Light in Shadow (8 page)

“I need a little interior decorating work,” he said.

That made her pause. “I rather like the look of your office. It has a certain shabby charm.”

“Shabby charm?”

“If you just replaced that oversized client chair and moved your desk into a better position and got rid of that mirror, I think you'll find that the energy flow works very well.”

“The energy flow works fine the way it is. The oversized chair is useful because it makes clients aware that they aren't the ones in control in that room. Makes 'em want to turn all their problems over to me. And if the desk interrupts the energy flow that's okay, too. I like it right where it is. Ditto with the mirror. It's not my office that needs redecorating.”

“What, then?”

“My new house.” He smiled. “I mean, my new residence.”

“Your
residence
?” She flattened her hands on the desk and shot to her feet. “Are you serious? You expect me to redesign your entire living space in exchange for a little more detective work?”

“Sounded fair to me.”

“Well, it certainly doesn't sound that way to me. It
sounds like you're trying to—” she broke off abruptly, aware that the phrase,
screw me
did not seem appropriate.

Ethan watched her, politely expectant. Something in his expression told her he knew exactly what she had been about to say. She felt the heat rise in her cheeks.

She straightened her shoulders and folded her arms. “It sounds as if you intend for me to get the raw end of this deal. My fees for redesigning an entire residence are quite high, Mr. Truax. There is no way that I would spend that much on your detecting services.”

“Okay, like I told you, I'm flexible. How about one room?”

She hesitated and then shrugged. “Okay, one room.”

“Deal. But I get to pick the room.”

“Fine. Deal. Now tell me: how you plan to get into the Mason residence?”

“That's the easy part.” Ethan replied. “You're going to get me inside.”

“How?”

“You can start by calling me Bob.”

 

An hour later
Ethan stood in the center of the master bedroom of the Mason house and tried to ignore the little tingle of adrenaline that was humming through him. He understood the source of the sensation. If he and Zoe were right about Jennifer Mason's fate, they were standing in the same room as a killer.

At least he was standing in the same room with Mason, he thought. Zoe, on the other hand, still had both feet out in the hall. She hovered in the bedroom doorway, arms crossed tightly beneath her breasts. Until now she had been doing a very good job of acting but he had noticed a new level of tension in her when they had reached this bedroom.

Davis Mason watched him from a short distance away. Zoe had reported that he'd sounded somewhat surprised
when she'd phoned to say that she wanted to bring a contractor to his house. But he had not had a problem with the suggestion. In fact, he had offered to leave his office early to meet them.

“What do you think about my lighting ideas for this space, Bob?” Zoe asked from the door.

“No problem,” Ethan said easily. “Plenty of room in here to drop the ceiling and put in recessed lighting. You want me to work up a detailed estimate?”

“Not at this stage,” she said. “I just wanted your opinion on whether or not you thought the concept was feasible.”

“Hell, yeah, it'll work. The lighting won't be a problem. Picture on the ceiling sounds weird, though.”

Davis looked at Zoe. “You're going to paint a picture on my ceiling?”

“It's an option that interests me. There are some excellent mural artists here in town who could do something very special in this space. An evening sky scene, perhaps.”

Davis nodded thoughtfully. “I like the idea. Never would have thought of it myself.”

“Gonna be expensive,” Ethan warned him. “The recessed lighting she wants to illuminate the ceiling doesn't come cheap, and Lord only knows what the artist will charge.”

Zoe fixed him with a steely look. “The cost is not your problem,
Bob.
”

“She's right,” Davis said. “Price is no object for me. My wife and I recently parted ways. I want a whole new look for this bedroom.”

“Oh, man,” Ethan whistled softly. “Been there, done that a few times myself. I know all about the bedroom thing.”

He caught Zoe's startled reaction to that comment, but he ignored it. He was more interested in Davis's frown.

“The bedroom thing?” Davis stood unmoving. “I don't understand.”

Ethan shook his head. “This is the voice of experience talking. I've had three wives walk out on me and file for divorce. Just no pleasing some women, I guess.”

“No,” Davis said evenly. “Women can be difficult.” He did not look in Zoe's direction.

