Shadows in the Starlight, page 20
“There’s one way to find out.”
The buzzer sounded, and Gwen yanked the door opened and took the stairs two at a time. She pushed past Trudy and shut the door behind her, then tossed the box of Green Man tea at the woman.
Trudy instinctively caught the box, bobbled it for a moment. When she realized what she held, her eyes widened into limpid pools of guilt.
“Don’t bother trying to sell me on coincidence,” Gwen advised her.
The redhead tossed back her head and faced Gwen down. “All right, then, I admit it: I’ve been watching Erin Westland for some time now.”
“Why?”
“She’s married to Kyle,” Trudy said, her tone suggesting that this should be self-evident.
“Again, why? Not why Erin married Kyle,” she clarified, “although that’s definitely a question to ponder another day, but why are you so interested in all the details of your girlfriend’s ex?”
“Marcy was married to Kyle Radcliff for years. They have a history, and that can be a powerful thing. You saw how she came running to you with his problems.”
“So you decide to start following the second wife? That sounds dangerously like obsession to me. How long has this been going on?”
“A few weeks,” she admitted.
Gwen raised one eyebrow.
“Okay, maybe a few months. Four or five.”
“So how does this work? You follow Erin Westland down to her place of business, and decide to become a regular customer so you can keep an eye on the new missus?”
Trudy sighed heavily. “You’re not going to believe this.”
“That’s probably true, but tell me anyway.”
“I went down to The Green Man the first time not knowing Erin worked there. A friend of mine gave me a box of this herb tea. I really liked it, and asked her where I could buy it. She sent me down to Tiverton. It’s the only place that sells it.”
“What’s your friend’s name?”
“Sally. Sally Lyons.”
That name sounded familiar, but Gwen couldn’t quite place it. “Describe her.”
“Well, she’s about my age—late thirties—and about my height and build, although she’s slimmer, I’m sorry to report. She has long brown hair, lovely hands. She’s a very pretty woman. Very feminine.”
That could describe a lot of people Gwen had seen around. “Do you have a number for her?”
Trudy went off for her phone book, and came back from the bedroom with a slip of paper in her hand. “Here’s her home phone, though frankly, I don’t know what you expect to learn from her. Just because she buys tea at Erin Westland’s shop, it doesn’t follow that she’d know something about the woman’s disappearance.”
“Couldn’t hurt to ask. Can I give you a word of advice?”
Trudy nodded cautiously.
“Stop drinking that stuff. It doesn’t exactly bring out the best in you.”
CHAPTER Eighteen
Gwen spent a good chunk of Tuesday at the station, going over her statement about Kate Myers. She got to the church five minutes after her self-defense class was supposed to start.
Damian and Jason were already there, avidly discussing the merits of Jason’s two-seater. The Miata and Damian’s wreck were the only vehicles in the parking lot.
“I called it right last week,” Damian told her. “Looks like you scared them all off.”
“Looks like,” she agreed. “Wait a minute—looks like we’ve got a couple of takers.”
A blue SUV pulled into the lot, and two women got out. One was the blond political aide, and the other was the woman who had been so disturbed by last week’s demonstration.
Gwen herded everyone into the basement and pulled the attendance list out of her file. As she went down it to check off the names of the women who showed up, she noticed the name of one who hadn’t: Sally Lyons.
That was the name Trudy had given her—the friend who’d turned her on to the funny herbals.
Gwen got the two women started practicing the holds and escapes they’d learned last week. Then she stepped into the stairwell and shut the door. She called Sally Lyons’s number and got a recording.
As soon as the voice message was finished playing, she dialed Kyle Radcliff.
“Have you got a recording of Erin’s voice?”
“I don’t think so,” he said hesitantly. “She never liked video cameras, and my voice is on our phone machine at home.”
“Figures. What about the shop?”
He thought about that. “I’m pretty sure Alice left the voice message. But come to think of it, Erin probably left her own message on her cell phone.”
