A Second Chance at Murder (3 page)

A
fter searching the woods into the afternoon and coming up empty-handed, Juan Jose, Miguel, and I headed back to base camp to check in with Becca and the others. I prayed that Scott had made it back to camp during our absence. After all, if he'd gotten lost last night, the sensible thing to do would have been to wait for daylight to find his way.

Becca was pacing by the picnic table, the other cast and crew members gathered nearby; everyone looked downtrodden. I immediately knew by the look on Becca's face that Scott hadn't returned.

When Becca saw me she looked at me hopefully, but surmised quickly that we hadn't had any luck, either. Becca's walkie-talkie chirped and she said into it, “What?” She held it away from her ear, glanced at it, then said, “Reception up here is choppy.”

I sagged onto the picnic table bench. Victoria and Parker, who were standing close by, distanced themselves. Suddenly the others, who'd been roaming by the campfire, disappeared into their tents, as if my bad luck was catching.

Becca patted my shoulder. “Don't worry honey, we'll find him. I know we'll find him.” Then into the walkie-talkie she said, “Our GPS coordinates are forty-two north, uh . . . Oh . . . Yeah . . . The camp that's over . . . okay, okay sure,” she said, hanging up. “They're here.”

I sprang to my feet and we both looked down the trail. A tall woman with honey-blond hair slicked back into a ponytail came into view. She wore black pants and a windbreaker with an official logo on it. She seemed capable and sure of herself. On a leash was a Great Pyrenees dog. Behind her was a group of people, each with dogs. There was also a man, who walked a bit apart from them. He had dark hair and wore a matching windbreaker.

The woman stuck out her hand and I shook it. She had callused palms, giving me the impression that she'd done search and rescue a thousand times over. I hoped they'd been successful. She introduced herself as Montserrat. The man who stood apart from her shook my hand as well, introducing himself as Sergio. In contrast to Montserrat, his hand was smooth and warm.

A desk cop.

We went through the necessary intake procedures for a missing person, complete with description, last time seen, and various search-and-rescue protocol.

“Do you have something of his for the dog to smell?” Montserrat asked me.

Becca squeezed my elbow. “It'll be okay, honey.”

I retreated to my tent and pulled out Scott's sweatshirt, pressing my nose against the soft cotton. It smelled like him, a bit of cedar mixed with musk. I choked back a sob and quickly exited the tent. The dog seized Scott's sweatshirt and sniffed it, growling and howling in between his sniffs. Montserrat nodded and patted him. Then she took the sweatshirt around and let the pack of dogs smell it.

Montserrat tapped her walkie-talkie and waved to Sergio saying, “
Nos vemos
.” The pack of dogs tore off in the direction of the river, the same path Parker and I had hiked the night before.

I started to follow Montserrat, but Sergio stopped me. “Wait! Please, I have some questions for you.”

I hesitated. “But they're going to try to track my friend down.”

Becca gave me a queer look, and I realized I had omitted the word
boy
in front of
friend
. What was wrong with me? Just because the cop looked like Antonio Banderas's younger brother didn't mean I could throw my boyfriend under a bus.

“Sit,” Sergio said. Becca and I went to comply.

“You are free to go,” he said to Becca, “if you like.” She gave me another look, unsure what to do. “Or if you want to wait nearby, perhaps it is better. I'll have some questions for you, in a moment.” He nodded toward the tents, implying that he wanted to speak with me alone.

“All right, I'm happy to help any way I can,” Becca
said, pinching my arm. “Everything is going to be fine, Georgia. They'll find him, you'll see. He's smart. Maybe he fell and twisted an ankle and is staying put, that's all.” Becca went to wait in my tent.

None of what she'd said made me feel any better. If he'd twisted an ankle, wouldn't we have found him last night or this morning? Sergio indicated the bench at the campsite table. I sat, a splinter sticking into my leg. I made no effort to remove it. The pinching and biting sensation would keep me on my toes. Let's see what Mr. Banderas the Younger had to say. He took a notebook out of his pocket.

