Obsession Falls (23 page)

“I don’t know how she could have been. It’s cold here, not like your namby-pamby central California cold, but
really
cold. But for sure she was starving…” Mr. Brothers’s voice became gruff. “She did you a favor, and she paid big for it. I expect you’ll be wanting to return that favor.”

“I do. I will. No matter what, I will repay her.”

“Good boy. Let me know how it all comes out.”

“I promise.” They clicked off, and still Kennedy stared at the drawing.

He understood Taylor Summers had been unjustly portrayed by the media. Yet he had examined her life and found nothing particularly admirable about her. Her mother said Taylor was ungrateful and defiant. She had a good mind, but what had she done with her intelligence? She had become an interior decorator, a silly occupation. And with two broken engagements behind her, she seemed to be one of those women who passionately attached herself to a man and then, when love became routine, she broke a heart and walked.

Yet for all that, Taylor Summers fascinated him. Had she felt so passionately about injustice that she had risked her own life for an unknown child? Or had she seen in Miles and his kidnapping a chance to feed the excitement she craved?

He opened his photo app, and found his album with the photos of Taylor he had collected, and as he had every day for the past year, he wandered through her pictures from the day she was born until the day she had disappeared.

She had hidden from him so well. Now at last she revealed herself. She knew something. She offered the information. Yet she had sent no message, just the drawing. He could only assume she wanted something. He had only to discover what she wanted in exchange … and decide if he would give it to her.

A hand fell on his shoulder.

He jumped, and clicked off the phone.

Too late. In her scolding, overbearing, motherly voice, Tabitha said, “Honey, what are you doing, looking at her again? Taylor Summers is dead.”

“No, she’s not.” Knee-jerk reaction.
Shut up,
he warned himself

Tabitha continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “She did a wonderful thing. Every night, I get down on my knees and thank God that Taylor was there to help Miles. But that doesn’t change anything.” Tabitha rubbed his back as if she wanted to soften the deathblow of his dream. “She’s dead, she’s gone, you can’t find out what she knows, and this fixation on her is not healthy.”

It would be better if Tabitha didn’t know what he had received, better if she didn’t get her hopes up that the kidnappers would soon be brought to justice. Better if she didn’t know that the woman he had obsessed over for the past year was now making contact … for whatever reason.

He put his phone away. “You’re right, I’m sure. Now—if we don’t get back in there and get some of the carrot cake, it will be all gone.”

He didn’t fool Tabitha. She looked into his face. Then she sighed. “You’re never going to give up, are you? In fifty years, you’ll be an old, friendless man with no wife and no children, sleeping alone with the picture of a dead woman.”

“You’re dramatic.” He put his arm around her shoulders and turned her toward the cafeteria. “Let’s find Miles, get our cake, and for the love of God, don’t you dare leave me alone with any of the mothers.”

“Some of them are very nice women, and would be a welcome change from the type you usually are involved with.”

“What kind of women are those?”

“Dead women.”

Once his sister got the bit in her teeth, there was no stopping her. Or … almost no stopping her. “If you leave me, I swear I will leave you to suffer through these programs alone.”

She grimaced. “You win.”

“I know. I always do.” As Taylor Summers would soon find out.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

It was midnight before Barry stuck his head in the entrance of Michael’s office. “It’s not what we thought it was.”

Michael Gracie looked up from his paperwork. “Barry, come in and let’s speak in private.”

“Right.” The big bodyguard glanced behind him, stepped into Michael’s second-story office, the one with the all-encompassing view of Wildrose Valley, and shut the door. He walked over to the desk, put his hands behind his back, and waited stoically.

Michael put down his pen and leaned back in his chair. “What did we think it was, Barry?”

“Some of Dash’s brains.” Barry was not the brightest star in Michael Gracie’s constellation, but he could always be depended upon to speak the truth.

Michael hoped it didn’t get him killed one day. “Then, what was it?”

“Somebody’s finger.”

Michael waited a few beats. “How did somebody’s finger get under one of my barrel supports?”