“I’m not in my office and don’t have her file handy. Give me the number.”
He recited the number. Gwen hung up on him and dialed it. Sure enough, a young female voice invited her to leave a message. She hung up and dialed Sally Lyons’s number again.
The voices were the same.
First thing the next morning, Gwen was at the address given on Sally Lyons’s class-registration form.
A little boy was in the front yard, absently kicking at a Spider-Man backpack. He was definitely the kid in the photo Kyle had given her.
“Hey, Patrick,” she called, feeling a stab of guilt over using one of an abductor’s favorite ploys. Call a kid by name, chances are he’ll assume he should know you. Why parents insisted on displaying their kids’ names on their shirts and hats and backpacks was a mystery to Gwen.
He looked up and waved at her. “Hi!”
“Is your mom home?”
“Yeah, but she’s making faces today.”
“Making faces,” she repeated.
“Uh-huh. She’s coming right out. You’ll see.”
At that moment Sally Lyons opened the front door, and Gwen definitely saw.
The woman with Erin Westland’s child was one of the women from Gwen’s self-defense class, the suburban mom in pastel pink who’d been worried about hurting her workout partner.
Suddenly Sally Lyons was gone, and Erin Westland stood her in place. “Get away from my son!” she shrieked.
The woman unsheathed her claws and came at Gwen in a sudden rush, swiping a handful of manicure at Gwen’s face.
Gwen leaned away from the blow and came back with a punch to the jaw. The woman staggered back three steps, then dropped straight back onto her ass.
The little boy ran to her. She put her arms around him and glared over his head at Gwen.
“I’m not going back,” she insisted.
“Well, that proves you’ve got some sense. I don’t plan to take you and Patrick back to Kyle.”
Erin sniffed. “I’m not afraid of him.”
“Then what’s this about?”
The woman gently moved Patrick away from her and put a hand under his chin, turning his face to hers. “Go inside, honey. Mommy will be with you in just a minute, okay?”
The child’s gaze flashed to Gwen.
“I won’t hurt your mother,” she said.
“You promise?”
Acting on impulse, Gwen said, “I swear it by moon and star, word and wind.”
The little boy’s face lit up. “Hey! Can you make faces, too?”
Gwen obliged by crossing her eyes and sticking out her tongue. Patrick giggled. “Not those kind of faces!”
“Patrick,” Erin prompted in one of those no-nonsense mother tones. He turned and scampered for the house.
“What didn’t you want him to hear?” Gwen asked.
“He’s in danger,” Erin confided. “It’s the others. They found out about Patrick.”
“So?”
“According to the Elders, he can’t exist.” A bitter smile twisted Erin’s face. “My son is a half-breed.”
“Nice try. I know about your pregnancy. It lasted close to four years. Patrick isn’t Kyle’s son.”
“My relationship with Kyle goes back several years. I started seeing him when he was still married to your friend Marcy.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me. But what about the other men?”
“What other men?” Erin demanded.
“Kyle had quite a photo album.”
“Oh, that. Do you have any idea how easy it is to alter photos? Anyone who worked for Edmonson had access to a lot of pornography. It wasn’t hard to find a photographer who could shoot me in similar positions and impose my face on some other woman’s body.”
“Kyle was pretty pissed off.”
“That was the whole idea,” she retorted. “I didn’t want him looking for me. The man has an ego the size of Texas. If he thought I was fooling around, he wouldn’t want me. If he thought Patrick wasn’t his, he wouldn’t waste another moment on him.”
That also rang true with what Gwen knew of Kyle. “And what about Trudy Wasserman?”
Erin huffed. “What about her? I was tripping over her every time I turned around, so I decided to give her another hobby.”
“An addiction.”
The woman shrugged.
“You’re deliberately getting people hooked on this stuff. And not just Trudy.”
“I need the money,” Erin stated. “I’ve stretched my local identities to the breaking point. It’s time to start over, somewhere far away. The Green Man was giving me a chance to build up a nest egg.”
