Blood Bond (11 page)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

JOE EXCUSED HIMSELF, LEAVING
the driver's-side door open a crack, and walked away from his car, phone in hand. He could still feel Marva's touch, the way her slim, cool fingers had twined with his. What the hell was he doing? It was one thing to promise her they'd do everything they could to find her sister. It was another entirely to sit with her like an intimate, a lover, when she was a suspect in one case and—if Gail stayed missing—possibly a second.

He called Bertrise and gave a terse account of Gail's disappearance. “I'm going to head over to the Englers' to talk to Bryce,” he said. “With, uh, Marva. Someone can bring her back to her car later. She's pretty upset.”

If Bertrise caught the odd note in his voice, she didn't mention it. “I can be there in ten minutes.”

Joe had two more quick calls to make. He'd promised Marva he'd be right back, but he needed to compose himself before he returned to the car.

First he called his brother's house. “Sorry, Taj,” he said, heart sinking when his nephew answered the phone. “I'm afraid I can't come to the game today. Again. I know, Taj, I'm sorry I've missed them, but the season's just starting, isn't it? And won't this give you a little more time to work on your footwork so that I can watch you score a goal when I come?”

Afterward, he talked to Omar for a moment. “If I can, I'll stop by after I finish up.”

Omar's sigh was resigned. “Don't worry, the boy will forget all about you when he gets on the field.”

“Sure. Way to make me feel guilty.”

“It's just that it's every weekend these days. Even
I
don't work more than five days a week anymore, Jamshed.”

Unspoken—
and for so little pay
.

“Unfortunately the bad guys don't take days off,” Joe said, then regretted it—he sounded like a bad movie. “Maybe I could bring ice cream later.”

“Sure, sure, I will tell Sakeena.”

The other call was to Amaris.

“Are we still having lunch?” she asked. Joe could hear music playing in her car, one of what he called her angst bands, the male vocalist sounding like he just woke up after sleeping out in the open during an ice storm.

“Amaris . . .”

“Oh.” Sharp. Not at all like Sakeena, who took disruptions in stride, especially when it was necessary to accommodate Omar's schedule. “But we were going to try Patrick's.”

“I know, and I'm sorry, but there was a . . . a development.”

She said nothing. Usually Amaris knew better than to use the silent treatment on him, but sometimes she slid back into her old habits, the preening affectations of a beautiful, spoiled girl.

He could outwait her. As he did, he considered that of the half-dozen women he'd dated since joining the police department, Amaris was the least interested in his work. Most women wanted to hear the stories; some of them even seemed turned on by the details. Especially if there was a little danger involved. A walk on the wild side, hard enough to find in suburbia these days.

But Amaris didn't care. He could be breaking up a drug ring or stopping for sandwiches, it was all the same to her.

“Well, what about later? Tonight?”

Joe hesitated, trying to decide between keeping her happy in the moment and risking her fury later, or disappointing her now. For some reason he found her moodiness on the phone especially difficult to endure.

“Tonight sounds good,” he said. “I don't know what time, but I'll call as soon as I have an idea. What do you want to do?”

He cringed inwardly when she answered—it was as though she could read his moods and took her cues and acted on them utterly backward: “I want to go out, baby.”

Joe said goodbye and headed back to the car. With his hand on the door handle, he took a second to close his eyes and let his facial features relax. It was a technique worth practicing, at least on this job, and one he'd spent years mastering. The old tailor who taught him Bajiquan had made him master all the breathing exercises before letting Joe attempt a single fist thrust. Liu Chenwu may have taught Joe in the back of his shop in a strip mall on the edge of Berkeley, but he made sure Joe performed perfectly before allowing him to advance to the next level.

As he slid into his seat, he didn't look at Marva. “I'll bring you back to your car later,” he said. “It's just better if—”

“I'll be a suspect, won't I,” Marva said. “If something happens to Gail.”

Joe looked at her in surprise.