“Difficult and damned expensive,” Ethan said. “Especially when it comes to beds. Beds cost a lot of money, you know.”

“What does this have to do with beds?” Davis asked.

Ethan shrugged. “The first thing you do, after you finish paying off your ex and the lawyers, is you start dating again, right? Hell, maybe you don't even wait until the paperwork is finished. Maybe you need some understanding companionship right away, know what I mean?”

“No, Bob,” Zoe said coldly from the hall. “I, for one, don't know what you mean.”

“No offense, Ms. Luce,” he said, making a show of exaggerated patience, “but these are facts of life for a guy in this situation. Like I was saying, you want to start dating again so you bring a new lady friend home. You turn on the music, have a couple of drinks, and you tell her your sad story.” He winked at Davis. “Am I right?”

“I don't know yet,” Davis said. “I haven't resumed my social life.”

“Yeah, well, take it from me, this is how it works. Anyhow, things are going fine out in the front room, so you suggest that the two of you adjourn to the bedroom. She's okay with that. So far, so good. The two of you walk down the hall, enter the bedroom, and wham, no warning at all, the lady takes one look at the bed and stops cold.”

Davis and Zoe were both watching him as if he had turned them to stone.

“Why does she stop?” Davis sounded baffled.

“Because of the damned bed, of course,” Ethan said. “She gets this weird expression on her face and she looks right at you and she asks you if that's the bed where you and your ex-wife slept. Talk about a loaded question.”

“Loaded is right,” Davis grimaced. “I think I'm beginning to get the picture here.”

“Women don't like to sleep or do anything else in the same bed you used with the ex, you see?” Ethan said. “Some kind of female thing, I guess.”

He glanced at Zoe. She looked pained, but she kept silent.

Davis, on the other hand, was at ease again, relaxed and smiling. He gave Ethan a knowing, man-to-man look. “I must admit, I hadn't thought about that angle. Now that you've pointed it out, I can see where an old bed could be a bit awkward. However, that is one problem I'm happy to say that I don't have.”

“Yeah.” Ethan surveyed the large empty space in the center of the room. “I can see that. The bed's gone.”

“My ex took it with her when she left.”

“Just backed up a truck and hauled it off, huh? Talk about insensitive.”

“Along with the rest of her personal possessions. To be honest, I helped her pack.”

“Yeah, I've done that a few times, too,” Ethan admitted. “I know where you're coming from. Well, as far as the bed goes, count yourself lucky. It'll cost you to replace it, but in the long run, it will be worth it. Trust me.”

“I'll take your word for it, Bob,” Davis murmured. “As you said, yours is the voice of experience. Three divorces?”

“My lawyer sends me cards on my birthday and most major holidays.”

“Sounds like he should send flowers,” Zoe said tightly. She took a decisive step back, moving away from the bedroom door. “I think we've seen enough, Bob. We'd better be on our way. If you will work up a rough idea on where you think the fixtures and electrical outlets could be located, I'll include the information in my presentation to Davis on Friday.”

“Sure.” Ethan paused in front of Davis and stuck out his hand. “Nice to meet you, Mason. Good luck with the
remodel. You can't go wrong with Ms. Luce, here. She really knows her stuff.”

Davis shook hands briefly, but his eyes were on Zoe. “I'm looking forward to working with her.”

“Me, too,” Ethan said. “It's always interesting, know what I mean?”

Zoe did not respond. She turned on her heel and disappeared down the hall.

She was certainly in a big hurry to leave the bedroom, Ethan thought. He wondered about that as he followed her outside to her car. He was aware that she had been tense when he had explained his plans for getting inside Mason's home, but she had cooperated willingly. Her nerves had seemed steady enough throughout the tour of the house. But all that had changed when they'd reached the master bedroom.

He got into the passenger seat and closed the door. Zoe slipped behind the wheel, fastened her seatbelt, started the engine, and drove away very quickly.

He put on his dark glasses and studied her taut profile. Her delicate jaw was tight. She had a death grip on the wheel. She drove with the focused concentration of a professional race car driver closing in on the checkered flag.

“Are you okay?” he asked when she slowed to approach the guardhouse.

“Of course I'm okay.”

