Terror in Taffeta (16 page)

“Well,” Kirk said, “she might not have wanted to say anything till she was a little further along. We had just found out.”

“I guess so,” Nicole said. “She hadn't even started to show.” The expression on her face hardened as she caught up to what the rest of us had already concluded.

“Well, we're doubly sorry for your loss, then,” Mrs. Abernathy said, acting much kinder than I thought she was capable of being.

We made polite chitchat, asking Kirk about his flight and how long he planned to stay; then Fernando returned to let us know that Kirk's room was ready.

“You must be exhausted after your flight,” I said, pushing my chair back. “C'mon, let's get you settled in.”

While Kirk gathered his bags, I heard Mrs. Abernathy clearing her throat behind me. “I believe you dropped something,” she said.

Lying on the floor next to my chair was a ribbon of condoms, which I quickly snatched up and stuffed back into my pocket under the scrutiny of Mrs. Abernathy's stare. Dammit. What was I going to say, “They were Dana's”? I sheepishly shrugged and tilted my head toward Kirk, hoping Mrs. Abernathy would pick up on the psychic messages I was sending her. She didn't. She just looked at me and shook her head.

“Really, Kelsey. What are we going to do with you?”

 

CHAPTER 16

The next morning, I woke early and grudgingly began searching for a new place to stay in San Miguel de Allende. After leaving a message with my favorite rental agency, I called a few of my old standbys, only to find that they were booked.

I did a cursory search from my laptop, running some dates through a couple of reservation sites. How many nights? Well, that was a big question mark, but I started with five, just to be safe. Nothing was available. I tried four days; still no luck. Three? Two? How could it be there was nothing available? I expanded my search parameters to include three-star hotels. Mrs. Abernathy wasn't going to like it one bit, but at least she wouldn't be sleeping in the bus station, using her Louis Vuitton luggage for a pillow. Still, nothing was coming up.

Finally, my contact at the rental agency called me back. Lydia had helped me out many times before, and I was optimistic that she'd be able to find something for us.

“This weekend?” she asked. “Oh, no. Kelsey, I hate to tell you this, but I've got nothing.”

“Are you serious?” I asked, tapping my pen on the notepad that was waiting for me to jot phone numbers down on it. “Nothing at all?”

“I'm afraid not. This weekend is the San Miguel Chamber Music Festival, and everything's booked.”

Mrs. Abernathy was going to kill me. I should have started calling sooner, but how was I supposed to know the chamber music festival was coming to town? It's not like the streets were filled with the sound of cellos warming up—although their ominous sound would have probably made a fitting accompaniment to all the drama.

“Okay,” I sighed. “Call me if anything opens up.” I hung up the phone.

After seriously lowering my standards, I found some rooms available at a two-star motel on the outskirts of town, and I went ahead and reserved them just in case. Picturing the look on Mrs. Abernathy's face when I helped her get checked in at the Casa Grande provided plenty of incentive for me to keep looking. Besides, considering Zoe's situation, no one in the family was going to want to stay at someplace called the Big House.

I sighed and slumped in my chair. Why couldn't we just stay here in the villa? Stupid vacationers with their stupid rental agreement.

At a loss as to what my next move would be, I decided to go visit Brody since I had some time to kill before my appointment with Jacinda. He opened the door, greeting me with “Oh, good, you're up,” then yanked me inside before I even had a chance to say good morning. “I couldn't sleep last night after our surprise guest arrived, so I spent some more time with the files.”

That got my attention. His eyes were dancing with excitement—not to mention a vaguely self-congratulatory look that could only mean good news.

“Wow, I was going to see if you wanted to go get croissants, but this is way better. Please tell me you found something.”

“I found something. Dana had an entire dossier on LionFish.”

“A dossier? What do you mean?”

He opened his laptop and pointed at a spreadsheet with lots of red numbers. “She had all this information on the company, like e-mails and financial records.”

“Really? Why?”

