“But you had nothing to do with it.”
“As I tried to explain, but the police had a different idea. A guy by the name of Detective Montoya? He’s pretty sure that somehow I’m involved in both disappearances.”
“What? No!” She couldn’t believe it. “But that’s insane.”
“Insanity to you and me. Motive to the police. The theory is that I might have been so damn pissed about the affair blowing up in my face the way it did, that I went into a jealous rage and got rid of you both.”
“You’re lying.”
“That’s your department, darlin’.” Ryder’s voice was cold. “The police are grasping at straws, and I told them that. But my alibi of being on the road that night didn’t hold any water with them. That hotheaded homicide detective? Montoya? He’s a real piece of work and he never quite believed my story. The only good news was that he didn’t have a body, not even one . . . with two people missing, so they couldn’t build a case against me. Not that he isn’t trying. So, it would be a big favor to me, if you’d go prove that you’re not dead.”
“That still leaves my husband,” she whispered.
“Your problem. Not mine.”
“Oh, God,” she whispered, believing Ryder’s story, knowing she’d left a mess behind her when she’d worked so hard to disappear. And the mess kept following her. The only good news was that she was more convinced than ever that the two women who’d been recently killed around Grizzly Falls had nothing to do with her.
“So pack up because we’re leaving.”
“There’s a storm outside,” she reminded.
“Always a storm of one kind or another, always a road block.” He cast a glance in her direction. “We’ll take our chances.”
“That’s nuts.”
“All relative, especially where you’re concerned.” He pocketed yet another camera, then walked into the kitchen and small bath.
He’d even seen her showering or on the toilet or . . . “You’re a pervert, Ryder,” she yelled, but her eyes were on the front door. She only needed her keys and she could race to the Tahoe and peel out of there. Or—Crap! Why hadn’t she thought of it before? Her cell phone. It was . . .
In the pile of clothes where her switchblade had been hidden. She quickly tossed her jeans and sweater aside, but, of course, the tiny phone wasn’t where she’d left it. Her keys . . . no, they were gone, too.
“Son of a bitch,” she hissed just as he returned from the bathroom. “You really are a bastard, aren’t you?” She was standing in the middle of the living room, trying to come up with some kind of option because no matter what he thought, she was not returning to Louisiana.
“You know, I try my level best.”
At the news of a potential suspect in the Cantnor and Pope homicides, Blackwater wanted an up-to-the-minute report on everything the department knew about the new suspect. If the lead panned out, he would order a BOLO—Be On The Lookout—bulletin for the woman.
He called in Alvarez and Pescoli, Zoller, the junior detective in charge of the Internet research, Deputy Winger as he trusted her advice, and Brett Gage, the chief criminal deputy.
Joelle Fisher, of course, couldn’t let a meeting go without bringing in a tray with two kinds of coffee, cups along with napkins, creamers and sweeteners.
Blackwater finally understood that, especially with the receptionist, there was a certain amount of decorum that had to be followed, tradition, if you will. He could appreciate Joelle’s single-mindedness when it came to a task, but worrying over who drank decaf or avoided artificial sweeteners or that the platter had a damn paper doily covering it, weren’t his top priorities. He wished Joelle would dial it back, just a notch or two, and he’d said as much.
She’d complied, but he sensed it was only temporary. Decorations and baked goods, celebrations of all kinds were part of her DNA, just like her throwback beehive hairstyle.
“Thank you,” he said as she left the meeting room, each step reverberating quickly against the tile floor.
“Let’s get to it,” he said as the invitees took spots around the table.
Other than Gage, no one bothered filling a cup. Alvarez and Zoller each had electronic notebooks, Gage and Pescoli notepads and pens. Blackwater had both at his fingertips. “I know about the prints and the connection, but what do we know about this person, Anne-Marie Calderone? You talked to someone in New Orleans, right?”
