The Arrangement (26 page)

“I suppose.” LaDonna sighed, clearly not convinced.

There had been too many heartbreaks, Marnie realized. Too much rejection. Eventually it wore you down. She searched for some other way to get through to her. She needed something tangible, not platitudes.

“Remember the guitar player you caught with those groupies?” She touched LaDonna’s hand. “You dropped him like he was spoiled meat. It’s not like you don’t know how to cut a guy loose.”

LaDonna stopped sniffling and peered at Marnie. “How did you know about Jerry?”

Immediately Marnie realized she’d made a mistake. Alison couldn’t possibly have known about the guitar player. LaDonna had told Marnie years ago in strict confidence. It was the sort of thing only best friends shared.

As Marnie struggled to come up with a plausible explanation, she could feel heat flare up her neck. It was creeping onto her face, the blotches that she’d had since childhood. The blotches that LaDonna knew about.

Her old friend stared at her, shock transforming her face. She didn’t say anything for several seconds, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the blotches, or Marnie. She didn’t say anything, but she had figured it out. Marnie could feel it. LaDonna knew who Alison Fairmont really was.

“I need to go,” LaDonna said, glancing at her watch. “I have to get back to work.”

She began to walk to the pharmacy delivery car, parked just outside the back gate. Marnie hurried to walk with her.

“You know, I think Bret told me about that guitar player,” Marnie said. “Someone did, I just can’t remember who now.”

“Right, sure.” LaDonna nodded her head, but never once looked at Marnie. “Thanks for your help. That was nice of you.”

Everything she said sounded flat and false, and finally Marnie stopped and watched her get in the car and go. A sense of wild desperation came over her as she realized what she’d done. LaDonna may have been a friend once, but she was wildly indiscreet and possibly the worst person in the world to keep a secret. Marnie was going to have to take drastic measures, and she had to move fast.

T
ony Bogart paused to look up at the darkening sky. The rising crescent moon reminded him of an ivory elephant tusk, as pornographic as it was white and luminous. He stared at the strange sight awhile before continuing down the deserted beach. He felt like a damn pervert anyway, out walking around in the dark, but it was still warm and humid, and his motel room had no AC.

He needed to clear his head. He wasn’t thinking worth shit lately. It felt as if he’d regressed to childhood since coming home. He’d always had good instincts, even before the FBI training, but somehow, he’d managed to lose his target. Andrew Fairmont had disappeared, and Tony had already exhausted every resource available to him to track the man down.

He’d had the Fairmont place staked out for days, but he’d dozed off last night, and this morning he’d noticed the compound’s gate open. He’d asked questions down the hill and was just damn lucky that a convenience store clerk leaving his shift had seen Fairmont in a taxi around midnight, heading for the freeway.

Mirage Bay was dead asleep by midnight, even during the summer. You didn’t see a lot of taxis rolling around, so it wasn’t surprising that the clerk would have noticed. Tony had been able to trace Fairmont as far as the San Diego airport, but after that the trail evaporated. Tony had taken the risk of using his FBI credentials to get access to airline schedules, including passenger manifests, but had found nothing.

Fairmont had fucking vanished.

Desperate, Tony had gone after Alison, planning to question her about her husband’s disappearance, but she’d flipped out and kicked him off the boat before he had a chance. That wasn’t like Alison. She might have venomous fangs hidden under that beautiful mouth, but she didn’t bare her teeth and snarl like the woman he’d encountered this morning. She wasn’t a street fighter, like him, and she didn’t make threats when she had everything to lose.

Something was way off with her. Drugs, maybe. Pain pills. With all her surgeries, she’d had the time and opportunity to get hooked. He would have to check that out. It was also bugging him that his snitch had gone silent again—and left him hanging. Tony had tried telling himself that this dead end wasn’t his fault; he didn’t have access to the forensic expertise he needed. But it
felt
like his fault.

He glanced up as he approached the cliffs, not because something had pulled his attention. When Satan’s Teeth came into view you always looked up at the monstrosity. The teethlike outcroppings and the legends about them commanded attention. But tonight it was that strange horned moon, and the way its light reflected off the jagged cliff edge.

Tony was still staring at the cliffs when he saw something rocking back and forth. It looked as if someone was up there. He strained to see. Was the person dancing, some strange ritual in the moonlight? But then the wind changed, and he caught the screams. It was two people fighting, locked in physical combat.