“You did fine back there at Mason's place,” he offered. “If I didn't know you were a decorator, I'd have said you'd had some experience in my line.”

Her knuckles whitened. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“Just that you did the undercover thing with flair.”

“Flair.”

“Yeah. Flair. At least until we got to the bedroom. You started to get a little shaky at that point.”

“Maybe it was because you and Davis got into that ridiculous conversation about changing beds when you changed wives.”

“Wasn't ridiculous. It's a fact. Like I told Mason, I've run into the problem a few times.”

“You really have been through three divorces? I thought maybe you'd made up that story to get him to talk about the missing bed.”

“It was the truth.”

“Good grief.” She sounded dazed. “Children?”

“No.” Okay, so she obviously did not think that he was Mr. Perfect. He already knew that. Why the hell did he care about her opinion on the subject? “What about you? I take it you're not married?”

“No.”

“Divorced?”

“No.” She braked for the guardhouse. “I was with someone for a long time. It didn't work out.”

He could have heard the slamming of that door from a mile away, he thought. Whatever it was that had happened in that relationship, it had left scars.

Slammed doors always piqued his curiosity. He wondered what would happen if he probed a little deeper.

At that moment, the guard emerged from the security station. Zoe lowered her window and murmured something brisk and polite. The guard nodded and wished her a good day.

Zoe put her foot down on the throttle and sent the vehicle hurtling through the gates and out onto the main road. She was obviously keen to get away from Desert View.

“Well?” she said. “Did you pick up any useful clues back there?”

“Maybe.”

She shot him an irritated look. “That's the best you can do? Maybe?”

“For the moment.” He glanced back over his shoulder. The security guard was making an entry in a log. Methodical type. Radnor Security Systems was big on procedures. It was probably the secret of their success.

“What do we do now?” Zoe asked.

He turned his attention back to the road. “Now I find the missing bed.”

“Why on earth do you want to waste time tracking down the bed?”

“Something tells me that when I find it, I'll find out what happened to Jennifer Mason.”

The following afternoon,
Zoe stood alone in the front hall of the Taylor residence and savored the gracious warmth that flowed through the space.

After a year in her new profession, she had discovered that this was her favorite moment in the design process. Every detail from window treatments to carpets was in place. The furniture had been delivered and positioned. The craft and construction people were gone at last. Her creation was complete, but the owners had not yet moved into their new home.

She had the place to herself. It was the only chance she would ever have to walk through the spaces alone and critique her own work. It was her one opportunity to decide whether or not she had achieved her design goals.

This large residence had been one of her first big projects, and it had been a challenge. She had worked on it for months. After giving her a detailed list of their requirements, the Taylors had announced that they were leaving
everything in her hands and had taken off on a world cruise.

“My husband and I went through one complete interior design experience together early on in our marriage,” Mary Taylor had explained with a shudder. “We almost got divorced because of the stress. We do many things well as a couple, but interior design is not one of them. This time around, we want a turnkey operation. When we get back, I want to walk back into a complete, finished home.”

The Taylors were due to return next month. Zoe thought they would be pleased. They were in their sixties, successful, high-energy, gregarious people with an active lifestyle. She had set out to create a serene background against which their vivacious natures would shine.

The residence was brand-new with well-proportioned lines, high ceilings, and sweeping vistas. She had worked closely with the architect because she had wanted to be certain that her designs enhanced his well-executed spaces. Granted, she had been new at the job, but her instincts and her degree in fine arts had both told her that harmony was best achieved when the architectural and interior elements worked together.

She slipped the heavy crimson tote off her shoulder, put it down on the tile of the front hall, and walked into the spacious great room. The small, intimate seating groups that she had used to bring a comfortable sense of scale to the vast interior worked well. She imagined the room filled with a hundred guests. The energy and noise of a lot of people gathered in one space could be difficult to orchestrate, but she was confident that this room could handle the job.

She continued her walk-through, making tiny adjustments here and there. A sense of calm and tranquility enveloped her. It occurred to her that she had come here today not just because it was a good opportunity to take one last look at her work, but because she had been badly in need of the serenity she had designed into this residence.