“Not just you,” he found himself saying, instead of the usual canned responses—let's not jump to conclusions, it's only been a few hours, there are a thousand explanations. Something in the way Marva worked so hard to mask the vulnerability in her expressions, the way she held herself so still, made him feel like honesty was a requirement, not just a courtesy.

“Bryce, first. Is that right? But then me. Because of what I've told you, because you know we don't get along that well.” She took a shaky breath. “Everyone assumes I envy her.”

Joe started the car and eased it into traffic. That was far from what he thought, but she got the first part right. “Why don't we start by just finding out what Bryce knows?”

When they arrived, Marva unlocked the front door with her own key. Bryce was sitting at the kitchen table, head in his hands, his hair pushed up at an odd angle, as though he'd been working his fingers through it nervously. When Bryce heard them enter, he stood, clattering his chair across the tile floor.

“Where have you been?” He looked at Joe. “Detective—what—did you—”

“I'm here to help find your wife,” Joe said.

As Bryce cleared a few empty cups from the table, making room for them to sit down, the doorbell rang and Marva went to answer it, returning with Bertrise.

“Where are your children?” she asked after a terse greeting.

“Our nanny's taking care of them,” Bryce said.

“On a Sunday?” If there was faint judgment in Bertrise's voice, Joe was certain it was evident only to him.

Bryce shrugged. “I called her at her sister's, and asked her to come in. With overtime pay. You know, she helps out when we need her.”

Joe cleared his throat. He tried to be sensitive to Bertrise's authority; she was still an uncertain leader, and he hated to step on her toes. “If you could get Mr. Engler and Ms. Groesbeck started, I'd like a word with you while they're getting things together.”

Bertrise was quick. She ticked off the items she requested at the beginning of every missing persons situation—the recent photo, purse, calendar, cell phone—and joined him in the butler's pantry.

“Has he signed the consent to search?” she asked.

Joe shook his head. “I hadn't got that far.”

“Think he'll go for it?”

“If not, that might shed some light.”

Back in the kitchen Gail's personal items lay in a pile on the table. There was not one purse but three: sizable, expensive-looking bags, all of them black. A leather folio. And a framed, posed portrait of Gail and Bryce taken in front of an ivy-covered wall. Bertrise picked up the picture and studied it closely, giving nothing away in her expression.

Marva sorted quickly through the purses. “She wasn't carrying any of these,” she said. “There's no wallet, sunglasses—I think she had her black and silver Coach.”

Bertrise nodded. “And her cell phone would be with her?”

“She never goes anywhere without it.” Marva reached for the folio. “But her calendar—she hates the iPhone one; she likes writing in this.”

Joe noted the way her fingers rested on the smooth leather, almost a caress. She was different from the night Bergman was killed. Then, her eyes had been glazed with shock, her gestures clipped. Now she seemed weakened, as though she'd go over in a strong wind. Her skin had gone gray and the lines around her eyes had deepened.

Bryce, on the other hand, was flushed and if anything more vigorous than ever. He seized the date book from Marva and flipped through it, finding the entry for today, stabbed it with a forefinger.

“Just the service,” he said. “That's all she's got down.”

“May I?” Bertrise asked. She took the binder and looked at the current entry, then paged slowly back and forth several days. Finally she shut it and nodded. “I'd like to keep this.”

Before Bryce could object she brought up the consent-to-search form, talking softly but urgently, and he signed it without any resistance.

Marva went upstairs to help Isabel, and Gervais and Paulette Huang, the other evidence tech, arrived moments later. As they talked with Bertrise in the kitchen, Marva came downstairs carrying the little boy and leading his sister by the hand.

“I'm going to take the kids to the park. To give Isabel a break,” she said. “She'll—”

Her voice faltered then, not breaking down entirely, but the harbinger of tears. She cleared her throat and bit her lip. Joe watched carefully: she was a few paces shy of falling apart.

“She'll need a little rest,” Marva tried again. “If Gail doesn't come home soon, you're going to have to get her some help in the evenings, Bryce.”