Women. At least one of them was. The screaming got louder. Rocks tumbled down the cliff, and with every move the figures were getting closer to the edge. He shouted at them to stop, but they probably couldn’t hear him over the incoming tide and the noise they were making.

He broke into a jog, heading for the cliffs. He was too far away to do anything, but he might get close enough to identify them. One of the women was slender with long hair that looked dark, but he couldn’t be sure The moonlight had turned it silver. His first thought was Alison Fairmont. She was the aggressor, wrestling the other woman toward the edge.

He couldn’t see the victim, but he could hear her screams. “I won’t tell anyone,” she cried out, pleading with her attacker.

Tony heard the pop of what he thought might be a gun, drowned out by shrieks as one of the figures fell to the rocks below. He couldn’t tell which had gone over, but it looked like the one being attacked, and she was as good as dead. The tide was coming in, but the water wouldn’t have been deep enough to break her fall.

Tony stopped in his tracks, gathering his wits. He had just witnessed a cold-blooded murder. He glanced at his watch, checking the time, and then ripped his cell phone out of the case attached to his belt, and called 911. He would never be able to get to the woman on the rocks, so he headed for the cliffs.

He sprinted away from the water, leaped onto the seawall and then ran back out to the cliff edge. It was some distance, and when he got to the spot where he’d seen the fighters, the long-haired woman was gone. He looked down the beach, but there was no sign of her. She’d had plenty of time to get away.

Tony paused to catch his breath and consider his options. He had almost certainly witnessed a murder, which meant he was no longer off duty. He was now an eyewitness.

“Helluva game.” Bret finished off his beer and lined the empty cup up with the others on the table next to his recliner. He wanted another one, but he could feel the booze fuzzing his head. “Can you believe the Padres? They
killed
the Dodgers.”

He grabbed the remote to turn off the TV and the TiVo box. His mother’s silence made him glance over his shoulder to see what she was doing. She always preferred the sectional sofas in the third row, but Bret liked to be right up front where he couldn’t miss anything.

Watching the Padres play was the only thing he and his mother still did together, but she’d flaked out on him tonight. She’d stretched out on the couch and fallen fast asleep, snoozing through the last hour of the game, though she would never admit to that.

“Mom? Are you all right? Did you like the game?”

“Great,” Julia said, her voice husky. Her lids blinked open and she quickly sat up, aware that she’d been caught napping. “I must have closed my eyes for a minute,” she said. “I’ll make some coffee.”

“Too much pinot?” Bret knew that would get a snarl and snap out of her. She didn’t disappoint.

“Why do you say that? I only had those two glasses.” She jerked her Padres jersey into place as she made her way up the long, shallow steps to the crescent bar.

“Then why are you making coffee at 10:00 p.m.?”

“I may stay up and do some work. I’m on the planning committee for the charity gala for the philharmonic again this year.”

Yeah, right. He rose and scooped up the cups, proud of himself. There were only four. “How about that triple play by the Padres?” he said as he crossed the room to another wet bar, built into the far corner. Somewhere in those brushed chrome cabinets was a trash receptacle, although he always had trouble finding it.

“Great,” she said, “great.”

Suddenly his mother was inarticulate. The only word she could manage was
great.
He was pretty sure she hadn’t even seen the play, but he was going to torture her with a few more questions, anyway.

“Of course, you saw that inside-the-park home run by Piazza in the seventh inning. It blew off the outfielder’s mitt.”

“Yes, I saw it. Do I look stupid to you?”

“
Stupid
isn’t the word that comes to mind, actually. Piazza sat out the seventh. He twisted his ankle.”

“You smart-ass…” Julia took a bag of coffee from the refrigerator and banged the door shut. “I don’t know why I watch these games with you. I should have gone to bed like Alison.” She was just getting started on a tirade when a thunderous noise stopped her. It sounded as if someone was trying to break down the front door. “What the hell is that?”

Bret’s heart nearly slammed through his chest wall. The pounding was loud and insistent. Someone meant business. He left the empty cups on the counter and made a dash for the media room door.

“Bret, where are you going?”

“It’s the front door,” he called back to her, from out in the hallway. “You stay here. I’ll get it.”

