spoil her
enjoyment?

“If I thought Pablo and I could be as happy as you and
Grampa, I’d marry him tomorrow,” I said sadly. Like an old home movie, a
vision of them happy and in love living in the old house before Gramma got sick
popped into my head. “But Pablo says he can’t live in Boulder, so if we
got married, I couldn’t stay in your house. And we have other issues. Like
trust. Years ago he deserted me to go off to Mexico to find himself. What’s to
say he won’t do it again?” I didn’t want to end up feeling like the Moxie
members do about their ex-husbands.

Gramma looked intently at me. “Happy,” she said.
“Be happy.”

“I want to,” I said, my voice breaking. “But I
don’t know how you and Grampa did it so well. Sometimes I feel smothered by
Pablo. Like this week. He’s been in California for training since Monday. He’s
called me every night, full of questions and advice to make sure I’m taking
care of myself. He acts like I can’t manage on my own. And I haven’t even told
him what I’m working on for Bruce. I can’t tell him, because I know he’d be
mad. That says something.”

Gramma patted my arm. She couldn’t know what I was talking
about, but she could tell I was upset. Much as I needed her support, it was
time to pull myself together, before she got depressed or agitated.
“You’re such a sweetheart, Gramma,” I said smiling at her. I moved
back over to her chair and gave her another kiss and some hugs. “I think
it’s almost lunchtime. Let’s go out to the kitchen and see what they’re
fixing.”

§ § §

I had agreed to meet my fourth Moxie member, Diana, late that
afternoon. She’s a physical therapist and a massage therapist and she had
invited me to come to her office to talk, after which she’d give me a massage.
At first I thought I shouldn’t accept, but then I figured why not. The Moxie
women aren’t my clients. Bruce is. And he just wants me to get information. And
a massage sounded wonderful.

Diana works at Holistic Energy, a wellness and rehabilitation
clinic that offers physical therapy, massage, Pilates, therapeutic yoga, and
other helpful services. The clinic occupies a large section of a fairly new
modern building in east Boulder. I sat in the waiting room for a few minutes
along with a fit young guy wearing a knee brace and a young woman with a
shoulder immobilizer. I figured Diana and the other therapists must be doing
well. Boulder is full of athletes—both elite and aspiring—fertile
ground for clinics like this one.

She came out wearing a sleeveless black tee shirt and loose
gray drawstring pants, and took me back to a massage room equipped with
comfortable chairs as well as a massage table. “I know you want to talk
about Sabrina,” she said as we sat down, “but I’m not sure what you
want to know.”

I took a minute to relax into the room’s dim lighting and
soft music, then pulled myself back to the reason I was there. “Just tell
me about Sabrina,” I said. “Anything you think might be important to
finding out what happened to her.”

Diana flexed the muscles in her right arm as she drummed her
fingers on the arm of her chair. “Sabrina is a loving, caring person and a
good friend, but she’s so co-dependent—always taking care of people,
rescuing people, always putting other people’s needs ahead of her own.”
She rolled her eyes. “I hate to say this, but her helpfulness is her fatal
flaw.”

I’m not a fan of pop-psych jargon. Why pathologize the
tendency to put others’ needs ahead of your own by calling it co-dependency? As
a nurse, taking care of people was Sabrina’s job. I needed more information to
see it as a flaw rather than expected behavior from a helping professional.
“Besides being a nurse and taking care of her son Ian, who else does she
take care of?”

Diana put her palms together in front of her chest, wrists
flexed, and raised and lowered her arms several times. “I like to keep my
muscles loose,” she said. “Now what were you asking? Oh, right, who
Sabrina takes care of. She’ll take care of anyone she thinks needs something
whether or not the person wants her help. When she started Moxie, she acted way
overly maternal toward us. She’d take care of all of us, if we let her. But we
didn’t. Unfortunately there were other people in her life who were more than
willing to play the needy role.”

“Could you tell me about one or two of them?”