“Detective Montoya, yes,” Alvarez said, taking the lead in the discussion and passing out two pages, one with the picture from the suspect’s Louisiana driver’s license, the other a sheet of facts about the woman in question. “Anne-Marie Favier Calderone. She’s thirty years old and, according to Montoya, been missing for several months. He’s sending us the files and a timeline, but the long and the short of it is that she was married to Bruce Calderone, a medical doctor who, until recently, worked at a private hospital in New Orleans. Once connected to the Catholic church, it’s now run by lay people. He was a surgeon.”
“Was?” Blackwater interrupted, feeling his eyebrows slam together.
“He seemed to have disappeared, as well. Both he and his wife. From the interviews Montoya did with friends and family, it appears the marriage wasn’t stable, with accusations of affairs on both sides. Though there were never any charges filed, there were rumors of abuse.”
Alvarez continued on, saying that Anne-Marie Favier had grown up a daughter of privilege. The Faviers had once had family money, at least during Anne-Marie’s youth. According to her parents’ sworn statements, she was headstrong and brilliant but a little unbalanced. In high school, she spent three months in a mental hospital for undisclosed issues. Montoya had said the records were sealed as she’d been a minor at the time. Later, she’d not only finished a four year program but also held an MA in philosophy from Tulane University.
The trouble started after her marriage to Bruce Calderone, a medical student whom she’d helped through school. There followed breakups and reconciliations, even some long separations, which included the last one. She and Calderone had been separated and she’d filed for divorce. She’d signed, but Calderone had balked.
She’d ignored that little fact when she’d married her latest fling, a cowboy by the name of Troy Ryder in a tiny chapel in Las Vegas. When that relationship apparently soured, she returned to New Orleans sans the new groom, but when Calderone learned about the second marriage he’d blown a gasket. Though, again, not reported to the police at the time, the neighbors had heard screaming and yelling which ended abruptly around ten or ten-thirty. The next day, they were gone. Both of them. All of their worldly possessions left behind. It was, according to Montoya, as if they’d each just fallen off the face of the earth.
No cars taken, no credit cards used, no cell phones answered or turned on so the cops could locate them.
“That’s basically it, except for one interesting fact,” Alvarez said. “Though Anne-Marie wasn’t close to either of her parents, she was adored by her grandmother. The grandfather died years earlier, but the weekend Anne-Marie and her husband went missing, the grandmother was robbed. She claimed she had fifty thousand dollars in her safe and no one, other than her granddaughter and her daughter, knew the combination, though they of course could have told others. Montoya thinks the mother is in the clear and that leaves Anne-Marie.”
“She would steal from the one person she loved?” Pescoli asked.
Alvarez paused. “Maybe she was desperate. According to her parents, Montoya notes, that despite all of her education, their daughter never made any serious money or pursued a career in her field of interest. She held odd jobs all through school. Worked as a clerk or a waitress even after she graduated.”
“While her husband finished medical school?” Blackwater asked.
Alvarez studied her screen. “Uh-huh. What little Anne-Marie made, coupled with his student loans, kept them afloat.”
Blackwater asked, “Either of them ever steal before?”
“Neither
had a criminal record. So if they had, they were never caught. But if they had the grandmother’s cash to finance their disappearance, and maybe new identities, it could explain why we can’t find either one of them.”
He rubbed his chin and shook his head as he thought. “They hated each other, so it’s unlikely they were on the run together, and if he had a thriving medical practice—”
“Not thriving.” Alvarez shook her head. “In fact, Dr. Calderone not only worked at the hospital but was a partner in a clinic. The business was going bankrupt, though his partners think he was not only syphoning off money but prescription drugs, as well. After he disappeared, a couple women came forward and reported that he’d been inappropriate with them. They’re suing his practice as well as him personally, and as such, his wife.”
“Because she had money?”
“Her family had money, at one time, but according to the New Orleans PD, Mr. and Mrs. Talbert Favier are teetering on the verge of bankruptcy. It’s kind of a case of everyone believing everyone else had huge piles of dough stashed somewhere, but the Faviers had invested in real estate and their own business and it was all hit hard during the recession. The only person with any money left is Grandma Favier.”