“Alison, wake up!”

Marnie felt the bed shaking and she heard Alison’s name being called, but she was groggy and slow to react. She rolled to her back and saw people looming over her, but she couldn’t make out who they were through the heavy veil of sleep. It looked like Bret and Julia.

“What is it?” she said, wondering if she was dreaming.

Bret’s face came to within a few inches of hers. “You have to get up and come downstairs, Alison. Tony Bogart is here. He wants to talk to you.”

Alison.
She
was Alison. They were trying to wake
her.

She sat up, still trying to clear her head. She didn’t remember having taken a pill, but she’d had this same feeling in the past when she’d tried to wake herself before the effects wore off. Thick and hazy, as if she was walking through a snowstorm.

“What time is it?” she asked.

“It’s ten-fifteen,” Bret answered.

“In the morning?”

“At night,” Julia interjected. “Alison, you have to come down with us. Someone’s been murdered, and Tony is talking like he thinks you had something to do with it.”

“Murdered?” Marnie looked at them, confused. Her vision cleared instantly. She could see Julia’s shock and concern. Bret was pale and still, as if he knew something Alison didn’t—and feared the worst.

“Who was murdered?” Marnie asked.

Bret glanced at Julia, but neither of them spoke. That’s when Marnie realized it must be someone she knew, someone she cared about.

“Not Andrew?” she said.

A
lone in the Fairmonts’ living room, Tony took full advantage of the chance to have a look around. It was too dark to appreciate the view, but it had to be spectacular—and so was what he’d seen of the house. He’d never been formally invited inside the fabulous Sea Clouds. He’d been Alison’s dirty little secret when they were dating. She hadn’t minded amusing herself in his sordid world, and being treated like a goddess, but he hadn’t been allowed near hers. She probably thought he would soil the furniture.

He almost laughed. She’d been right about that.

There were family pictures on the baby grand, all of them of the perfect family, living the perfect life, beautiful people without a care in the world. The world where he didn’t belong, even now. He quelled pangs of jealousy, not for Alison, but for the charmed life she lived—and took totally for granted.

She’d been right about him soiling the furniture. It was going to get good and dirty.

Moments later, as the three Fairmonts filed into their living room, he was sitting on one of the white silk couches, innocently leafing through a coffee table book. But as he rose to acknowledge them, the petty jealousies turned into something else. The Fairmonts looked confused, frightened and defensive—and he was none of those things. Suddenly this was business. He was their equal, and more. He might be their executioner.

He zoomed in on Alison, his investigative brain operating like a camera lens. She was wearing the same outfit she’d worn on the boat that morning, navy shorts, a white polo shirt and deck shoes, but she looked disheveled and disoriented. The navy cardigan was missing, and her clothes were wrinkled and off-kilter.

Interesting. Alison was never wrinkled and off-kilter. And even more interesting, she was holding Julia’s hand. Or possibly Julia was holding hers. Either way, mother and daughter had never been close. This was something new.

Tony pulled out his badge and made sure they saw it. He had no authority to investigate this case, but the Fairmonts didn’t know that. Only sophisticated white-collar criminals and seasoned crooks knew to say nothing and ask for a lawyer. When most people saw a badge, they talked, and he was counting on that tonight.

He’d just left the local police on the cliffs after telling them everything he’d seen, except the name of his prime suspect. They would figure that out soon enough. Meanwhile, he had a few questions for Alison and family. He almost smiled. This was going to be fun.

Alison stepped forward, and her heavy-lidded gaze slammed into his. She hated him. Good, he could feed off that. Anything but the indifference she’d shown him back in the days when he was a lovesick fool.

“Who was murdered?” she asked.

“LaDonna Jeffries. Someone shot her and pushed her off Satan’s Teeth. She was dead before her body hit the rocks.”

Tony watched Alison suck in a breath and whisper LaDonna’s name. Pretty convincing, he allowed. You would almost have thought she gave a damn.

“I’m sorry if this is inconvenient,” he said, using his guardian-of-the-public-safety tone, “but there a few questions I have to ask.”

“Sure—” Bret’s voice cracked on the word. “Anything we can do to help. LaDonna was a great girl. Why would anyone want to hurt her?”

