Truth or Dare

  She was about to tune out the old, low-level vibrations when she felt a tendril of something dark and powerful snaking through the atmosphere. Not a spiderweb. It was something else—a desperate, unwholesome desire flickered like a broken neon light in the room.

  “He wanted something badly,” she whispered. “He needed it like a drug.”

  “Me, dead, apparently.”

  She spun around and saw that Ethan was standing at the one table in the space, leafing through a stack of photocopies.

  “What are those?” she asked.

  “Take a look.”

  She walked across the room and stopped in front of the table. The photocopies were reproductions of newspaper articles. Some were dated three years earlier. Others were more recent. All came from Los Angeles–area newspapers. She glanced at the nearest one and immediately went cold inside.

  SIMON WENDOVER DEAD IN BOATING ACCIDENT

  The body of Simon Wendover, former CEO of a privately held investment firm, was found floating in the water off Santa Barbara early this morning. Authorities believe that he fell overboard from his yacht at some time during the past three days.

  Officials at the marina where Wendover kept his vessel said that he had a long-standing practice of taking the yacht out by himself, especially on moonlit nights.

  Wendover made headlines a month ago when he was acquitted of all charges stemming from a plot to murder Drew Truax, the head of Trace & Stone Industries.

  The trial was closely watched by the entire Southern California business community because it involved a series of revelations concerning Wendover’s recent financial transactions. The resulting scandal negatively impacted the portfolios of several prominent investors and shook stockholder confidence. . . .

  She picked up another photocopy, scanned the story quickly and stopped at the last paragraph.

  . . . authorities noted that an autopsy had revealed the presence of drugs. . . .

  She looked up and saw Ethan watching her intently.

  “Wendover dabbled in the drug trade,” he said without inflection. “He not only sold, he used.”

  She nodded. “I see. Well, everyone knows that is an extremely high-risk business.”

  She glanced at another story.

  . . . authorities stated that the death may have been drug-related. There was no indication of foul play. . . .

  Ethan flipped through some of the clippings. “They talked to me but I had an ironclad alibi.”

  “Of course you did.” Ethan was not stupid, she was certain of that.

  “The cops were not particularly eager to build a case. They knew as well as I did that Wendover had skated on the murder charges.”

  She put the article down on the table and picked up another stack of papers. They were all reprints of newspaper photographs of Ethan. Several showed him walking into a courthouse, sometimes accompanied by Bonnie. In others he was pictured exiting the driver’s side of a silver BMW. A couple showed him leaving a handsome, modernistic office building. The sign on the wall behind him spelled out TRUAX SECURITY in sophisticated metallic letters.

  “The newspapers had photographers hanging around the courthouse throughout the trial,” Ethan said. “A couple of them staked out my office and Bonnie’s house.”

  She shook her head. “It must have been a nightmare for all of you.”

  “It was.” He let that go and turned slowly on his heel, studying the room. “But after Wendover died, I figured that at least it was over. Looks like I was wrong.”

  “If someone is trying to get revenge and if you and Harry are right when you say it’s probably not one of the investors who got hurt, then it has to be personal, Ethan.”

  “I know.”

  “What about a member of Wendover’s family? Someone who blames you for the death of his relative? Or a friend?”

  “That’s just it, there was no one who was close to him.” Ethan crouched down to survey the floor beneath the sagging bedstead. “If you looked up the definition of the word ‘loner’ in a dictionary, you’d see a picture of Simon Wendover. Trust me, I checked him out all the way back to the day he was born. His mother was a drug addict who died when he was three. He was raised in a series of foster homes. No friends, no pets, no children.”

  “Wives? Lovers?”

  “Wendover always had a good-looking woman on his arm when it suited him, but none of them lasted more than a few months. He never married.”

  Ethan stood up and crossed the room to open the small desk. He went through the drawers rapidly. Nothing.

  He opened the closet door. Zoe saw a handful of shirts and trousers arranged with military precision inside. A khaki duffel bag sat on the floor.

  “Looks like Branch is the neat and orderly type,” she said.

  “Military training, I think.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Something about the way he moved.”

  Ethan went swiftly through the pockets of the garments in the closet. When he came up empty, he crouched down and unzipped the duffel bag.

  Zoe took a few steps toward him and saw that there was nothing inside.

  “Huh.” Ethan looked thoughtful. “Funny he’d leave clothes behind in the closet but nothing in the duffel.”

  He got to his feet and went into the small bathroom, where he stood for a moment examining the space.

  “Huh.”

  She knew that particular huh. Something didn’t look right to him. She went to stand in the doorway of the bathroom. A handful of masculine toiletries were arranged on the counter but they all had a generic quality. The razor, shaving cream and toothpaste could have been purchased in any drugstore in the country.

  “Guess he didn’t want to leave a trail,” she said.

  “The place is clean, all right.” He glanced into the empty trash container. “Maybe a little too clean.”

  “Explain.”

  “There isn’t so much as a piece of paper in the trash, not even an empty bottle of one of those protein shakes he’s apparently addicted to. Everything in here and in the closet looks like it was arranged by a robot. Nothing is out of place. The desk is empty.”