Blackwater frowned at the flat image of the woman who seemed to be staring up at him from her driver’s license photo. “Do we have any more pictures?”
“Montoya’s sending them through e-mail.” Alvarez checked her iPad. “Oh, here we go. Let me hook this up.” She spent a few seconds connecting her device to a large monitor on the wall and clicked through a series of images of a beautiful woman in her twenties, laughing and mugging for the camera. “Some of these are from her Facebook account. No activity of course since they disappeared. Nothing on any social media platforms. And here.” She flipped through another series. “This is the husband, Bruce Calderone.”
They all leaned forward to look at the picture. Calderone was a big man with even teeth and an easy smile. He was dressed in a lab coat.
“And one more. Anne-Marie Calderone’s love interest. Troy Ryder.” Another image filled the screen, a man of thirty odd years with tanned skin, crow’s feet, and eyes set deep in his skull.
Blackwater looked from Alvarez to Pescoli, who’d let her partner do all the talking. Pescoli’s mouth was stubbornly set as if she didn’t agree with what was going on.
He glanced back at the picture. “So, now we’ve got a love triangle, a robbed grandmother, two missing people from New Orleans, and our two dead victims with the severed fingers dumped here in Grizzly Falls.” He glanced around the table. “Am I missing anything else?”
“Just one more thing,” Alvarez said. “There was talk about her being involved at one time with Cade Grayson.”
“Another boyfriend?”
“Long before Ryder. Cade’s a person who could be her connection to Grizzly Falls, maybe why she ended up here.”
“That woman really gets around,” Gage observed.
“Two boyfriends, one husband,” Pescoli said. “Not so much getting around.”
“More like two husbands, one boyfriend,” Gage rejoined. “She seems to have a little trouble with her marriage vows.”
“Lot of that going around,” Pescoli said.
Blackwater interrupted. “Someone needs to talk to him. See if Grayson’s seen her.”
Alvarez said, “Already on it.”
“Good. Now, is there anything else?”
Gage shrugged and Alvarez shook her head. Zoller and Winger were both busily taking notes. He focused on Pescoli. “What do you think, Detective?”
“Fingerprint or no fingerprint, I have trouble believing our doer’s a woman.”
Blackwater felt impatient, but whether he liked the rogue detective or not, he grudgingly respected her gut instincts.
“I think it’s damn convenient that we have her prints, no, make that print, singular. One at each scene,” Pescoli went on. “Doesn’t anyone else find that convenient?”
Gage gave another shrug. “Maybe odd.”
Blackwater regarded Pescoli for a moment, then said, “Since we can’t find hide nor hair of Mr. or Mrs. Calderone, maybe we should be looking for Ryder. Unless he’s hiding, too, and they’re all involved in this thing together, which I don’t believe, there should be records of him. Credit card receipts and cell phone records?”
“Montoya’s already on it,” Alvarez said, reading from her device. “Looks like he was recently in Denver, but he did buy gas in Casper, Wyoming and Billings, Montana and finally, a few days ago, made a purchase right here in Grizzly Falls at Corky’s Gas and Go.”
Blackwater said, “And I assume we have a make and model of his vehicle?”
Alvarez glanced up from her computer while Winger broke down and poured herself a cup of coffee. “We do.”
“Then I suggest you start at the gas station with pictures of Ryder. Take the others as well, just in case he’s traveling with either of them, then check the local motels. He probably doesn’t think anyone’s looking for him, so he might be registered under his own name. Let’s bird-dog him.” Blackwater felt a warm spot deep in his gut. Maybe this case would break under his watch, the culprits of a scandalous crime spree that stretched from the deep South to Grizzly Falls brought to justice. “Don’t forget Cade Grayson. The two on the run might be in disguise, so let’s work with the computer guys, do some enhancements, Photoshop a little, play with the images.” He grinned at his team. That’s right, his team. “Who knows, the missing Calderones might be hiding in plain sight right under our noses.”