“A great girl? How well did you know her?” Tony zeroed in on Bret, who actually knew LaDonna inside out.

“Not very well. I did know her, though. I guess you could say we were friends.”

Tony enjoyed watching him squirm, as he imagined Alison might have squirmed when she’d been questioned about him years back. Other than that, he had no interest in the pretty younger brother.

“What about you, Alison?” Very casually, he turned his attention to her. “Were you and LaDonna friends?”

“We knew each other,” she said.

He continued to focus on Alison, although it was difficult to avoid her ferret-eyed mother, who was still hanging on to her hand. “Do you mind telling me your whereabouts at eight forty-five this evening?”

“I was right here,” she said. “I was probably asleep in my room by then.”

“She was.” Julia chimed in, moving in front of her daughter. “We were all home this evening, watching the Padres game. Alison didn’t feel well, and she went up to her room to lie down.”

“It would help if you’d let your daughter answer the questions,” Tony suggested, again the excessively polite lawman. “How about you, Bret? Were you here, too?”

“All night. We get the games live through our cable service. Did you catch that triple play in the sixth?”

“Not a sports fan,” Tony said. “I was out walking on the beach tonight.”

He let that sink in, and then continued. “Nobody went out for any reason at any time?”

“No,” Julia said, becoming more emphatic, “we were here the entire night. Bret just told you that.”

He nodded. “You and Bret were watching the game, but Alison was all alone, right? Up in her room?”

“Actually, I went up to check on her about eight forty-five,” Julia said. “She was sound asleep, so I didn’t disturb her.”

Tony didn’t believe Julia for a second. Eight forty-five was exactly the time he’d asked Alison about. Julia was going to try and provide her daughter with an airtight alibi, Tony realized. That was unfortunate.

Bret stepped forward. “Are you here to charge one of us with something? What? Murdering LaDonna? That’s crazy.”

“That’s up to the local police,” Tony said. “I’m just trying to clear some things up.”

“Why would Alison want to kill LaDonna?”

Bret had him there. Tony hadn’t had time to come up with a motive for LaDonna’s murder. But he wouldn’t be much of a G-man if he let a little thing like that stop him.

“Are we done now?”

Julia asked the question, but Tony continued to study Alison. He was fascinated by how shaky she appeared. “Where’s your husband tonight?” he asked.

She looked startled. “He’s in Mexico on business.”

“How did he get there? What airline?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t mention it.”

He debated telling her that her husband hadn’t flown out on any scheduled flight with a commercial airline based in San Diego. Nor had Tony found any record of a private chartered flight. He also debated telling her that her husband may have fucking deserted her, but that would set off alarms, and he wanted to get to Villard first. “When’s he coming back?”

“Soon—I don’t know. He was supposed to be back tonight.”

“I’m going to want to talk to him.”

Her eyes changed. It was weird, like fire burning through blue clouds. If he’d ever seen that before he didn’t remember it.

“I’m sure you do,” she said, “but unless you’re here to charge me with something, he doesn’t have to talk to you about anything—and neither do we.”

Tony grinned. He couldn’t help himself. She was kicking him out of the house the way she’d kicked him off the boat. He saw Julia coming for him, and knew he was about to be escorted out. He was far from done with these people, but he could save the rest of the fireworks for later. None of the suspects except Alison, but he didn’t have to let them know that.

“There will be an investigation,” he said, looking at all three of them. “You can count on that. No one is to leave town for any reason. You’ve heard the old expression, you can run but you can’t hide. Believe it.”

Julia reached for his arm as if she was going to forcibly escort the uncouth lawman from her home. Tony grabbed her by the wrist, clamping down hard enough to stop her in her tracks.

He loved the shock that rolled through her cosmetically enhanced features. Nothing equaled the thrill of power—not sex, not booze or drugs. The food chain had just upended itself, and this woman was nothing but a tasty morsel. He wondered how that felt to a person of her stature. Probably not much different than it felt to a peon like him. There were a few things that actually did level the playing field.

Birth, death, taxes—and this.

“I know where the door is,” he said. “I’ll show myself out.”

Marnie stood out on the bedroom balcony with the cell phone pressed to her ear. She’d come out here hoping for better reception. She’d been trying ever since Bogart left to get through to Andrew, but he wasn’t answering. His voice mail had kicked in the first few times she’d called, but the menu hadn’t given her the option of leaving a message. Now she was getting an automated response telling her the person she was calling was unavailable. After that the message cut off and she was disconnected.

