Vendetta (7 page)

“This guitar belonged to Stevie Ray Vaughn,” Gonzales said offhandedly. “The kid collects.”

Collects what?
Cat wondered, as he opened a door in front of her. Robertson was busy typing something into a cell phone.

They walked into a messy, shabby bedroom. Cat expected to see more milling security guards, but there was only one person: a tall, seriously athletic woman maybe as old as thirty-five, with curly blond hair cascading over her shoulders and a face completely free of lines and blemishes. She was wearing a black, floor-length raw silk nightgown that exposed plenty of cleavage, with a luxurious black robe—looked to be cashmere—over it. There was no puffiness from crying around her large blue eyes. Her makeup was perfectly applied, shiny lips pursed together in a scowl. She wasn’t worried. She was pissed off.

“Hey, Miguel, Jim,” she said as the FBI agents walked in. Her words were slurred and she was none too steady on her feet. She looked past the men, did an eye sweep of Cat, then raised her brows at Tess as if to say,
Who the hell are you two?

“Mrs. DeMarco,” “Jim” replied, “these are the police detectives the Bureau has brought in.” He turned to Cat and Tess. “This is Mrs. DeMarco.” Then he walked out of the room, leaving Gonzales behind.

Hallie has to be Angelo’s stepmother
, Cat thought,
unless she had him when she was twelve.
She said, “I’m Detective Chandler. This is Detective Vargas. We’ll do everything we can to retrieve your son.”

Mrs. DeMarco made a face. “My son,” she said. “Well…” She trailed off. “Thanks.”

She was surrounded by open dresser drawers and jumbles of jeans, running shoes, and hoodies. An acoustic guitar had been placed in a stand in a corner. The room was decorated in early thrift shop—a cheap bureau made of painted particle board, a drawing table, and a twin bed with a peeling wrought-iron headboard. Pencil sketches of young men playing guitars and skateboarding were tacked to the walls. Books and sketchpads were scattered on top of the bare mattress. The sheets were stretched out on the floor like the chalk drawing of a body.

“I’ve looked through everything,” Mrs. DeMarco told Gonzales. “Nothing.”

Cat wondered why there was no one from evidence recovery in here. Maybe there was some concern for Angelo’s privacy… or something the family didn’t want outsiders to see. Drugs. Porn. They wanted to cover that up. Conceal it. Not a good plan. Anything that could provide information about where Angelo was and who had him should be available.

Just then Robertson walked back in. He was carrying a glass of what smelled like straight bourbon.

“Mrs. DeMarco, Mr. DeMarco is asking for you,” Robertson said. He held out the glass. “He asked me to give this to you to help steady your nerves.”

So FBI agents double as cocktail waiters?
These guys were way too familiar with the DeMarco family. It was clear to Cat that this wasn’t the first time they’d dealt with each other.

Hallie DeMarco took the drink and guzzled it down without pausing. Then she handed the empty glass back to Robertson and swayed out of the room. Gonzales sighed and shook his head.

“Let’s get to work.” Robertson moved to the pile of clothes on the bed. He said to Gonzales, “Did she take anything?”

Gonzales colored and turned to Cat and Tess. “As you may have surmised, there’s no love lost between Hallie DeMarco and Angelo. She’s his second stepmother, and she’s pretty new. Just two years into the marriage. He’s called her a gold digger to her face.”

“Is she?” Tess asked calmly.

“She’s not on trial here,” Robertson said icily.

Yet
, Cat thought. “We’re not accusing her of anything.” She was irritated that she had to placate a fellow professional like this. “But if there is any reason to suspect that she had a hand in the abduction, we need to find that out.”

“There’s no reason,” Robertson replied, but Gonzales spoke over him.

“She doesn’t like Angelo. At all.” he interjected.

Cat followed up. “Why not?”

“Hallie Schneider was an LVN—a licensed vocational nurse—before she married Mr. DeMarco. An… employee of DeMarco’s had placed his mother in the assisted living facility Hallie was working in and she caught DeMarco’s eye when he came to pay his respects.”

That didn’t exactly answer Cat’s question. She assumed Hallie was insecure about her hold on DeMarco, and didn’t like having to deal with a resentful stepson who could influence his father against her. Angelo’s rebellion might be directed at her. Maybe he was worried that if his father had a child with his new wife, he would be supplanted, maybe even disinherited.