“So the man who is missing, can you tell me more about him?”

“What do you want to know?” I asked.

He referred to his notebook. “We have a physical description: six feet, one hundred eighty pounds, shaved head, dark eyes.” He glanced up from the notebook. “Correct?”

I realized that if Scott were standing next to me, he would have said, “And I'm funny, warm, and smart! Tell him that!” The thought made my heart ache and all I could do was manage a nod.

“Okay,” Sergio said. “What is your relationship to him?”

“He's my boyfriend,” I said.

Sergio's dark eyes held mine for a moment, something flashing through them that I couldn't read. His lips pressed together and he jotted a note.

“Were you having any problems?”

“No. We didn't fight the night he disappeared, if that's what you want to know.”

Sergio gave me a strange look, but didn't say anything. He seemed unconvinced.

“He didn't run away from me,” I said. “Do I look that much like an ogre, that I'd chase a man away in the middle of the night? In a foreign country, no less?”

Sergio waited, watching me as I spoke. I was getting carried away. I knew it. I shouldn't let it get to me. He was just doing his job. I stopped myself suddenly. Sergio was quiet.

“What?” I asked.

“What's an ogre?” he asked, his Spanish accent making it almost sound cute. “I do not know that word.”

“A monster,” I said.

He nodded his understanding, then very seriously said, ”You do not look like a monster.”

I sighed, tension releasing from my body. “I don't want you to start thinking I have anything to do with his disappearance,” I said. “That only wastes our time and energy. Look, I used to be a cop in the United States. I understand that our best chances of recovering someone who's missing are in the first hours—”

Instead of reassuring me, he asked, “Does he take any medication?”

“What?” I asked.

“Does he have diabetes, or—?”

“No, no, he's healthy.”

“Prescription medicine?” He touched his temple.

I fought the desperation surging in my chest. “Are you asking if he's crazy?”

Sergio shrugged. “Depressed or epileptic—”

“No,” I answered, my impatience mounting. “Look, we won't get a second chance at this tiny window of opportunity to—”

“Who else is here?” He made another note and glanced around the camp. “Were you the last person to see him?”

I recounted the hike with Parker, and mentioned the scream we'd heard.

He nodded gravely, then asked. “What's going on here with the cameras?”

I told him about the TV show we'd been getting ready to film.

“Reality program?” Sergio asked. “It's worse than I thought. A missing American, that is one thing, but a TV celebrity?”

“We're not celebrities,” I said. “Not like that. I mean, he wasn't kidnapped by the paparazzi or anything,” I said.

Sergio made me walk through the events of the previous night one more time. I knew the drill. He was listening for inconsistencies in my story.

The walkie-talkie on his shoulder holster beeped, a burst of Spanish firing across the wire. I sprang off the bench.

Sergio listened, a grim look on his face.

“What is it? Did they find him?” I asked.

Sergio frowned as he listened, giving me an almost imperceptible shake of the head.

Anxiety clawed at my chest. “What then?” I asked.

Sergio stood and walked away from the table, speaking rapidly into the walkie-talkie. My heart raced and I felt like I was about to come out of my skin. Even though I couldn't understand Sergio's words, I could tell by the tone of his voice something was desperately wrong.

I rushed to the tent and called Becca's name. She popped her head out.

“What's going on?” she asked.

“How good is your Spanish?”

She glanced toward Sergio and frowned. She shook her head after a moment. “He's talking too fast.”

I buried my head in my hands, the uncertainty taking a toll.

“Damn, he's hot though, huh?” Becca asked.

“I hadn't noticed,” I lied.

She snorted. “Please. I know this is a tough time for you, Georgia, but anyone with a pulse can see the guy's gorgeous.”

“Go for it,” I said.

Becca said, “You know I'm sworn off men, at least for the time being. Plus, what kind of a jerk would it make me?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“He's trying to locate Scott. I don't want to be the one to distract him.” She batted her eyelashes at me.