The second visit to the master bedroom in Davis Mason's house had left her more disturbed than ever. The
screaming in the walls had not dimmed. The invisible pain was at such an intense level that she could not understand why others failed to notice it.

Davis had appeared oblivious, just as he had the last time. But there had been a few seconds there when she had wondered if Ethan had unconsciously picked up some trace of what she felt emanating from the terrible room. It had to do with the way he had moved in that space, she decided. It was as if he'd become more alert or something. He hadn't walked or strolled through the room; he had prowled.

Then she had realized that it wasn't a subliminal awareness of the energy in the walls that was affecting him. What she had seen in Ethan was the anticipation of the hunter on the trail.

She came to a halt in the center of the gleaming copper-and-granite kitchen and thought about that. A tiny chill flickered through her. Ethan Truax could be dangerous under certain circumstances.

That realization would not have bothered her quite so much were it not for the extremely unsettling knowledge that she was attracted to him. She had finally faced that fact today. She did not understand the little tingles of excitement she experienced in his presence, but there was no point denying them.

The really weird part was that she had not given any man so much as a second glance for two years, and now, here she was, fantasizing about a low-rent private investigator who had admitted to three marriages and as many divorces.

Ethan Truax was very definitely not her type. Preston, with his love of art and history and his gentle ways, had been her type. Whatever it was she was feeling for Truax, it probably only involved a lot of hormones that had been dormant for a long time.

She left the kitchen with its large adjoining pantry and walked past the handsome, polished steel door of the new walk-in, climate-controlled wine cellar. In addition to their extensive entertaining needs, the Taylors collected rare and
exotic vintages. The cellar was empty and unlocked at the moment because the valuable collection of wines had not yet been moved. Edward Taylor had made it clear that he wished to supervise that delicate process personally when he returned from the cruise.

She continued along the spacious central hall, admiring the artful patterns worked into the floor tiles. When she reached the fully equipped exercise and sauna room, she paused to check that all of the high-tech machines were properly positioned.

She was on her way to the guest wing when she heard the faint whisper of sound from the back of the house.

She froze; her palms felt as though she had just plunged her hands into ice water.

It had been only a tiny, hushed creak that could easily be written off as a figment of her imagination. It was just the sort of thin little noise that you could expect to hear in a large empty space where small sounds tended to echo. But it seemed to her that the flow of air down the hall had altered a little. One of the French doors that separated the kitchen area from the pool terrace had just been opened.

She was no longer alone in the big house.

 

“Hurry up, okay,
man?” The storage locker attendant worked the code to open the door on the second floor of lockers. He glanced nervously over his shoulder. “Someone might come along, y'know? If the boss finds out I let you in, he'll fire my ass.”

“This will only take a couple of minutes.” Ethan shoved a few crisp bills into the man's hand. “Go back to your desk. I'll give you the rest on my way out.”

“Just make it fast, okay.”

“Sure.”

The attendant pocketed the money and hastened off toward the stairwell.

Ethan went down the long hall of locked doors until he came to number 203. According to the attendant, this was
the one that had been rented to a man matching Davis Mason's description. Mason had used another name and paid in cash, but the attendant had remembered the bed.
A really big one. Said his wife had left him and he didn't want it. He gave me twenty bucks to help him unload it and get it into the locker.

Ethan opened the small box of tools he had brought along and selected the pick he thought would do the job.

He got the standard issue padlock open in less than fifteen seconds and rolled the garage door–style closure up into the ceiling.

He saw the headboard first. It was propped in the shadows against the left wall, a massive, ornate chunk of furniture.

The cold glow of the fluorescent fixture in the hall did little to illuminate the interior, but he could see the ends of the supersized box spring and mattress.

The mattress was wrapped in several yards of opaque plastic.

He took out the small flashlight he had brought, switched it on, and played the beam around the room. In addition to the bed, there were a number of packing cartons stacked inside the locker.

He took a knife out of the tool kit and slit open the nearest carton. He was not surprised to find a tangled heap of feminine clothing inside.

A good start, he thought. His new client might even be impressed. But it would be nice to have a little more to take to the cops.

He found what he needed when he went to work cutting away the layers of plastic that shrouded the mattress.