Diana laughed. “Where to start? Her ex? Worthless
boyfriends?” She shook her head. “No. Let’s start with her sister
Brandi. Sabrina’s been taking care of her since their mother died when she was
eighteen and Brandi was twelve. Their dad was a total workaholic and he left it
to Sabrina to keep Brandi out of trouble. Which she couldn’t do. Brandi got
pregnant at seventeen, manipulated the guy into marrying her, then lost the
baby. She went back to her wild crowd and got a divorce. Sabrina convinced
their dad to support Brandi even though he thought she should learn to take
care of herself. It went on and on like that. Brandi would get into trouble,
their dad would threaten to disown her, and Sabrina would come to her rescue
and persuade their dad to keep supporting her.” Diana stopped, got up and
got us each a glass of water from a dispenser in the corner.

I thought about Brandi telling me about the strong bond she
and Sabrina have, versus Gayle telling me Sabrina didn’t want Ian left
permanently with Brandi. What to believe? “How do Sabrina and Brandi get
along now?” I asked.

Diana scowled. “Brandi’s thirty-four now and Sabrina’s
forty and they’re still doing the same dance. Brandi lurches from one disaster
to another and manipulates Sabrina into rescuing her. Sabrina feels sorry for
her, feels responsible for her.”

A grin replaced her scowl. “But their dad got the last
laugh. Two years ago, when he died, they found out that he had deducted all the
money he’d given Brandi from her share of the estate. Sabrina got most of the
money. Moxie had to work hard to convince her not to give half to Brandi. She
was so resistant, we finally had to do an intervention. She only agreed because
of Ian.” She shrugged. “But now Brandi is living with her, sponging
off her, taking everything she can get.”

“So your intervention convinced Sabrina not to give
Brandi half of her inheritance, but didn’t persuade her to stop taking care of
Brandi?”

“True, but a few weeks ago, we got her to give Brandi an
ultimatum about finding a job and getting her own place. So the gravy train was
finally coming to an end.” Diana put her arms behind her, interlocked her
fingers and pulled her arms up to stretch her shoulders. I could almost feel
the tension roll off her.

Bells and whistles were going off in my head. Had Moxie’s
intervention led Brandi to get rid of Sabrina in hopes of getting control of
her money before she was pushed out on her own? “Do you think Sabrina’s
relationship with Brandi has something to do with her disappearance?” I
asked.

“Actually, no. Much as I dislike Brandi, I think she’s
too disorganized to pull off anything like that. I mostly told you about Brandi
so you’d get how co-dependent Sabrina is. Where I think that’s significant is
with some of her worthless former boyfriends. Especially this guy, Erik, she
was with last spring. He was such a liar and a con man, totally using her, but
she couldn’t see it.”

“How was he using her?

“He had some holistic healing business and a deal where
he sold people kits to grow herbs that they were supposed to be able to sell
back at huge profits. She invested money and connected him with other people
who invested money, but the whole thing turned out to be a scam. They all lost
their investments.”

I gasped. My heart raced as I struggled to speak. “You
say his name was Erik?” I finally asked in a jittery voice. “What was
his last name?”

Diana hesitated. “It started with a “V.’ Maybe
Vane? No, Vaughn. That’s it. Erik Vaughn.”

Omigod! Erik Vaughn. A wave of dizziness washed over me.
Sabrina was involved with the sociopath I met last summer when I was helping
Elisa’s friend Sharon find out who murdered her husband? Erik didn’t do it, but
in the process of my investigation I uncovered a lot of his nasty past. And he
threatened to some day make me pay for that.

“Are you all right?” Diana’s voice sounded faint,
as if I were in a tunnel.

I took a deep breath. “I know him,” I said.
“He’s not a nice man. What happened with him and Sabrina?”

“He wanted to marry her. We were finally able to get her
to break up with him, but I think she might have slipped and gone back to him
if he hadn’t suddenly disappeared. She was shocked. Even though they were no
longer together, she couldn’t believe he left her without saying anything. Plus
he owed her and other people money that they’d invested n his business. The
police called it a scam, but she didn’t believe it. She was convinced something
happened to him. She never heard from him again—or so she said—but
she knew how we felt about him, so she might have lied about that. I think
maybe he came back and she went off with him.”

§ § §

Diana’s massage was so what I needed after hearing about
Erik. Her strong muscles and skillful hands wiped away the tension in my body
and left me slack and smiling. I didn’t ask her any more questions, just
thanked her and went home. When Pablo called that evening, I told him I’d had a
massage and was feeling great. Didn’t tell him about Sabrina or Moxie, or
anything else that might upset him. I figured Diana would call that
co-dependent, but I called it a sweet and satisfying conversation.