She flipped the phone shut, deeply frustrated.

Not being able to leave a message was almost as bad as not being able to talk to him. He wouldn’t even know she’d been trying to reach him. She couldn’t tell him about LaDonna or find out when he was coming back, and she was worried that something had happened to him.

About an hour ago, she’d pressed the panic button on the cell phone, trying to connect with the detective he’d hired, but no one had responded. She hadn’t seen anything of Sanchez since that morning. Bret may have sent him away, and Marnie didn’t even know if Sanchez
was
the detective.

She’d thought she was isolated in Oyster Bay, but this was worse. She felt cut off from everything and everyone. She couldn’t reach Andrew, couldn’t talk to the people around her. There was nowhere to turn for help, and she had no idea what was going on with the search for her grandmother, or if anyone was even searching.

She went back inside, tossed the phone on the bed and contemplated the liquor cart, wondering what she might take to slow down her madly racing mind.

Glenfiddich, Absolut, Bombay Sapphire, Casa Noble Blanco.

Her sense of despair grew as she scanned the labels. She’d read books on wines and spirits to prepare for this trip, but right now she barely knew one from the other. No booze, she decided. No pills, either. She couldn’t sleep her way through this.

A wave of disbelief hit her, rocked her to the core. LaDonna was dead? Marnie couldn’t believe it. It was impossible to grasp that her friend had been murdered—and even more surreal that she’d fallen from Satan’s Teeth, just as Marnie had.

No, not fallen. LaDonna hadn’t fallen. She’d been shot and then pushed from the cliffs, and for some reason Bogart thought Alison did it.

Marnie turned to look at the nightstand. The gun! Andrew had left her a gun. Relief flooded her as she opened the drawer and saw that the pistol and the bullets were there. It didn’t look as if anything had been touched. Thank God.

She sagged to the bed and leaned forward, palms pressed to her throbbing forehead. She was overreacting. The situation couldn’t be anywhere near as bad as her mind was making it out to be. Still, she couldn’t seem to push away the feeling that things were closing in on her.

When she looked up, she caught a glimpse of herself in the armoire mirror. She looked like a transient, wild-eyed and crazy, and yes, maybe a killer who pushed people off cliffs. Worse, Tony Bogart had seen her looking exactly like this.

The nightstand clock told her it was midnight. Andrew had been gone twenty-four hours, and given what had happened since he’d left, Marnie couldn’t wait any longer to hear from him. Bogart had promised an investigation, and as much as she might want to think he’d been bluffing, she didn’t dare let herself think so. She had to calm down and start reasoning her way through this mess.

She left the bed and went back out to the balcony. No cell phone or panic buttons this time, just the cool, bracing air and the deep quiet of midnight. Within moments she had realized that she didn’t need sleeping pills or booze. What she needed was coffee. She had work to do and it might take her all night. Neither her own cell phone nor the one Andrew left her were set up for the Internet, and so she would continue to search the old-fashioned way, in the phone book. She had already gone through the hospitals and nursing homes in San Diego County, but could easily have missed something.

It had become imperative that Marnie find her grandmother. She was worried about her health, and that was reason enough. But it was more complicated now. Marnie’s situation had escalated, and she was just beginning to understand how grave things were. She had to find her grandmother to assure herself that she was safe, but she’d realized it was mutual. Josephine Hazelton might be the only one who could save Marnie now.

“Vending machine coffee in the age of Starbucks?” Tony muttered. “Isn’t that against the law?”

Gamely, he put several quarters in the slot, hit the buttons for coffee with double sugar, no cream, and watched the paper cup drop and fill, anticipating all the robust flavor of a bag of sawdust. This wasn’t his first trip to the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office, and it wasn’t his first experience with this coffee, probably from this exact machine.

That was back when he was a punk-ass kid. He’d never been charged with anything, but twice in his teens he’d been picked up for fighting. Finally, he’d figured out there were easier ways to deal with difficult people. You didn’t have to lay a hand on them, just play with their heads until their brains liquefied and ran out their ears. He’d gotten good at liquefying brains, but every once in a while a man needed some instant gratification.