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out. That, and whose finger it is. Some white person’s. It’s mashed pretty badly—fingernail and bone broken all to hell. Rotted, too.”

“So it’s been down there for a while, but how long is tough to tell because it’s cool in the cellar and that would slow decay.”

“Right.” Barry scratched his head. “I didn’t think about that. Good point. Anyway, we recovered a partial fingerprint. We’re running it through the federal database right now.”

“You used my software to get into the federal database, did you not?”

“Of course.”

“Good. I wouldn’t want you to try on your own.”

“No. I don’t do that computer stuff.” Barry stopped, seemingly overwhelmed by the thought.

“The finger?” Michael prompted.

“Oh. The finger. Only problem is, I’m pretty sure it’s a woman. Either that or a kid. It’s pretty skinny.”

“Why is that a problem?” Michael knew the answer, but he liked to walk Barry through every problem step by step. It increased the chances Barry would move from one problem to the next without undue confusion.

“If it’s a man, there’s a decent chance he was in the military, or worked on some federal or state program, or was arrested or went to prison. Then the feds would have his prints. Women and kids—not so much.”

“Let’s say this was a woman. That seems most logical. What was she doing in my wine cellar? How did her finger get caught under a wine barrel? How did she escape?”

“Oh. I know how she escaped. The finger’s been cut off right at the joint.” Barry lifted his hand and with the other hand showed Michael where and how.

“So a woman got her finger stuck under a wine barrel and cut it off rather than wait for someone to find her.” Michael allowed his simmering anger to heat. “What would make her do that?”

“She wasn’t supposed to be down there.”

“That goes without saying. But to cut off her own finger … what did she see that scared her so much she was willing to mutilate herself?”

“I guess…” Barry stared at Michael as if he couldn’t look away. “I guess she saw you shoot Dash in the head.”

“I guess she did.”

Barry paled.

Michael knew why. In prison, he’d been told that when he was enraged, his brown eyes turned black, and gazing into them was like looking into hell. When that happened, violence occurred.

Michael was beyond rage now. He was livid.

Barry’s broad chest expanded. “I made a mistake, boss. Are you going to shoot me like you did Dash? If you are, could I ask you to do it in the heart? My wife’s going to want to have a body to be the widow of, and I need a face for that.”

Michael found himself shaken by sudden, unholy amusement. My God, the man was a simpleton. But loyal as the day was long to both his wife and to Michael. For that, he got a pass on this one mistake. “As if I would shoot you,” he crooned. “If it hadn’t been for you, I would have been killed in prison. I owe you.”

“Ah, boss.” Barry’s battered face lit up, and he dug his toe into the rug.

“Now, what’s next?” When Barry looked confused, Michael spoke slowly. “What is our next move to find this fingerless person?”

“Oh. I’ve got guys looking at the security stream for the entrances to the wine cellar. It would be easier if we had security video in the cellar. Not that many people get a tour of the cellar. But we don’t have it in there because we use it for … you know.”

“I know.” Michael held himself very still, kept his face calm and serene. “But now we know exactly when to look for this intruder.”

“When?”

“When I shot Dash. And we know who she could be.”

“Who?”

“A guest. One of the caterers. One of my housekeeping staff.”

“Right.” Barry pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Let me tell the video guys we have a date to work with.”

Michael waited while Barry conveyed the message, then asked, “How are our winery workers?”

“They won’t be a problem. They all got a big bonus, a nice dinner, good liquor, and I suggested that unless they wanted a fast trip across the border in a body bag, they’d keep their mouths shut.”

“Good.” Michael wasn’t really worried about them. They had come from rough circumstances. They understood what could happen if they displeased him. It was Mr. Hotshit Winemaker who still didn’t have a clue. “Did Donaldson get back to the winery without incident?”

“You made him uneasy, boss.”

“The screaming in the cellar made him
uneasy
.” Michael smiled unpleasantly. “
I
scared the piss out of him.”

“I don’t know how you do it, without violence and all. I guess you’ve got a gift.” Barry was in awe. “But even with that, he wasn’t smart enough to know to stuff a sock in it. On the ride back, he asked the pilot a lot of questions.”