I woke up Sunday morning feeling relaxed and comfortable. No
nausea. Got me wondering whether massage is the cure for morning sickness. I
didn’t enjoy Diana’s dogmatic negative assessments of people, but her massage
was so amazing, I was ready to go back tomorrow for more.

This morning I was going to Elisa’s house in the foothills
for brunch. As I drove up the winding mountain road, I wondered what the Moxie
members would think about Elisa’s and my relationship. Even though we’re about
the same age—I’m thirty-seven and she’s forty—our relationship isn’t
exactly one of equals. She’s been a psychologist way longer than I have, she
has tenure at the university, and she has lots of money thanks to her husband
Jack’s skill at real estate development.

If they knew her, the Moxie women would probably remind me
that she can be bossy and high-handed, but I’d remind them that she’d lay down
her life for me if it came to that—which it almost did last summer. But
more than that, we have some chemistry that creates trust at a very deep level.
I can let go and be totally myself with her, which isn’t easy for a therapist.

Elisa met me at the door with a big smile and a glass of
ginger ale. “Hi sweetie,” she said, handing me the glass. “This
is in case you need to settle your stomach after the drive.”

“You think of everything, as usual,” I said, taking
a sip. I was still feeling good. Smells of wood smoke and coffee drifting in
from the living room didn’t even bother me.

Elisa had a roaring fire going in the living room’s moss rock
fireplace and food set out on the coffee table in front of the couch. The room
had a cozy ambiance, despite the vaulted ceilings and the wall of soaring
windows framing the mountain view that made their house worth the big bucks.

She took my jacket and motioned me toward the couch.
“Sit, girl,” she said. “I put the food out so we can munch.
Didn’t want to set a huge plate of food in front of you when you might be
feeling nauseous, but I do want to be sure you eat for the baby.” She had
made an asparagus quiche and blueberry muffins, and put out a gorgeous fruit
plate.

I sat and leaned back with a huge sigh. “Thanks,” I
said. “But I need to talk before I eat. This whole Sabrina situation is
getting so complicated. I’m already beginning to feel like I’m in over my
head.”

She sat next to me on the couch and turned toward me smiling.
“I’m all ears, girl. Catch me up on what’s been going on.”

I sighed. “I’ve been meeting with the five women who
were up at Indian Peaks with Sabrina. They’re actually a group called Moxie. A
single moms’ support group that they named Moxie to emphasize that they’re
gutsy adventurous women. I’ve met them all and had long conversations with four
of the five. The whole thing is kind of spooky. They don’t know whether she’s
dead or alive and they keep changing what they say. Which is especially
confusing given that they want to try to reach Sabrina through my Contact
project.” I leaned forward to put some fruit on a small glass plate, then
bit into a sweet strawberry.

“Tell me more about them.”

“Okay, there’s Gayle. She’s a real estate agent and she
Bruce’s sister, and she says she is or was Sabrina’s best friend. Then there’s
Hana—Asian, a computer whiz, and also a numerologist. She told me all
about Sabrina’s destiny number. There’s Lark, a nurse who worked with Sabrina
at the hospital—lives up in Nederland, very independent type, says she
would have left Moxie a while ago but Sabrina kept talking her into staying.
There’s Diana—a physical therapist and a terrific massage therapist, also
into boxing. Kind of confrontational and judgmental. Loves pop psych jargon.
Told me all about how Sabrina is co-dependent and an enabler. Then there’s
Paige. I’ve only met her briefly. Yoga teacher and a Wiccan high priestess. One
of those charismatic voices that can lead you anywhere. She’s the one who set
up the wilderness journey. They’re all smart, strong, powerful women, but
they’re all over the place about Sabrina’s disappearance. And they seem to
think my apparition chamber will give them answers.”

“Whew! That does sound like one strange group of women,
Elisa said, pouring herself a cup of coffee. “I guess they think that if
she’s dead they can reach her and find out what happened, but if they don’t
reach her, that means she’s alive.”

“Something like that.”

“I’m not telling you how to run your business, but you
did tell them about how people don’t always reach the dead person they’re
trying to contact?” Elisa said sharply.