“From what I could tell, the company was failing. Which in and of itself isn't all that remarkable, except for the investors.”

“The investors?” I didn't know where he was going with this, but I perked up based on his tone alone.

“Apparently, it wasn't just Ryan's company that was at stake. He had gotten his friends involved, too. And guess who was a silent partner? His best friend, Vince Moreno.”

“Wow, that's awkward.”

“Only if Vince knew,” Brody said. He raised his eyebrows expectantly, waiting for me to catch up.

I peered at the screen, then looked back at Brody as I started to piece it together. “What do you mean? Vince didn't know the company was in trouble?”

“Not according to these,” he said, double-clicking a folder to reveal dozens of backed-up e-mail files. “Ryan had been keeping it a secret from everyone, but somehow Dana found out. Apparently, she had a few thousand dollars invested, and when she realized it was gone, she found a way to get it back.”

“You don't mean…”

“She was blackmailing him.”

“Seriously? Whoa…”

“Yeah. And he was paying her out of the company's funds—which only compounded their financial problems.”

“Wow,” I said, soaking it all in. “So if Dana was blackmailing him, that means he had a motive to kill her.”

“That's the best motive we've heard so far,” Brody said.

A thought occurred to me, propelling me off the bed. “Brody! The tickets!”

“Yeah? What about them?”

“Remember? Dana was flying on to Barbados. This explains why there was no return flight home.”

Brody nodded in agreement. “Right! Because she wasn't going home.”

I paced back and forth, excitedly putting all the pieces in place. “She was blackmailing Ryan, she came here to get the money, and she was going to disappear for a while. If you remember, she wasn't even going to come until a couple weeks ago. I bet the only reason she changed her mind was so she could get her hands on the money.”

Brody let out a low whistle. “Wow, good work.”

“Thanks, but it was mostly you,” I said modestly.

His blue eyes twinkled mischievously. “Oh, yeah, sorry, I meant me. I'm awesome.”

“In fact,” I said, ignoring him, “it was probably Ryan who went to her room that night.”

“So what now? Should we go talk to him?”

“We can't; he left town right after the wedding. But we could go talk to the police. I'm sure they can track him down.”

Brody smiled and closed his laptop. “I think this calls for a breakfast cocktail, don't you?”

“Yes! Oh my God, I'm so relieved. This proves that he had a motive, and we know he had the opportunity—”

“Not to mention the devilish good looks.”

“Brody!” I tossed a pillow at him, but it sailed right past. “He's a murderer. Don't tell me you find him attractive?”

“What? I'm only human. I notice things. Don't tell me you didn't.”

“Whatever. I'm going to let your momentary lapse in judgment pass because you may have just freed us from this nightmare.”

“So, can we go now?” Brody asked, looking at his watch.

“Shoot,” I said. “I'm supposed to meet with Jacinda to talk about her wedding, but maybe we could get together afterward? I should be done by noon or so.”

“I'll do you one better, if you want. I'll go to the police station and show them what we've found so they can get going on it.”

“That'd be great!” I exclaimed. “Then maybe we can come home and start packing!”

“Don't get too excited. They probably won't release Zoe just because we bring them a new lead. But hopefully this will point them in the right direction, and maybe in a day or two…”

“Let's hope so. I'm coming up empty on places for us to stay, and if I don't figure out something soon, we're going to be commuting into San Miguel from Querétaro.”

We said our good-byes, and I headed toward the
jardín,
stopping at a little café to order a coffee to go. Transitioning into work mode, I grabbed an extra for Jacinda. Why? Because I'm an awesome wedding planner who takes care of people, anticipating their every need, from officiants to caffeine. If the last few days hadn't proved that there was nothing I wouldn't do for my clients, I didn't know what would.

I arrived about ten minutes early, settling onto a park bench. The
jardín
looked different in the light of day, much more subdued than when Evan and I had taken our evening stroll. Which reminded me: I owed him a phone call. I hoped he'd be excited that I'd found a new lead, even though it meant I was one step closer to going home. We'd both known this was temporary, but it was too bad we wouldn't have more time to see where it might end up.

