Written In Blood (24 page)

“Whoa!” he said, a hint of admiration. “You’re one cool bitch.”

She shot him a silent look of contempt at his choice of words and waited for his story.

“It happened surfing,” he said, and she could tell that he enjoyed having a captive audience. “I’ve surfed some of the best beaches in the world—Hawaii, Australia, you name it. I fucking
lived
in the water.” He pushed back his chair and stood up smoothly with practiced ease, beckoning Claudia to follow. “Come with me. I want you to see something.”

He walked without any discernible limp toward an area enclosed by a wall about fifty yards from the terrace.

Feeling uneasy, Claudia crossed the lawn with him, wondering why he chose to display such an obvious prosthesis, rather than a realistic-looking limb. From what she knew of him, it was probably intended to make others uncomfortable.

Dominic Giordano unlocked a pair of riveted steel doors and led her through to an enormous inground tank. Her stomach churned with a sick premonition as she peered into the water.

The flat gray blade of a dorsal fin sliced the surface, moving in lazy circles. Claudia turned to Giordano, who was closely observing her reaction. “Why are you showing me this?” she asked, slightly breathless.
Jaws
had never been her favorite movie.

“He took my freedom,” Giordano said. “I took his.”

“You lost your leg to a shark?”

“Yeah, he was a big mutha—six-footer. Bit my board in half, got my leg with it.”

Claudia’s eyes widened in horror. She took a step back from the water. “My God, that’s horrible. How did you get away?”

“Hammered his goddamn nose with my fist until he let go. Made it to shore with one leg. He had my other one for lunch.”

The thought made her stomach curl. “So you captured another shark, for what, revenge?”

“You got it.”

“What good did that do?”

He gave her a smile that was halfway between a leer and a grimace. “Shows the world that
nobody
fucks with Dominic Giordano and gets away with it.” Giordano grinned at her and went over to a large barrel standing on the pool deck. He lifted the lid, reached inside, and hauled out a hunk of raw meat dripping with blood and tossed it into the pool.

With stunning speed the shark rose out of the water, its powerful jaws spread wide. The razor-edged teeth clamped into the flesh. A split second later only a red stain remained in the water.

“What did you just feed it?” Claudia asked, afraid of the answer.

Giordano grabbed another hunk of meat from the barrel and held it up so she could see the sleek black pelt before he tossed it to the shark. “Baby seal.”

“I’m sorry I asked,” she said, resolving to find out which organization protected seals and report him.

“They hang out down on the rocks in the cove,” he said, pointing toward the beach. “Just club one a couple of times and
ecco
, my shark has dinner.”

“Stop it,” she broke in angrily. “I don’t want to know.”

Giordano took a folded cloth from the top of a pile of damask napkins on a small table beside the barrel and wiped the seal blood from his hands, observing her distress with amusement.

Claudia met his gaze with a stony glare. “What’s your point, Mr. Giordano?”

“Claudia,
prego
, call me Dominic,” he said in an ingratiating tone. “Aren’t we friends?”

“No,” she snapped. “We are
not
friends. I want to know why you’re showing me this.”

“I want to impress you, Claudia,” he said in a voice as smooth as silk.

“Well, this sure as hell won’t do it.”

He reached out suddenly and stroked her bare arm. The fine hairs rose and her breath caught in surprise. Then she got ahold of herself. She wasn’t a teen actress or a young nanny in his employ, or Diana Sorensen, who apparently had fallen under his spell. Claudia knew what he was capable of, but she wasn’t beholden to him. He had no power over her like he did the shark. She swung around and started back to the terrace.

“Hey,” he called after her with a mocking laugh. “You gonna leave a poor crip to fend for himself?”

She spun back to face him. “You’re no cripple.”

“You got that right,” he admitted with a great deal of pride. He lengthened his stride to catch up with her. “By the way, I still surf. No fucking shark is gonna take that away from me.”