“Not yet,” I said wearily. “We can’t really
have that conversation right now. They’re too distraught and confused to even
think about whether to go right or left. They just want to plunge ahead, hoping
for some resolution.” I sipped my ginger ale.

“So now you’re stuck right along with them? Is that a
position you want to be in, girl?” Elisa asked, her voice rising.

“It’s even worse than that,” I said. “I found
out from one of the women that Sabrina was involved with that sociopath, Erik
Vaughn—the guy who was friends with your friend Sharon last summer.
Remember him?”

Elisa shrugged. “The name’s familiar, but I can’t put it
to a face.” She bit into a muffin.

“Great face,” I said, “but he was a big-time
scam artist and worse. Selling people $500 herb kits they were supposed to grow
and sell back to him, but then he disappeared without ever buying them
back.” I put a muffin and a slice of quiche on my plate and took a small
bit of the quiche, which was delicious.

“Come on, honey! You can’t be serious! Why would Sabrina
get involved with someone like that?”

“For one thing, he has a hot body and a way of being
charming that’s hard to resist. I admit I liked him myself at first. But Pablo
met him a couple of times and no way found him charming. I think his police
radar picked Erik for a rat from the get-go.”

Elisa polished off a piece of pineapple, raised her eyebrows
and gave me that this-is-so-unbelievable look that I know so well. “So
Sabrina fell for Erik’s charms? Really?” she asked.

“I can only tell you what I was told,” I said,
trying not to sound defensive. I knew Elisa’s questions were well intended, but
I did feel kind of bombarded. I turned my face down to my plate and ate my
muffin.

“Sure. Sorry if I’m being pushy. It’s just hard to
believe she’d be with him is all,” Elisa said. “Anyway, what else do
you know?”

“This is great food, Elisa,” I said. “Anyway,
here’s what I know. Apparently Sabrina and Erik had a relationship last spring
and summer. He had a nutrition and exercise practice, Vaughn’s Holistic
Healing, and he did some work at the hospital where she worked. After she got
involved with Erik, she got friends and colleagues to invest in his
herb-growing business. Of course they all lost their money when he left
town.”

Elisa frowned. “Did she break up with him or the other
way around?”

“It sounds like she broke up with him. Somehow her Moxie
friends were convinced he was a con artist and no good for her. She resisted
but finally broke up with him. From my interactions with Erik, I know that
wouldn’t have been easy if he didn’t want to end the relationship. He’s very
good at getting his way.”

“So they think he came back after her?” Elisa
cocked her head, which I knew meant she was skeptical.

“At least one of them thinks that. She could be right.
Erik has a pattern of marrying women with money. The three women he married
died or disappeared under mysterious circumstances, and he ended up with their
money. Sabrina had an inheritance from her father. If she did marry him, it
could be the worst choice she ever made.”

“Do you think he convinced her to go off with him and
get married without telling anyone, even Ian? Why would she do that?”

“The police were looking for Erik because of the
herb-growing scam. Also, her friends are all totally against him. And they are
some powerful women. She probably wouldn’t have wanted to fight it out with
them.”

By then we were done eating. The sun was shining brightly,
which in Colorado’s altitude and dry climate warms winter days into feeling
more like fall. We decided to take Maria’s dog, Gustav, on an easy hike up a
short trail just down the road from Elisa’s house, and continue our conversation
as we hiked.

The trail was icy in spots and muddy in others, so we climbed
slowly, but it felt good to stretch my legs and work off some of the tension
I’d been storing up.

“Okay, honey. You have a theory,” Elisa said as
Gustav strained his leash, trying to get her to move faster. “But it’s not
a very good one. I just can’t see Sabrina leaving Ian that way. She would have
known he’d be worried sick about her.”

“But he’s not worried sick, is he? From what Maria said,
Ian and Brandi think Sabrina is okay and they aren’t worried about her. Maybe
she told them that she was planning to go off with Erik, but …Yikes!” My
foot hit something hard that made me trip and fall to one knee. It was the
skeleton of some small animal, picked clean and left on the side of the path. I
shuddered as an image of Sabrina lying under a snow bank flashed through my
mind. Suddenly I hoped she had gone off with Erik.