  “But?” she prompted when he stopped talking.

  He walked past her into the other room. “But those photocopies of the Wendover case were left scattered carelessly on the table. You’d think an obsessive-compulsive as precise in his ways as Branch would have stowed them more securely.”

  Zoe thought about the whispers of desperate obsession that drifted through the room. “He might have wanted to immerse himself in the Wendover story one last time before he made his move against you. Perhaps going through those newspaper accounts was a way of getting himself psyched.”

  “Maybe.” Ethan did not sound convinced. “I can’t figure out where the woman with the shopping bag and the camera fits into this thing, either. If he sent her to Whispering Springs to get some background on me, where are the photos that she took?”

  “Good question. If she’s really involved in this, you’d think her pictures would be part of that file of newspaper clippings.”

  “Unless whoever cleaned up this room after Branch left removed them,” Ethan said.

  A new trickle of dread tingled through her. “You think somebody got here before we did?”

  “I’m not absolutely certain, but, yeah, the place feels like it’s been scrubbed and prepared for viewing.”

  “By whom?”

  “Probably whoever paid Branch to hit me.”

  She winced. “I wish you wouldn’t say things like that so casually.”

  Ethan prowled through the room a second time, shifting the meager furnishings around, checking between the mattress and the box spring and pulling the headboard away from the wall.

  She went back to the desk and did a second run-through of the drawers, checking to see if Ethan had missed a vital clue. She was not terribly surprised when she failed to turn up anything but a pencil and a blank pad of paper. There wer
e no helpful indentations on the first page of the pad that had been left by whatever had been written on the sheet above it.

  Ethan grabbed the small nightstand and eased it away from the wall.

  An envelope that had been trapped behind the nightstand fluttered to the carpet.

  They both looked at it.

  “Well, what do you know?” Ethan leaned over to pick up the envelope. “I think we just found ourselves a clue.”

  Excitement stirred through her. “Looks like a photo lab envelope.”

  “It is. Empty, unfortunately.” He glanced at the name of the lab and the address printed on one side. “But we’re in luck. It’s a local firm.”

  33

  The woman’s name tag announced that she was Margaret. She appeared to be in her late sixties, one of the legions of retirees in the area who, driven by either boredom or the inability to make ends meet on Social Security, had taken a low-paying, benefit-free, part-time position behind a counter.

  “The pictures of the tall woman with the short silver hair?” Margaret beamed. “Sure, I remember ’em. She looked like one of those actresses you see in those old late-night movies. Thought maybe she was somebody famous. I asked Shelley about her but she said she couldn’t tell me anything. Said it was confidential. I figured it was another one of her divorce cases.”

  “Who is Shelley?” Ethan asked, leaning casually against the counter.

  Zoe, standing beside him, managed a weak smile. Privately she was amazed by his easygoing attitude. Like this is no big deal. Like we have all the time in the world. Meanwhile, she was so tense she was sure that if someone picked her up and dropped her she would bounce.

  “Shelley Russell is one of our regulars,” Margaret said proudly. “She’s a real private investigator, you know. We’ve been doing her processing work for as long as I can remember.” She paused, frowning. “Say, you look sort of familiar.” She switched her gaze to Zoe. “So do you. You two were in that set of photos Shelley took.”

  “Probably,” Ethan said.

  Margaret began to look uneasy. “Hey, you’re not the husband or anything like that, are you?”

  “He’s my husband,” Zoe said in a cool, possessive tone. “Not the husband of the platinum-haired woman.”

  “Oh, good.” Margaret relaxed. “Thought for a minute there . . . Well, never mind.”

  “Is Shelley Russell’s office near here?” Zoe asked before Margaret could have more misgivings.

  “Oh, sure, she’s in the neighborhood. The address is about three blocks over.”

  “Thanks.” Ethan straightened. “Maybe we’ll drive by and have a look.”

  “Uh, why?” Margaret asked, looking dubious again.

  “I read a lot of mysteries,” Ethan said. “Always wanted to see what a real PI’s office looks like.”

  Outside it seemed to Zoe that the colors of the cars and buildings around her were sharper. The desert sky was a little bluer. The sun was brighter.

  A small shiver coursed through her. Was this cold thrill part of the lure that drew Ethan to his work?

  If so, it was not unlike the edgy, adrenaline chill that she got after she’d had a particularly vivid experience in a room laced with seething psychic energy.

  Ethan glanced at her, brows raised, as he got behind the wheel. “What?”

  “You’ve always wanted to see what a real private investigator’s office looks like?” she asked dryly.

  “Who knows?” Ethan gave her a feral grin. “Maybe I’ll get some cool decorating ideas.”

  “Right.” She sat back in the seat. “You know, that was very clever of you to ask Margaret about recent photos of a platinum-haired woman who looks like she could have modeled at one time.”

  “We knew the photographer took pictures of Arcadia. It was a safe bet that some of those pictures were of her, and she is rather unusual-looking.”

  Five minutes later he wheeled the big SUV into the small parking lot of a shabby, one-story office building. Two of the three storefronts were vacant and looked as though they had been that way a long time. The third had the words RUSSELL INVESTIGATIONS lettered on the front window in faded black-and-gilt paint.