 
Giordano walked beside her in silence for a dozen paces; then he said, “Listen, Claudia, I know you’re worried about the kid—my sources tell me the two of you were pretty tight. I need to find her, too, before the cops do. You can help Annabelle by telling me how you came to find the Sorensen woman’s body.”

Claudia narrowed her eyes in suspicion. “How’s that supposed to help Annabelle?”

“I got better investigators than the cops. You tell me everything you know, I’ll find her faster than they do.”

The January sun was warm. They arrived at the terrace and the maid magically appeared and poured ice teas. Giordano sat down at the table and leaned forward, his forearms pressing against the glass. “I want to know what the cops know and you can tell me.”

Claudia drank some tea and considered what he had said. “What
I
want to know,” she said, “is who took Paige to that house and why they killed her. And don’t tell me it was Annabelle.”

A disturbing notion struck her. What if Giordano himself was behind the killing and he just wanted to know how much she knew? A motive didn’t surface immediately, but still . . . Then she remembered the man who had stormed out of the house when she and Juan arrived. He looked like he could be a hit man for the Mob. At least, a TV image of one.

Giordano held her gaze so piercingly and for so long that she got the distinct impression that he knew exactly what she was thinking. It was all she could do not to squirm.

He carefully unfolded a napkin and wiped condensation from his glass. “You got any kids, Claudia?”

“I’m sure you already know I don’t.”

Giordano shook his head. “They make you
insano
, kids. And this one’s had a lot of practice. Started running away when she was seven. You know she’s got a rap sheet for shoplifting and car boosting?”

Even now that it didn’t make any difference, Claudia wasn’t going to admit that Paige had shared that information with her.

She said, “So what? When I was her age I got picked up with kids shoplifting, too. I got past it.”

Giordano’s brows lifted in surprise. “You? I wouldn’t have guessed that.”

“I was with the wrong people at the wrong time.” The memory of the fear and humiliation of that weekend was still strong. Being left in juvenile detention because her mother refused to allow her to come home was one of the worst experiences of her life. She didn’t tell him that she hadn’t actually stolen anything. The older kids who took her along for cover were the ones stuffing their pockets with candy.

“Annabelle’s problems are a lot bigger than just being with the wrong people,” Giordano said.

“Losing her mother at such a young age had to be hard on her.”

“Her mother?” His lips twisted. “She’s better off without that ungrateful slut.”

Giordano’s words shocked Claudia into silence. Then she found her voice. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“What do you think it means? She screwed around on me. That bitch was nothing but a teenybopper bit player when I found her. I sent her to the best acting school, voice lessons, you name it. I put up money for films she could star in.” His voice heated up and his complexion suffused a dark crimson as old anger kicked in. “When she insists on this bozo Tony Belmont to costar, I look into it and find out she’d been screwing him for over a year.”

“I don’t know about that,” Claudia said. “But I saw a picture of her in Annabelle’s room at school. It was obvious from the way she looked at her how much she loved Annabelle. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

“Who the fuck knows if she’s even my kid?” Giordano sucked in a deep breath, looking as though he were trying to bring his bitter anger under control.

“Is that why you’re so cold to her?” Claudia asked.

He threw her a scornful look. “What the hell do you know? You show up a few times, give her handwriting lessons, go home. You don’t know a goddamn thing about it.”

Claudia knew it would be better if she let it go, but something compelled her to keep pushing the issue. She knew it was foolish, but it felt like defending Annabelle’s mother would help to draw the girl back.

“If you think she’s not your child, why don’t you have DNA testing done?” she asked.

The look he turned on her made her regret the question. Maybe for some reason of his own, he didn’t want to know. “Listen, lady,” he said. “I don’t need you psychoanalyzing me. I just need to find that kid before she does any more damage.”

Handwriting didn’t lie, and Claudia had studied Annabelle’s until her eyes hurt. If she listened to Giordano, he was telling her that his daughter was a raving sociopath. She said, “If you’d seen Paige’s body, there’s no way you could believe Annabelle was involved in her death.”