“Did she assist Angelo with his diabetic treatments?” Tess asked.

“That was his dad’s hope, but Angelo wouldn’t let her come near him.”

“Where’s his mom?”

“Undetermined,” Gonzales said. “She cut off contact when Angelo was a baby and we haven’t found her. Mr. DeMarco thinks she may be deceased.”

Okay, that’s weird
, Cat thought. By her answering expression, Tess was thinking the same thing.

“Let’s get back to work,” Robertson said. He put on a pair of gloves and began to search methodically through the clothing on the bed. He dug his hands into pockets and turned socks inside out. Gonzales flicked on a flashlight, dropped to his knees, and peered under the bed.

He pulled out what appeared to be a sketchbook, but was actually a musical composition book. Robertson kept examining the clothing. Cat put on fresh gloves and Tess followed suit, even though it was odd to both of them that ERU wasn’t performing these tasks, and soon they were slowly paging through the book. There were no lyrics, just notes on musical staffs.

“You said he collected,” Cat said.

“Oh. Yeah.” Gonzales walked to what appeared to be a standard clothes closet. But when he opened it, a huge room was revealed, and in it, there were dozens of guitars in glass cases like the Stevie Ray Vaughn in the stair landing. On the walls hung large black-and-white photographs of guitarists. Cat recognized Elvis Presley and Jimi Hendrix. The others were unknown to her.

“Does he play as well as collect?” Cat asked. She looked down at the music book. “Are these his songs?”

“He’s terrible,” Mrs. DeMarco said behind them. She came up beside Cat and tapped the book. “He liked to go to clubs and write down what he heard. So he could steal it. Sometimes the musicians invited him to sit in but trust me, they were doing it because of who he is. He was so bad he didn’t even know he was bad.”

Okay, and at least some parts of sentences were in present tense
, Cat thought.
So maybe she doesn’t have special knowledge that our vic is dead.
Speaking of missing persons in past tense could serve as an indicator of participation… and guilt.

Mrs. DeMarco ambled down a row of guitars. “You can’t believe how much money is in these things. Tony’s such a sucker when it comes to that kid.”

“But of course you’re worried sick about him,” Robertson coached her.

“Huh? Oh, right. Of course I am.”

And for one moment, something slipped on her face and she looked completely and utterly miserable. It was as if she forgot to be hard and instead revealed just how young and out of her depth she was. People under extreme stress did that, just dropped the act and showed their real faces. The best example of that was Vincent, whose classic stress reaction was to beast out.

Not any more. He’s got it under control
, Cat told herself firmly.

Cat didn’t go so far as to pity Hallie DeMarco but she made a mental note to check into her history. And to see what they could discover about Angelo’s mother. There was a lot going on beneath the surface of the DeMarco compound, that was for sure.

“Sir?” said a voice, and Cat, Tess, and the two agents all turned to see the dark-skinned woman from the recovery unit hovering in the doorway with a matchbook in her hand. Cat hadn’t even seen her enter the bedroom.

The tech was excited. “I just found this under the vic’s bed.”

“You mean Angelo DeMarco. He has a name,” Robertson growled. His eyes flashed with fury as he advanced on the young woman and grabbed the matchbook. “I
said
that Special Agent Gonzales and I would personally search his room.”

“I’m sorry, sir. I—I didn’t hear that,” said the crestfallen woman.

“No matter. The damage is done now.”

Damage
, Cat noted. She knew Tess was listening just as hard.

Tess and Cat gathered next to Robertson. The front cover of the matchbook was gray, and the word
turntable
was printed in smeared black letters.

“That’s a club,” Tess said. “For people into vinyl records. You know, the classics.” Cat blinked in surprise that Tess would know such a thing. “J.T. took me there.” Her cheeks reddened and Cat forced away a grin. A real date. That she had not yet heard about. That was something to look forward to.

“That’s the kind of place he liked to go,” Mrs. DeMarco said.

Liked
. Past tense again.

“Does he have any friends there, people he meets on a regular basis?” Cat asked, ignoring Robertson’s baleful looks. She wasn’t going to stand there and do
nothing
, for heaven’s sake. She had sworn an oath to protect and serve, not to avoid offending the FBI. In fact, if anything, the FBI owed her big-time.