We giggled. My shoulders relaxed ever so slightly, then I immediately felt guilty. Scott was missing, what the hell was I doing, laughing and yukking it up with Becca? Sergio turned around toward us.

“We have a situation, I need to leave you two ladies. Please call me if you have any more information.”

“Wait, what? What situation?” I asked.

“I need to go check in with my team,” he said.

“What's going on?” Becca asked.

He ignored our questions. He handed us a card and turned without speaking. Becca and I shared a look. We'd follow him, wherever he was going. The search-and-rescue team hadn't been gone that long, they couldn't be that far away.

Sergio hiked down the dirt trail toward the river, but took a left instead of a right where Parker and I had fallen from the cliff the night before. He walked with purpose, as if he had intimate knowledge of the trails. We kept our distance and followed him in silence. The trail descended into a small canyon, the ground becoming slick and muddy. I could hear the sound of running water up ahead. Sergio ducked through some bushes, stepping over fallen branches and avoiding protruding shrubs.

Despite last night's freezing temperatures, the day was heating up and sweat dripped off my brow as I struggled to keep my footing. In the distance, the dogs were growling and barking. Montserrat's voice greeted Sergio.

“
¡Aquí!
” she called.

Sergio moved forward, his gait steady and even. The trail gave way to a small clearing that was bordered with several rocks large enough to sit on. There was something in the ground, hidden near the bushes; something large, like a heap.

Something lifeless.

My heart lurched and I took off in a mad dash. A scream echoed through the canyon that I hardly recognized as my own.

Dear God, no, no, please don't be Scott.

I ran so hard I collided into a bush and then Sergio in my attempt to get to the body. Sergio grabbed me and said “Eh, eh, it's okay, it's okay.”

His hand was on my head, pressing it to his shoulder, trying to keep me from seeing the corpse that had already been burned into my retinas.

It was a woman. Her body was partially obscured by the bushes, but I could make out dark long hair and a polka-dot skirt that seemed gruesomely out of place.

Equal parts relief and distress coursed through my body. A woman.

Not Scott.

I was both elated and disappointed with myself at the same time. How could I be happy over finding a dead body? But the single thought reverberating through my head was that Scott was still alive.

Montserrat was blocking Becca from coming any further. But one glance at my friend and I knew she'd surmised the same thing as I had: The body was not Scott. Tears were streaming down my face and I pushed away from Sergio.

“It's not him,” I said.

“I know,” he said. “The dogs followed his scent up the road.” He jutted his chin toward the hillside, where there was a narrow gravel road.

“The scent has disappeared from there,” Sergio said.

The weight of what he was suggesting hit me suddenly.

“Scott didn't harm this woman!” I protested.

Montserrat came to my side. “Please, miss, we don't know the circumstances yet. Please go back to camp.”

The dogs were growling miserably at the woman's body and hastily unearthed something.

“
¿Qué es?”
Sergio demanded.

“
Un reloj
,” Montserrat said. Next to the woman was a watch.

Seeing it, my mouth went dry and my stomach dropped.

It was undeniably Scott's sports watch. Becca flashed me a look.

“Is that your boyfriend's watch?” Sergio asked.

I shrugged. “I don't know. Lots of people have watches like that.”

“Yeah,” Becca said, “they sell them everywhere in the U.S.”

Montserrat and Sergio said something to each other, again in rapid-fire Spanish, their exchange ending with Montserrat turning to us and saying in short, clipped English, “Ladies, let me take you back to camp. Please.”

Sergio was on his walkie-talkie to another team, presumably the crime scene team. Would they run a DNA scan on Scott's watch? Did they even do that in Spain? Or was the fact that a dog growled at a watch enough to try and convict him? God help us.

Montserrat walked Becca and me back to camp. When we got there, the cast and crew were huddled
around the picnic table gossiping. They grew quiet as they watched us approach, the silence deafening.

“I'll need your passports,” Montserrat said.

“Our passports? For what?” Becca asked.

“You and your friends”—she indicated the cast and crew—“will not be allowed to leave Spain until we clear up the matter of the woman.”