Nah,
I thought, shrugging it off. It was too bad we didn't live in the same city, but I wasn't about to feel bad about going back to my own life. He was the one who had decided to move to Mexico. If he wanted to see me, he could literally hop on a plane almost anytime.

“Good morning,” Jacinda said, interrupting my thoughts and holding up two paper cups of coffee. “Look what I brought you!”

“Ha!” I picked up the two cups I had secured earlier. “Great minds…”

“Looks like we've got caffeine to spare,” she said jovially. “I brought
café
con leche
. It's really good. They make it with cinnamon.”

“Oooh, let's drink yours first, then. It sounds delicious.” We both took long drags off our coffee. If we were going to be overstimulated, we'd be overstimulated together.

“I've been thinking about your venue,” I said. “I don't know if you've seen the Escuela de Bellas Artes, but it has a similar feel to the Instituto.”

“Oh, interesting,” she said. “I've looked into taking classes there, but I've never actually been in the building, I'm ashamed to say.”

“It's beautiful,” I replied. “It was part of a church—a monastery, I think—and they turned it into an art school back in the 1930s. It has a courtyard that would be just perfect.”

“Sounds great! Maybe we can go look at it later.” She popped the plastic lid off her cup, releasing ribbons of steam, then swirled the creamy liquid around to let it cool. “So how does this work—with you, I mean? Do we do a contract, or…?”

“Well, if this means I'm hired, then yes!”

“Of course! I'm sorry. I thought it was obvious,” she laughed.

“Great. Then I'll write up a proposal, and we can go from there.”

“I hope you'll accept these fancy coffee drinks as a down payment, at least until I can get you a check,” she said. We clicked our paper cups together in a makeshift toast.

“Luckily for you,” I said, “I am easily bribed.” I stood up, a coffee cup in each hand, and gestured toward the church. “Shall we?”

The church was only a few minutes' walk, as are most things in the center of San Miguel. We entered the church vestibule, the large wooden doors snuffing out the cheery daylight behind us. It took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the dim lighting, the main source of which was coming through the dark, stained-glass windows. In the nave, I dipped my fingers in the holy water reflexively, making the sign of the cross. I wasn't Catholic, but I'd spent enough time in churches to be able to pass for any religion.

A middle-aged woman wearing a gray apron was dusting the pews, emptying the slots at the back of each one to make sure they contained only hymnals.

“Excuse me,” I said.
“Con permiso. Dónde está
Padre Villarreal, s'il vous plaît?”
She looked at me curiously. “Oh, sorry, I mean,
por favor.
” I knew a smattering of Spanish, but anytime I said more than a few words, I'd get confused and end up speaking French.

Still, she shook her head and kept polishing the dark, cherry-stained wood.

“Padre Villarreal, por favor?”
The cleaning woman rattled off something in Spanish as she walked toward the altar and disappeared into the sacristy. That's the trouble with attempting a foreign language: even if you know the question, it doesn't mean you'll understand the answer.

“That was weird,” I said to Jacinda. Maybe I should have called ahead, but I hadn't thought our drop-in would be so oddly received. “Do you think I said something wrong?”

“Don't look at me. My dad only spoke English around the house, and my mom was from Waco. Based on two years of high school Spanish, though, it sounded okay to me.”

Before we could decide on our next move, the door to the sacristy opened again and another woman emerged, walking slowly toward us.
“Buenos días,”
she said, looking tired and a little put out at having to deal with unexpected visitors.

“Buenos días,”
I said, extending my hand and giving her my best smile to try to win her over. Before she could launch into something I wouldn't be able to follow, I quickly added,
“Habla usted inglés?”

“Sí, sí,”
she answered, nodding, much to my relief, though she didn't return my smile.

“
Gracias.
I'm looking for Father Villarreal. Is he in?”

“No, he is not,” she said, folding her hands in front of herself.