Acquainted With the Night (22 page)

He smiled, showing teeth that were too white and even to be anything but very expensive dentures.

“Ah, our pride and joy. My wife and I have bred them for many years. Several of them have actually served as the official mascots of the University of Georgia Bulldogs.”

“They’re very striking animals,” Alex said.

Nodding toward yet another photo, Alex said, “And are those young women your daughters?”

“Yes, indeed. Alice and I have three lovely daughters and five grandchildren.”

“A nice family,” she said. She was impatient, eager to get on with their business, but recognized the need to observe the necessary formalities.

He settled back in his club chair and said, “I suppose we should dispense with the awkward but necessary business of establishing your bona fides.”

It took her a moment to realize he was asking for her identification. She opened her briefcase and took out several items. “My police credentials and driver’s license,” she said, and produced both. “Here’s my passport as well.”

He examined them closely, and then she gave him a final piece of evidence.

“I thought this might help,” she added quietly.

He studied the photograph for a long moment, seeing the picture of Alex and CJ together, a copy of the one from the back of CJ’s photo album. He looked up from the picture to Alex’s face and smiled again.

“Yes,” he said. “I can see that not only are you really who you say you are, but you are Belle’s choice as well. She looks very happy in this picture.”

“She was happy,” Alex said with certainty. “I hope very much that she will be again.”

The outer door opened, and the legal assistant entered bearing a tray with pot, saucers and a covered plate. Afternoon tea? Alex thought, This is going to take longer than I thought.

After the teacups were filled and a variety of delicate little cookies was revealed on the plate, Edgarton sat back again in his chair and regarded her over the rim of his cup.

“Belle contacted me shortly after she left Denver,” he began, and Alex quelled her impatience. He needed, for whatever reason, to tell her this story, and perhaps she needed to hear it as well.

“She was, well, not to put too fine a point on it, very upset. She wasn’t sure at that time where she was going. I, perhaps not surprisingly, urged her to come home, but she, also not surprisingly, refused. Her family has been extremely discourteous to her. How much of that has she told you?”

Alex wasn’t sure if this was a test or not, but she answered honestly. “Some of it. I know about the trust fund her grandfather left for her, that you are the trustee, and I also know her parents threw her out when she told them she was a lesbian.”

He sipped some tea gravely and said, “She was twenty-three, and the only daughter of a man I regarded as my closest friend in the world. He and I had known each other since we were boys, and I watched him just disintegrate after she left. Belle was very much the pride and joy of her father’s life. I will tell you frankly that I care for her almost as much as if she were one of my own daughters, and she was a kind, high-spirited, outgoing and loving young woman. Losing her was most disturbing to her father. When he passed away, I called Lydia, Belle’s mother, to urge her to permit Belle to return for the funeral. She adamantly refused to permit it, and Belle, wisely I think, chose not to force the issue.”

“I know,” Alex said. “We talked about it quite a bit. In the end, she thought it would dishonor her father’s memory if she came and her mother made a scene.” She omitted a description of how upset CJ had been. Alex had held her as she cried herself to sleep for several nights in a row.

He made a distasteful noise and set down his cup and saucer. “I can reassure you that Lydia St. Clair is, and was, more than capable of making quite a histrionic display. Belle chose sensibly. When she is ready to return to Savannah, please tell her I will arrange for her to visit her father’s grave, and I have the program from the funeral as well, should she choose to see it.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Alex said, feeling as if she were beginning to talk as formally as he did.

He waved a blue-veined hand dismissively. “Well, as I said, she’s practically one of my own daughters.” His dislike of CJ’s mother was tacit but clearly understood. “I cannot, I fear, claim the same relationship with Clayton.”

“Her brother is still in Savannah?” Alex asked.

“Yes. He is a local dentist. I regret to inform you that he has, I’m afraid, taken after his mother in his unceasing desire to climb higher on the social ladder. There are a number of rumors around him, specifically concerning his, ah, inclination toward young women. He is on wife number three, I think, and he’s not quite forty yet.”