Chapter 25
Anne-Marie was through being bullied. She jabbed an angry finger straight at Ryder. “I’m never going back to Louisiana, but I was willing to turn myself in here.”
“Because of Cade Grayson?”
She’d picked up her jeans and was reaching for her sweater but stopped to look at him in surprise.
“I knew about him. And when your coworkers in Denver mentioned you were hooking up with an old boyfriend, he came to mind.”
“What happened between Cade and me was a long time ago.”
“But you came here.”
“I was going to meet with his brother. Dan was the sheriff. Cade had sworn he was fair and would look at all sides of an issue. I knew I had to turn myself in, that I couldn’t keep running, but I didn’t trust anyone in New Orleans. My father golfs with judges and lawyers and . . . and he thought I’d made a big mistake. That no matter what, I should stick with Bruce. He would rather believe I was lying.” She bristled at that thought, that her own parents had sided with the man who had beaten her.
“So, what made you finally run?” Ryder asked, a tenderness in his voice.
It made her heart soften though she knew it was stupid. He didn’t care for her, possibly never had. After the whole bigamy thing, he could never trust or think kindly of her again. Yet there was a note in his words that pierced beneath the shield she’d built around her heart.
She sat on one arm of the couch and pulled on her jeans. The fire was burning bright and finally casting some heat into the room. “We’d had one of our classic fights. The last one, I’d hoped. It was on the phone and I’d decided, once and for all, it was over. I was strong enough to leave him forever.
“I’d never moved back into the house once you and I . . . well, ever since Las Vegas. I didn’t love him. Probably never had. I was done. I wanted out. If I never saw him again, that would have been fine. I knew he’d never forgive me, but I made a major mistake. I still had things at his house where I used to live, and so . . . I knew he was working at his office, so I went back to our townhouse intent on loading up the rest of my things and leaving town.”
She clenched her teeth at the memory, and heard once again in her mind, the downstairs door opening when she’d been on the upper floor in the master bedroom.
She had already stripped out the closet. Her clothes were strewn across the king-sized bed she’d come to hate. Barely able to
breathe, she prayed he had just come home for a quick bite, that he hadn’t seen her car parked out back.
And then she heard his footsteps on the stairs, his tread swift and determined as he mounted the steps to the second floor. She cowered in the closet, but it was no use. He threw open the bedroom door, looked at the mess on the bed, and zeroed in on the closet. As he opened the door, a shaft of light pierced the messy interior where she was hiding between his suits and shirts.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he roared, though her intent was painfully obvious. “Leaving? Leaving me? You think you can do that? Leave me for some cheap cowboy? Steal away like a common whore in the middle of the night?” His face, the contours of which she’d once found so handsome, twisted in rage. Nostrils flared, skin flushed, cords in his neck pronounced, he grabbed her by the hair and pulled her forcibly from the interior of the closet.
She swung at him hard, connected with his ribs, and then saw the hypodermic needle in his free hand. Oh God, she thought, he knew she’d returned and was ready for her.
She felt the jab of the needle in her arm and, as the room began to swim, saw him pick up the rings she’d put on the nightstand—the engagement ring and wedding band that he’d given her—that she shouldn’t have ever let him see again.
“Are you fucking kidding me? This isn’t over until I say it’s over.” The diamonds winked in his hand and then he closed his fist around the clear stones. His lips were curled in rage.
Still swinging her arms and flailing wildly, she gratefully passed out at that moment.
Anne-Marie shook her head. From that point, she remembered nothing at all until she became groggily aware. It all came back.
She felt cold air on her bare skin and a dull throb in her hand, something slick beneath her, the smell of dank earth in her nostrils. Before she could fully revive, she was kicked hard, sent spinning and rolling. The plastic tarp whipped from under her body as she careened down a berm and splashed into the murky water where she woke with the first gulp of silty water.