Elisa grabbed my arm and helped me up, while Gustav sniffed
the bones. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“Fine,” I said, ignoring a slight shiver. “I
just got distracted and tripped on those creepy bones. Anyway, maybe Sabrina
made Brandi and Ian promise not to tell because she didn’t want her friends to
know. Remember Maria said she knows something that’s confidential.”

“But what about the searchers? Would Sabrina go off like
that knowing all those people would be searching for her? Would she let her
friends go through the grief of thinking she’s dead? That seems so cold and
cruel.”

I stopped dead in my tracks. I didn’t want to see the truth
in Elisa’s points, but I had to face it. “You’re right! I’m just spinning
out possibilities without thinking through the details. When you put it that
way, I see the conflict. Sabrina’s friends all say she is a kind, caring,
helpful person. How could she do something so thoughtless?”

“Maybe Erik came and kidnapped her,” Elisa said.
“He sounds like the kind of guy who could pull that off.”

“Definitely he is. But that wouldn’t explain Ian and
Brandi not being worried. They have to know something.”

The trail got a little steeper toward the top and we climbed
silently for a few minutes, pacing our breathing. At the summit was a bench
facing the stunning view below. We sat and took it in. A spectacular mountain
view puts my world in perspective and clears my head of the fog of details
swirling around inside.

I had a sudden flash of clarity, followed by intense
foreboding. “Even if she is alive, I think she’s in terrible
trouble,” I said. “I think someone needs to talk to the police about
finding Erik.”

“And I think we need to find out from Maria what Ian and
Brandi know or think they know about where Sabrina is,” Elisa said.

As we wound our way back down to Elisa’s house, Gustav jumped
and pulled on his leash, barking excitedly. “He sees Maria’s car,”
Elisa said. “She’s back from rehearsal. Let’s go see if we can impress her
with the urgency of Sabrina’s situation so she’ll tell us what she knows.”

Maria was in the kitchen sitting on one of the high stools at
the center island snacking on the remains of the food Elisa had put away before
we went for our hike. We joined her. She sat on the floor and grabbed Gustav in
a big hug.

I had mixed feelings about trying to get her to break her
confidentiality agreement and tell us what she knew, but my concern for Sabrina
won out. I told her why I was worried that Sabrina might be with Erik.

Maria burst into tears, jumped up and paced around the room,
Gustav running frantically behind her. “I promised Ian I wouldn’t tell
anyone. If I could, I’d talk to him, tell him what you said about Erik, ask him
if I could tell you.” Her voice broke. “But he’s up in Copper
Mountain at a meet. I can’t call him now. He’s too busy to talk. Plus I don’t
want to upset him while he’s competing. You’ll just have to wait until he gets
home.” She continued pacing, her head in her hands.

“Waiting can be risky,” Elisa said. “Don’t you
think he’d want you to tell us? Wouldn’t his main priority be keeping his
mother safe?”

“He thinks she is safe,” Maria said, shaking her
head in denial. “But of course he doesn’t know all the stuff you told me.
Actually Ian and Brandi like Erik. They said he’s a good athlete and fun to
hike with. They were sad when Sabrina broke up with him. Are you sure Erik is
as bad as you say?”

“Absolutely positive,” I said. “The last thing
Erik said to me before he disappeared last summer was that someday when I least
expect it he’ll show up and make me pay for exposing him as a fraud. He said
he’ll never forget me and what I did to him and that he knows how to find me.”
I felt a surge of nausea—not pregnancy related.

“That’s pretty scary.” Maria stopped next to my
chair, blew her nose into a tissue and wiped her eyes. Than she sat on the
floor and gathered Gustav into her lap. “Okay, Cleo, I’ll tell you what I
know.” She paused, took a deep breath and continued. “Brandi told Ian
that Erik called right after his mom and her friends went up to the mountains
for their celebration, and he said that he had a really special birthday
surprise for Sabrina. So Brandi told him where Sabrina was. I guess he said he
was going up there to find her, but he told Brandi not to tell anyone except
Ian. She’s sure Erik went up and got Sabrina and they went off—like maybe
the surprise was a special trip or something.”

“Has she heard from Sabrina?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Isn’t that strange? Wouldn’t she call if she was on a
trip so everyone would know she’s okay?”