  The window shades were pulled down and the sign on the front door had been turned to CLOSED.

  “Now what do we do?” Zoe asked.

  Ethan took his phone out of his pocket and dialed the number he had copied down from the phone book.

  “Automated answering service,” he reported a few seconds later. He checked his watch. “It’s almost five. Chances are Russell was having a slow day and decided to knock off a little early.”

  “So?”

  He switched the engine back on and put the SUV in gear. “So if I want to see what a real PI’s office looks like, I’ll have to give myself the tour.”

  She turned swiftly in the seat. “You’re going to break into her office? Ethan, no, it’s way too risky. She’s a detective, for heaven’s sake. She’ll have an alarm system.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.” He drove around the block and parked near the entrance to the alley behind the offices of Russell Investigations.

  “Pay attention here,” Zoe said, growing more uneasy by the minute. “You cannot afford to get arrested. Not with all the stuff going on back in Whispering Springs.”

  “I’ll be careful.” He got out of the car. “If I trip an alarm, there will be plenty of time to get away before the cops show up.”

  She unbuckled her seat belt. “I’m coming with you.”

  “Probably be better if you stayed here.”

  “If you get inside, I might pick up something that you might overlook.”

  He frowned, contemplating what she had said. For a moment she was afraid that he would make some disparaging remark about phony psychic consultants, but he finally nodded. “All right. I can use all the help I can get.”

  A few cars cruised past on the street but there was no one on the sidewalk or in the alley. It was the kind of neighborhood where people invested in wrought-iron security grills, and Zoe was not surprised to see that the small rear window of Russell Investigations was protected by one.

  “Told you so,” she said.

  “If you’re going to insist on being so negative, I won’t let you be my assistant next time.” Ethan tried the handle of the door.

  It turned easily in his hand.

  Zoe stared. “I don’t believe it. How could a private investigator forget to lock up her own office?”

  “Anyone can have an off day.”

  The flip words did not fit with his suddenly grim tone, she noticed. Her heart started to beat a little faster and harder. She watched him open the door and move into a small, shadowed hall. She followed cautiously, braced for whatever psychic energy lurked in the walls.

  She felt the usual mix of low-level emotions but none was especially troubling. She tuned them out and followed Ethan down a narrow passage, past what looked like a bathroom, and into the office.

  Ethan walked around the corner and stopped so quickly Zoe bumped up against him. They both looked at the figure of an elderly woman crumpled on the floor.

  “Dear God.” Zoe’s insides twisted.

  “Looks like Shelley Russell had more than an off day,” Ethan said, moving to crouch beside the motionless body. He put two fingers on the woman’s throat.

  Zoe went closer. “Is she. . . ?”

  “No. Not yet, at any rate. She’s breathing but she’s in bad shape. I don’t see any wounds or signs of violence. Maybe she had a stroke.” He pulled out his phone and punched in 911.

  Zoe knelt beside the unconscious woman and picked up one limp hand, aware of how fragile it was. The knuckles and joints were swollen with arthritis. She looked at the strong, heavily lined face while she listened to Ethan give the operator the information.

  When he ended the call, she looked at him across Shelley’s frail body.

  “She’s just a little old lady, Ethan.”

  “Got a feeling she?
??s a pretty tough little old lady.”

  He rose to his feet, reached into his pocket and pulled out another set of thin, plastic gloves from what appeared to be an inexhaustible supply. Zoe wondered if he bought them in bulk from a medical supply store.

  There was nothing she could do for Shelley Russell while they waited for the medics, she knew, except hold her hand. She had read somewhere that people who were unconscious sometimes reacted to voices.

  “Stay with me, Shelley,” she said, speaking in a firm, authoritative tone. She massaged the knobby fingers, trying to infuse them with some of her own warmth. “Hang on tight. The medics are on the way. You’re going to be okay, Shelley.”

  She kept talking quietly, aware that Ethan was conducting a swift search.

  “Any idea what we’re looking for?” she asked.

  “Anything that will help me figure out who hired her to do surveillance in Whispering Springs.” He studied the contents of a drawer. “I don’t see a file on Truax. Guess that would have been too easy.”

  “Probably. Nothing about this situation has been simple. Why should things change now?” She clung to Shelley’s hand.

  “You’ve got to stay with us, Shelley, so you can help us solve the case. That’s what you investigators like to do, isn’t it? Solve the case? Just hang in there so you and Ethan can figure out what’s going on here.”

  “Looks like she specialized in low-end divorce and missing persons work,” Ethan muttered as he flipped through another file drawer.

  “This isn’t a sophisticated-looking business. I wonder why someone hired Russell to take those pictures.”

  “People who make a career of following wandering spouses around are usually good with a camera,” Ethan stated. “The client always wants pictures.”

  “Yes, but you’d think that one of your old LA enemies would have opted for a PI who was a little more cutting edge.” She continued to stroke Shelley’s fingers. “From what you’ve told me, those people you managed to annoy were all wealthy, big-time investors. Hard to imagine one of them choosing a small-time investigator like Shelley Russell.”