Alex digested this a moment, dryly amused. When she glanced up to see Edgarton looking at her curiously, she explained, “Sorry. I was thinking about what a judgmental prick…ah, prig he’s been about his sister, when he apparently has some issues of his own.”

“Indeed.” He seemed to appreciate the irony as well. “I fear his ways are coming back to haunt him. He’s having quite a bit of difficulty with his own daughter.”

Alex felt a little jolt. “I didn’t know CJ had a niece,” she said.

“Yes. They’ve never met, obviously, but Belle is most meticulous about birthdays and Christmas. For obvious reasons, I have acted as an intermediary. Clayton disapproves of his sister as much as his mother does.”

Alex shook her head wonderingly. There were still a few things she didn’t know about CJ, it seemed. She was having trouble controlling her impatience, and, as if sensing that, Edgarton rose and crossed for a moment to his desk, returning with an envelope.

“It is my understanding,” he said softly, “that you have resolved the issues that led to Belle leaving nine months ago.”

Nine months. Alex did the math and realized with a start that it had been exactly nine months. “Yes,” she said simply. “You read the online news reports I referred you to, I assume.”

“I did,” he said. “And I believe my client’s instructions clearly indicate that I should give you this.” He handed her a sealed envelope.

It had her name written on it, in CJ’s handwriting. Just seeing the words made her feel better.

Edgarton explained, “She sent this to me about a month or so after our initial phone call, and asked me to hold it until you arrived and were able to prove that the situation was resolved.”

Alex weighed the envelope in her hand. Was there a letter, an explanation? Or would there be another plea for Alex not to seek her out?

She decided, in the moment before she opened the envelope, that she would have to ignore any request from CJ to leave her alone, if that’s what it was this time. She was going to see CJ again if it was humanly possible to do so. If CJ wanted Alex to go away, she would have to tell Alex in person.

Edgarton was watching her, and said at length, “Would you like some privacy, Miss Ryan?”

“No,” she said. “It’s all right.” She tore open the envelope. There was no note, no letter, just a single piece of cardboard. A postcard, she realized after a moment.

On the front of the postcard was a photograph of a one-story, adobe-style building with a sign that said “Palace of the Governors.” Alex turned the card over.

The tiny print at the top of the postcard on the address side read, “The historic Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe, New Mexico is the oldest continuously occupied public building in the United States.”

There was nothing written in the address section, nor in the space for the message except four numerals separated by a hyphen: 10-20.

CJ, unsure of what was happening, had been very careful. Alex handed the postcard to Edgarton and kept her voice from shaking as she said, “Thank you. I wonder if your assistant could make a plane reservation for me to fly to Albuquerque as soon as possible. I’ll need to rent a car and drive up to Santa Fe, I think.”

He looked down at the postcard. “Belle is in New Mexico?”

All these months, and CJ had been less than a six-hour drive from Denver. Perhaps she’d wanted to be close, just in case, Alex thought, warming herself with the possibility.

“Yes, she’s in Santa Fe,” Alex said with certainty.

Edgarton looked puzzled. “How can you be certain of that?”

Alex responded, “The numbers on the card are a ten signal, the radio code most police departments use. A ten-twenty means location. She’s telling me where she is.”

Alex felt a sudden surge of exhilaration.

She wants me to find her
.

Chapter Twenty-Two

As she sat in the corner of Collected Books, Alex stared at everyone as they entered, ignoring the book on the architecture of New Mexico she held in her hands.

A full week here, and no trace of CJ. No one had heard of her at the Palace of the Governors, now primarily used as a museum. The local police department had no record of her either, which didn’t surprise Alex—CJ surely knew how to keep a low profile. No hotel had her registered as a guest. Alex had been to every place she could think of to check. She’d been reduced to staking out the bookstore nearest to the plaza, hoping CJ’s insatiable craving for reading material wasn’t being fulfilled by her downloading books onto an e-reader.