Bryce nodded, but it wasn't clear if he even heard his sister-in-law. Joe wondered why the hell the man couldn't watch his own damn kids, then chastised himself: a missing wife had to be plenty distracting.

Still, when he tried imagining Omar in this situation, if it was Sakeena who were missing . . . He'd seen his brother, strong and broad as a bear, on his knees clowning with the children enough to know that Omar would be more engaged with them, even if he was frantic with worry.

He wondered what that signaled about Bryce Engler.

“Detective Wellington will be following through on some standard procedures with you,” he said formally. “I'll leave that to her. I'm going to head back to the station and follow up on a few things there.”

Marva put on the children's coats and Joe followed her, holding the door as they trudged outside. In the street their spirits seemed to pick up as they skipped through the fallen sycamore leaves. The mansions were eerily quiet, no one outside. The park, up ahead, was empty; the playground sparkled with a few rogue raindrops.

Joe watched Marva until they were almost to the park before he got back in the car and drove away in the other direction.

JOE NARROWED
his eyes as he watched Amaris making her way across the restaurant. The silky blue top she was wearing was cut low enough to reveal more than a hint of cleavage, and her jeans were tight. Even her flat shoes managed to be sexy, with a smattering of some shiny embellishment.

Her brazen attractiveness had drawn him to her from the start—how could it not? But now when he looked at her, he couldn't help thinking of the turmoil that he knew lay below the surface. He'd always known that she dressed for attention; but after so long, he could never forget that she didn't dress just for him. She was aware of the gaze of every man in the restaurant, and she needed their admiration like a plant needs sun.

What would she think if she could have seen him with Marva earlier? When he'd taken her hands in the Starbucks, when he'd drawn her closer, inhaled her scent—faint but unmistakable, a surprisingly exotic perfume with spicy, woodsy notes. Marva looked fragile, her fine skin pale and drawn, faint lines around her wide blue eyes, but Joe sensed her unshakable strength when he touched her. She weathered her sister's moods and excesses, doted on the children, tolerated Bryce; she was the heart of the family, the nurturer. But that wasn't the whole of Marva's appeal for Joe, not by far. He'd seen what she created with her hands, guessed at the quick mind behind her measured words. And there were hints everywhere—from the untamable hair to the fullness of her pale mouth to the way her fingers were always unconsciously smoothing the fabric of her clothes—of a sensuality that was all her own.

“Hi.” Joe stood guiltily as Amaris approached the table, but before he could pull out her chair for her, she leaned in for a kiss that lasted just a little too long for a public setting.

“Hi yourself,” he said when she finally broke the kiss. He signaled the waiter and ordered Amaris a glass of wine as she took her seat.

“Nice blouse,” he said once the waiter was gone.

Amaris gave him a cool smile. “You don't like it.”

“I like it fine. But for a visit to my brother's house . . .”

He trod carefully: the first time they'd had this conversation, several months before, Amaris had given him an earful about what his brother and the rest of his family could do with their traditional values and cultural imperialism and gender insensitivity.

Still, on the very rare occasions—twice? three times?—that she'd been introduced, she'd behaved surprisingly well, dressing conservatively and saying almost nothing. Once had been a party celebrating a cousin's wedding in Pakistan; Amaris had congratulated the new bride and groom with enthusiasm and asked how they liked their new apartment. Another time she'd attended a casual dinner in his parents' favorite restaurant and complimented his mother on everything from her gold kara bracelets to her elaborate pinned hairstyle.

From the looks of it, tonight was going to be another story.

She wrinkled her nose and took a long sip of wine. She put her glass down and licked her lips. “It's just dessert, right? We'll be there for what, half an hour? And then we can go back to your place?”

Joe felt the tension in his chest, winding up his nerves. “It should be brief, I think. It's a school night, so Sakeena won't want the kids up late. But it would be nice to stay for tea after, if they ask.”

Amaris raised her eyebrows. “Nice for who? You're not the one she glares at.” She did a not-bad impression of Sakeena, narrowing her lips and drawing together her eyebrows, and tilting her chin at a haughty angle.