He shook his head in what she judged to be mock sadness. “Claudia, Claudia, you think I’m a coldhearted monster like that bastard out there in the tank? You got no idea what I’ve been through with her.” He broke off and stood up. “Come with me.”

“What this time?”

His laugh grated. “No more sharks, just Annabelle’s room.”

Claudia followed him upstairs to a large bedroom made bright by a bank of windows overlooking the grove of avocado trees. Taking in the flat-panel television, the iMac on a built-in computer desk, the DVD surround-sound system, she couldn’t fault Giordano for the material comforts he’d provided. Annabelle appeared to have it all.

Giordano crossed the room to a large cardboard box that had been placed on a chair. Ripped open, strips of peeled back adhesive tape hanging loose. “Sorensen Academy sent all her shit home,” he said, reaching in and taking out a leather-bound book. Claudia remembered his conversation with Diana in Annabelle’s room and guessed he had been there to pick up her possessions.

“She won’t be going back there,” he said, handing the book to Claudia. “Read the last entry.”

Taking the book, she saw that it was a diary, the broken lock violating its secrets. Nothing could be more invasive than breaking into a young girl’s diary. But these were extraordinary circumstances. Claudia flipped through the pages. She caught her breath at the date on the last written page: Christmas Eve, the last day Annabelle and Paige were seen alive.

She noted with frustration that the positive changes she had observed, both in personality and handwriting, had regressed under the stress of Annabelle’s mental state at the time of writing. Annabelle’s handwriting had begun to open up, expand a little. This writing was more like what Claudia had seen in the first sample weeks earlier with its narrow letters and squeezed spaces.

I have to talk to Cruz,
Annabelle had written, underlining the words.

 
Typical teenage stuff. Except that Paige had been strangled with a belt.

“She
did
go over there,” Claudia said. “But she didn’t give him the belt. She didn’t get a chance.”

“You
know
about this Cruz character?”

She nodded. “He’s the athletic director at the school.” She filled him in on some of what Annabelle had seen at Cruz’ cottage on Christmas Eve.

“This is the first I’ve heard about the sonofabitch,” he said, jabbing a finger at the diary. “If he’s laid so much as a pinkie on her, that fucker’s gonna get whacked.”

Given his own rumored involvement with young girls, Claudia found his rage ironic. “He was sleeping with Paige,” she hurried to assure him. “Cruz doesn’t have the profile of a pedophile.”

But even as she said it, she wondered whether she could be wrong about Cruz. The only handwriting she’d seen of his was in the note card Annabelle had lifted from Paige, and that hadn’t sent up any red flags. He had yet to return the form she had e-mailed him, which would give her a better fix on his motivations.

Claudia had seen plenty of cases where publicly upstanding adults had secretly used children in ways that sickened her. Still, Cruz displayed confidence with adult women, which suggested he wasn’t the type to go for a troubled young teen.

Giordano moved in close, looking over her shoulder at what Annabelle had written. Too close. She could feel the heat coming off his skin, became aware of his after-shave, the warmth of his breath on her neck. He might be boorish at times and lacking in social graces, but there was no denying his good looks and, at this moment, his sheer animal magnetism.

Claudia’s heart was racing as she stepped away and turned toward him. “I, uh—the handwriting shows that she was upset when she wrote this.”

For a moment, Giordano looked at her as if she were speaking a foreign language. Then he interrupted, ignoring her comment. “What about the belt? She says she was giving this clown a belt. Don’t you
get
it?”

“I get it, Dominic, I get it. You’re thinking she used the belt to strangle Paige. Well, I just told you, Paige was with Cruz that night. Cruz said they played sex games that involved a belt around the neck. Don’t you think it’s a little more reasonable that
he
might have killed her accidentally? If he was that wasted, he might not even remember it.”

Giordano paced to the window and back, putting the weight on his prosthesis so that it thumped on the hardwood floor. “If she’s not involved, why is she hiding?”