“So why aren’t you gone?”
“I can’t get at the money without giving myself away,” Erin said. “That’s where you come in.”
Gwen lifted one eyebrow. “You’re looking to hire me?”
“I figured Kyle might end up coming to you when I left. So I signed up for your self-defense course to see what you had. I figured, if you could find me, you were probably good enough to help me disappear.”
“Glad to know I passed your little test,” Gwen said dryly. “As much as I hate to admit it, I’m being shadowed fairly closely by one sneaky pointy-eared son of a bitch. If I can find you, chances are he can, too.”
Erin’s face fell. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“I know where you can go. A friend of mine runs a safe house. There’s excellent security, police protection. They won’t bother you there—keeping a low profile is a high priority to these people.”
“Our people,” Erin corrected. She conceded with a shrug. “Very well. I’ll go to this safe house.”
“You’re welcome.”
She shrugged again and started toward the house. Gwen fell into step. “I hope it won’t come as a shock to hear that I don’t exactly trust you.”
Erin darted a surprised glance in her direction. “Why should you?”
“Just so you know, I’m going to be very unhappy if anyone at Sister Tamar’s place is hurt because of you.”
“I’ll keep a low profile.” Erin smiled sweetly. “Like you said, that’s what we do best.”
Much to his dismay, Ian found himself obliged to pay a call on the man who called himself Jason Cross. An unannounced visit, of course. Unfortunately, Jason wasn’t even slightly startled by the sudden appearance.
The man leaned against the kitchen counter in his “father’s” bungalow and crossed his arms. “So. To what do I owe the honor of this intrusion?”
“You haven’t contacted me with your findings on Gwen.”
“What findings? If you told me what you were looking for, I’d have a better chance of noticing it.”
“Selective observation? No, thank you. Tell me what you have managed to discover.”
Jason gave a concise report of her online activities, as well as those of people who did her more complicated Internet work for her.
“Anything she knows, I know,” he concluded. “She’s working on a number of things. Some background checks, a missing woman.”
“Tell me about them.”
“Aren’t we supposed to be following a drug connection and erasing ties to this Captain Walsh?”
“We must know everything she’s working on.” Ian gave him a keen look. “It could be particularly uncomfortable if she starts looking too closely into Frank Cross’s death.”
The man returned his stare. “Yes, I can see how that would be a problem for you.”
Doubt flickered in Ian’s mind. He was certain that this man had killed Frank Cross, but he couldn’t pick up any inkling of guilt from the young man. Perhaps he was a sociopath who knew no such emotions?
“Tell me about this missing woman.”
“Her name’s Erin Westland, aka Helene Tremaine. She’s married to Kyle Radcliff, the ex-husband of Gwen’s friend Marcy Bartlett. She has a son. They’re both gone.”
Ian’s heart seemed to leap into his throat, then thud painfully back into place. This was a most disturbing development. Especially now that Jason Cross was involved.
“What progress has Gwen made?”
“We’ve visited the woman’s shop. An herb shop down in Tiverton called The Green Man.”
This, too, was disturbing news.
Shaken, Ian left the little house and hurried to his car.
He drove to Erin Westland’s shop and bought a box of the store’s tea.
As soon as he got back to his car, he spilled some of the dried herbs into his hand. He sniffed them, then touched a pinch to his tongue. The taste was unmistakable.
It was true, then. These herbs, banished for centuries, must have blown into the Burren from a gate that led into the Hidden land. And that could mean only one thing:
James Avalon, Gwen’s father, had figured a way in.
CHAPTER Nineteen
Gwen decided to take Sylvia’s car to East Greenwich. In Kyle Radcliff’s neighborhood, a black Mercedes was the next best thing to camouflage. And unlike her aging economy car, the Mercedes could exceed the speed limit. She drove with grim concentration, weaving around slower vehicles and pushing the sedan to its limits. The sooner she got to Kyle’s place, the sooner the coming confrontation could be done and over.