Every moment since she’d left Georgia, Alex had been thinking about CJ. Had CJ been expecting to see her every day for months? Had she perhaps given up hope that Alex would ever come and find her? Alex had spent so much time recognizing and responding to CJ’s emotions over the past three years that not knowing what CJ might have been feeling for so long disoriented her and made her tense.

Alex had spent so much of the last few weeks vacillating between optimism and fear. Elaine Wheeler’s words of warning kept returning. Knowing that she and CJ couldn’t merely resume their relationship in the same place as they had been when CJ left worried her. What if their marriage had been damaged beyond repair by the havoc wreaked by Laurel Halliday? What if CJ had had a change of heart since leaving? Nine months was a long time, especially without a word of communication between them.

She left because she loved me,
Alex repeated to herself.
She’ll want to come home for the same reason. All I have to do is find her.

A few minutes later, a fragment of conversation caught her attention.

“…the most amazing meatloaf I’ve ever had,” a woman one aisle over was saying. “I mean, you expect enchiladas or something, but this was fantastic.”

“Seems like an odd thing to order in Santa Fe,” the other woman replied.

“Well, the wonderful thing about it was that it was listed as New Mexico meatloaf. It had this kind of spicy red sauce over it, and there were green chiles chopped up in the meatloaf—”

Alex almost sprang from her chair, startling the two women. They couldn’t have looked more like tourists, from their massive colorful totes to their apparently brand-new turquoise jewelry.

To calm them, Alex said soothingly, “I’m so sorry to interrupt. That description of the meatloaf sounds wonderful. Where did you have it, may I ask?”

The first woman said, “At the Hotel San Pasquale, where we’re staying. It’s about two blocks down from the plaza.”

Maybe it was a coincidence, but she had to know.

A few minutes later Alex entered the lobby of the Hotel San Pasquale with trepidation. The room was large and decorated in a way that made it look for all the world like she’d entered a monastery. There was what seemed to be a baptismal fountain in the middle of the space, filled with water. At one end was a massive stone fireplace with couches and chairs carefully arranged around it. There were plain plastered walls with crosses and crucifixes hung liberally, some plain wood or iron, others hand-carved and ornate. The registration desk was tucked into one corner of the room behind a wooden counter that looked at least a couple of hundred years old. In the other corner, dominating that half of the lobby, was a huge bar, also wooden, beaten and battered but full of character.

She went to the reception desk and asked to see the manager on duty. When he arrived, she showed him her badge and asked for someplace private to talk.

He led her to a tiny office wedged behind the reception desk, just about big enough for the two of them to sit down, almost knee to knee. He was wearing a white shirt and black vest, which apparently served as formal management attire for a New Mexico hotel. The armholes of the vest were too big for he was perhaps the slimmest man Alex had ever seen, his sleeves showing delicate wrists and long, bony fingers. His face was thin too, his cheekbones almost knife-sharp.

“What is this about?” he asked her, frowning.

“I’m looking for someone, someone I believe may be working at the hotel, probably in the kitchen. My information is she has been here some months.”

He was already shaking his head. “We don’t have anyone like that,” he said firmly. “And you still haven’t told me what this is about.”

Alex had thought this through carefully on the drive into Santa Fe. “The woman I’m looking for is a witness in a case in Colfax,” she explained. “She hasn’t done anything wrong, and she’s not in trouble of any kind. I just need to speak with her.”

It was only a slight stretch of the truth, after all. CJ had certainly witnessed the shooting that had left David dead, and Alex did most urgently need to speak with her, even if the two facts weren’t exactly related.

“You’re not here to arrest her or anything?”

“Nothing like that.”

“We still don’t have anyone who’s been here less than eighteen months,” he said.

Alex tried to curb her anxiety. It had just been a hunch, after all. She persisted. “I still have every reason to think she’s here, or has been here.”

“What’s her name?”

Another delicate point. It seemed unlikely to Alex that CJ would register under her own name, since she was being careful about being traced. Alex responded, “I’m not sure which of several names she might be using. Her full name is Christabelle Johnson St. Clair.”

His frown changed into a more wary look. “Maybe you could describe her,” he ventured.