The massive bed was badly stained with a liquid that had dried to an unmistakable shade of brown.

Blood.

 

Panic hit hard
and fast. Had the bastards from Xanadu managed to track her down? Or had she had the extremely
bad luck to time her lonely walk-through on the same afternoon that a burglar had decided to enter the vacant residence? She had deactivated the sophisticated alarm system when she had entered a few minutes ago, making it all too easy for him.

Whatever the answer, she was trapped. Her tote, with the phone inside, was a million miles away in the front hall. Even if she had it in her hand, she could not risk using it because the intruder would hear every word she said in the echoing silence of the empty house.

The phone was not the only thing that was a long way away. Her car keys were also in the tote.

The only advantage she possessed was an intimate knowledge of the interior spaces of the large residence.

Pulse thudding heavily, she slipped out of her sandals and began to work her way back along the guest wing hallway toward the kitchen.

“I'm going to have to punish you, Zoe.” Davis Mason spoke from somewhere in the great room area. “Just as I did Jennifer. You're like her in some ways. I couldn't trust her, either. I didn't want to hurt her, but she forced me to punish her frequently. And then she started talking about getting a divorce. Well, I couldn't allow her to do that, could I? I had to kill her, you see.”

She almost stopped breathing. Davis Mason. Not someone from Xanadu or a passing burglar. Talk about your good news, bad news days.

“You're probably wondering how I figured it out.” Davis sounded as though he was addressing the weekly meeting of his business club. “I'm not stupid, you know. That first day when you came to look at my house, I realized that you must have seen something in the bedroom. Until that moment, everything had been fine. But then you suddenly tensed up. I could tell that you were nervous. You couldn't wait to get away. And you asked about the bed.”

She could hear his footsteps on the tiles of the grand central hall. He was not making any effort to conceal
himself. He sounded so arrogant, so confident that she knew he must have a gun.

“I followed you back to your office,” Davis said. “I saw you meet your friend at that café. I thought maybe I'd been wrong about you. Maybe it was all okay, after all. But just as I was about to drive away, you got up from the table and walked several blocks to the office of that private investigator on Cobalt Street.”

Her bare feet made no sound on the cool tile. She took another step toward her goal.

“I told myself that you might have some personal reason for meeting with a PI. A reason that had nothing to do with me. After all, if you suspected I'd killed Jennifer, you'd have gone straight to the police, right? But then you called me yesterday morning and asked to bring a contractor to the house. After telling me that you didn't have any time for me until Friday. I knew then that you were lying, just like Jennifer used to do.”

He was getting closer.

“When that damned contractor started talking about beds, I knew that he was probably that PI from Cobalt Street and that you must have asked him to find Jennifer. I knew then that the reason you didn't go to the cops was because you had no proof.”

She took another step.

“You know what, Zoe? Your investigator never will find any proof. I put that bed into storage. Got any idea how many hundreds, maybe thousands of rental storage locker companies there are in this state?” Davis chuckled. “Neither do I. Talk about a needle in a haystack. Even if it occurs to Truax to check out the storage locker angle, he wouldn't know where to start.”

Her hand brushed against a cool, steel surface.

“I'm afraid you're going to be the victim of a burglar you surprised when you walked into this house alone today, Zoe. You know, it's really too bad things had to end this way. I could have used some good feng shui.”

 

Ethan stood in
Zoe's office and listened to the ringing of her cell phone. Eventually he fell into voice mail.

“This is Zoe Luce. Please leave a message.”

“This is Truax. Call me as soon as you get this message.” He rattled off the number and dropped the phone into his jacket pocket.

The edgy tension vibrated through him like electricity through a wire. Everything felt wrong.

He looked at Zoe's calendar again, but nothing had materialized in the space reserved for that afternoon since he had last checked it a few seconds ago.

Where the hell was she? He hated it when clients disappeared like this. It always meant trouble.

He flipped through her telephone card file, found Mason's office number, and dialed it. A woman with a pleasant voice answered.

“Mason Investments.”

“Davis Mason, please.”

“I'm afraid Mr. Mason is out of the office this afternoon. May I take a message?”