She’d never seen his house in East Greenwich. The home he’d shared with Marcy in Providence had been pretty spiffy, but this place was obscenely huge. A sprawling French colonial, all steeply peaked rooflines and small gables, was set in at least an acre of manicured lawn and carefully landscaped beds. The circular drive curved around a sea of late tulips, and azaleas bloomed amid the foundation plantings. A fenced area behind the house suggested an in-ground pool. Erin Westland was escaping a very posh cage.
Gwen pulled up at the front and rang the bell. No answer. She tried a couple of times before deciding that Kyle had missed their appointment, probably just to be a pain in the ass.
She was turning to leave when a fluttering curtain caught her eye. The movement drew her gaze to the open window—and the grim scene beyond.
A tall, fair-haired male lay faceup on the carpet, his arms flung out wide. Gwen went over to the window for a closer look.
It was definitely Kyle. His cable-knit sweater, once a natural sheep-colored beige, was dark with blood. His face was unmarked, and his cold gray eyes were open and staring.
Gwen reached for her phone to call it in. On impulse, she stopped, stuck the phone back into her pocket, and climbed through the open window.
The room was remarkably tidy and very, very beige. The carpets, walls, and furniture were all shades that could be found in a bowl of oatmeal. The only color in the room was the pool of blood seeping into the carpet around Kyle Radcliff’s body.
As far as Gwen could tell, there was only one wound, but it had done the job. Someone with remarkable aim had gotten him right in the heart. Judging from the angle of the body, he’d been facing the open window and had fallen straight back.
Gwen crouched beside the body. Her brow furrowed as she studied the wound. The placement was perfect, but it was like no gunshot wound she’d ever seen. Both his clothes and the flesh beneath had been torn, as if he’d been stabbed with some sharp but strangely shaped object.
A glance at his hands discouraged that theory. Kyle lay with his arms flung out wide and his palms turned up. There were no defensive wounds on his hands. There probably would have been, if someone had come at him with a knife.
She picked up one hand and turned it to study the nails. They were neatly trimmed and buffed, so her eyes went at once to the single imperfection: caught under one nail was a single wavy, bright auburn hair.
Trudy’s hair.
Gwen sat back on her heels, stunned into immobility. True, the woman was ridiculously jealous. Marcy had said Trudy had been acting strangely, and yes, she’d taken a swing at Gwen, but murder? It didn’t seem possible.
She rose and walked over to the window. The angle was. too perfect. Whatever had hit Kyle had come through the open window. And the red hair? It was Trudy’s, Gwen had little doubt of that, but that didn’t necessarily mean that Marcy’s lover had been in this room. Someone was manipulating the scene.
Gwen pulled out her phone and dialed Sister Tamar’s private line. “Is Erin still there?” she demanded.
The nun sniffed. “Yes, and she’s quite the princess. Why? What’s happening?”
“Her husband’s dead. There’s a chance that whoever killed him might come after Erin. Lock the place down. Don’t let anyone come or go.”
“Done,” Tamar said. “Do you know who did this?”
“Not yet. I’ve got to go.”
She went to work on the body, searching for more telltale hairs. There were three, two on the sleeves of Kyle’s sweater and one entangled in his hair. None were on the blood-soaked torso, which, to Gwen’s way of thinking, argued strongly for their placement after Kyle’s death.
Her next stop was the kitchen, where she denuded a roll of paper towels. She set to work wiping clean every surface in the room, including the windowsill and the doorknobs, inside and out.
When she was reasonably satisfied that she’d obliterated every false trace of Trudy’s presence, she picked up her phone to call it in. She started to dial Quaid’s number before she remembered he was on leave, pending investigation in Kate’s murder. After a moment’s thought, she dialed the station and asked to be patched through to Ben Cerulo.
“It’s Gellman,” she told him. “I’m working on a missingpersons, and I just got to a client’s house for a meeting. Instead of a client, I have a body.”