“No clue.” Hallie DeMarco glanced over at Robertson. Clearly she was unwilling or unable to respond in his presence.

“May I?” Cat asked the tech, who looked flustered as she took the matchbook and examined it. There was a string of seven numbers written in blue ink on the inside flap. Could be a phone number without an area code. She let Tess take a picture of it with her phone, then positioned the cover for another picture. Robertson practically snatched it out of her hand.

“We’ll take care of that,” he said, thrusting it back at the tech. Then he turned to go back into the bedroom. Gonzales followed. After a couple of seconds, Mrs. DeMarco went inside, too.

“No kidding this is an inside job,” Tess muttered.

Together the two detectives walked through Angelo DeMarco’s guitar museum. Nearly all the instruments were electric, except for a very few that were displayed in the cases the farthest away from the door. Then in the very last case sat a child-size guitar, which was painted shocking pink and decorated with periwinkle-blue flowers.

“I saw guitars like this for sale when I was in Cancun with Gabe,” Cat told Tess. “A street vendor had a souvenir cart filled with them, and maracas and castanets.”

“Cancun. Gabe. Stop. You’re making me shudder,” Tess said. “I know, right?
Gabe
.” Cat couldn’t believe she’d ever slept with Gabe either. Repeatedly. They’d taken that trip when Gabe had pretended be dead so they could flush out Sam Landon, the man who had created new beasts to take out the “Masters of the Universe,” the ultra-hush-hush organization of the rich and ruthless that had backed Muirfield.

In Cancun there had been massages and lovemaking and convincing herself that Vincent was nothing more than a memory. Just thinking about it made Cat grimace. Gabe was her bitterest enemy now, although he didn’t see himself that way. He believed he was her white knight. He had made her life a living hell so that he could
protect
her.

The same as my father
, she thought.
And now my father is missing.
Until that very moment, she hadn’t allowed herself a single second to dwell on that, and now, just as agony had ruptured Mrs. DeMarco’s mask, thoughts of him crashed through the wall she had erected so she could do her job. It infuriated her that she was being jerked around by Robertson and Gonzales instead of looking into her father’s disappearance.

“And… we’re back from Mexico,” Tess murmured pointedly.

“Sorry.” Cat opened the case and took out the pink guitar. “Why would he have this?” she asked. “Did it belong to someone famous? Shirley Temple?”

“Maybe it was Angelo’s first guitar?” Tess ventured. “Wouldn’t that be weird? I mean, I don’t care that it’s pink, but wouldn’t his so-very-sexist dad?”

Cat turned the guitar over to examine the back. Something fluttered out of the sound hole and Tess bent to retrieve it. It was a blurry Polaroid of a little redheaded girl. There was something about her that caught Cat’s attention, but she couldn’t figure out what it was.

“Does this ring a bell?” she asked Tess, and Tess considered. She took the photograph and held it closer.

“Maybe?” Tess said. “I’m not sure.” She pulled out her phone and snapped a picture of it. “I’m tempted to take it.”

“Then we’re breaking laws and we do that often enough,” Cat said. “I suppose we should show it to the agents.”

“Show what?” said a voice behind Cat, and she jerked, startled. Agent Robertson had come up behind her. He took the photograph and the guitar. “What’s this?” “The photograph was inside the guitar.” She pointed to the sound hole. “Maybe he hid it there. It could be a family member, or some kind of link.”

“Naw. It’s nothing,” he replied. “I’m sure he doesn’t know it’s even there.” He stuffed the photograph back in in the guitar and put the guitar back in the display case.

Finally, Cat lost her temper. “How can you be so sure?”

He sighed. “I just am. Just leave all this to us. We’re FBI.”

She said, “
We
are professionals too.” As soon as she said it, she regretted it. She didn’t want him to know he was getting to her.

“Last call for clubs in the city is four a.m.,” Tess said. “It’s after three now. There’s a mandatory curfew on businesses but they might be open. Not sure if we could get there before closing with the traffic but we might catch staff.”

“You wanted to talk to Bailey Hart,” Gonzales said. “I’ll get someone to take you down to him.”

Cat traded looks with Tess. If they talked to Bailey Hart, they would miss out on the club. But as they say, a bird in the hand was worth two in the bush. And it was doubtful that the club was open.

“Okay,” Cat said.

Gonzales said into his phone, “I need someone with a retinal scan in the database.”