“What kind of questions?”

“Where you were from. How you made your money.” At one time, Barry’s nose had been smashed in a fight. Now the tip turned red with disapproval. “So the pilot showed him the Sawtooth Wilderness area, a close-up tour and low to the ground, and by the time they landed at the winery, Mr. Donaldson seemed convinced he didn’t want to know anything and he should get back to work.”

“Monitor his outgoing for the next year. If he calls the wrong number—”

“You mean like the cops?”

“Exactly. If he makes that call or sends that e-mail, stop it before it gets anywhere and let him know that’s inappropriate behavior.” Michael picked up his pen. “The exorbitant salary I pay him buys loyalty as well as fine wines, and as a good employee of Michael Gracie, he needs to remember that.”

“True that. But there’s one other thing.” Barry went to the door, opened it, and brought in a filthy, battered backpack. “I don’t know if this has anything to do with anything, but last week while the gardeners were cleaning up for winter, they knocked this out of one of the trees.”

Michael put the pen back down. “It was in one of my trees?”

“In the grove of pines out there”—Barry waved a hand at the darkened windows—“dangling from a broken branch about ten feet up.”

“Who put it there?”

“Dunno.”

“How long has it been there?”

“Dunno. A while. It’s damp and mildewy.” Barry viewed it distastefully. “I thought maybe this belongs to
her
. The one in the cellar.”

“Unlikely.” Although perhaps not. “Why would one of the staff hang a backpack in a tree?”

“I didn’t think about staff. I thought a paparazzi chick had been sniffing around with her camera and all, trying to get footage of you because you’re rich and famous, and ended up getting her tit caught in a wringer.”

Michael allowed himself a small smile. “Most amusing.”

Barry looked surprised, then pleased. “That was funny, wasn’t it?”

“Barry, you have potential.” That thinking did show an advanced sort of logic. “I like the paparazzi idea. Have you looked in the backpack?”

“The gardeners said it was mostly empty. I squeezed them to see if they’d stolen anything. Scared them. One of them put back the snowshoes that had been hooked to the outside, then they both started digging cash out of their pockets. Since cash was the last thing they were going to give up, I figured there wasn’t much else. The side pocket had socks and gloves. There were some drawings at the bottom.” Barry rattled on, not realizing what he had said. “The paper got all wet and the pencil bled so there’s not much—”

Michael held out his hand. “Give me the backpack.”

Barry looked at the backpack, then at Michael. “What? Why?”

“Give it to me, and go away.” Michael never changed expression, but Barry put the backpack on the desk, lifted his hands above his head, and eased toward the door.

When the door shut behind him, Michael caught the backpack’s metal frame and tilted it toward him. It was, as Barry said, damp and mildewy, and empty except for the papers wadded at the bottom. Michael brought them out and spread them on his desk.

They were wrinkled, water-stained, most of them almost illegible. But on one sketch, he could see enough. A car, two men, a child dragged from the trunk …

It wasn’t signed, but then, it didn’t have to be.

Taylor Summers. This was Taylor Summers’s backpack.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Michael crumpled the drawing in his fist.

Taylor Summers was still alive. And she had been in his house.

His intercom buzzed.

He pressed the speaker button.

Barry said, “We’ve got the girl on the security cameras, boss. She’s dressed in a caterer’s outfit.”

A memory sprang to life, of a woman standing in his kitchen, staring at him, her big eyes wide with distress. Michael turned to his monitor. “Show me.”

At once the security video took over the screen, and Michael recognized the corridor that led from the kitchen to the wine cellar. A woman dressed all in black walked toward the door. She pulled on the handle, hesitated, looked around, then pulled again. She slipped inside. Michael asked, “How did she get into a locked wine cellar without tripping the alarm?”

The video paused.

“I wondered the same thing,” Barry said, “so I went down and checked the latch. The door automatically locks, and the alarm works.”

Michael did not like that answer. “So the alarm was not functional that night?”