Changeling Detective Agency - Shadows In The Starlight Part 24

Erin darted a surprised glance in her direction. "Why should you?"

"Just so you know, I'm going to be very unhappy if anyone at Sister Tamar's place is hurt because of you."

"I'll keep a low profile." Erin smiled sweetly. "Like you said, that's what we do best."

Much to his dismay, Ian found himself obliged to pay a call on the man who called himself Jason Cross.

An unannounced visit, of course. Unfortunately, Jason wasn't even slightly startled by the sudden appearance.

The man leaned against the kitchen counter in his "father's" bungalow and crossed his arms. "So. To what do I owe the honor of this intrusion?"

"You haven't contacted me with your findings on Gwen."

"What findings? If you told me what you were looking for, I'd have a better chance of noticing it."

"Selective observation? No, thank you. Tell me what you have managed to discover."

Jason gave a concise report of her online activities, as well as those of people who did her more complicated Internet work for her.

"Anything she knows, I know," he concluded. "She's working on a number of things. Some background checks, a missing woman."

"Tell me about them."

"Aren't we supposed to be following a drug connection and erasing ties to this Captain Walsh?"

"We must know everything she's working on." Ian gave him a keen look. "It could be particularly uncomfortable if she starts looking too closely into Frank Cross's death."

The man returned his stare. "Yes, I can see how that would be a problem for you."

Doubt flickered in Ian's mind. He was certain that this man had killed Frank Cross, but he couldn't pick up any inkling of guilt from the young man. Perhaps he was a sociopath who knew no such emotions?

"Tell me about this missing woman."

"Her name's Erin Westland, aka Helene Tremaine. She's married to Kyle Radcliff, the ex-husband of Gwen's friend Marcy Bartlett. She has a son. They're both gone."

Ian's heart seemed to leap into his throat, then thud painfully back into place. This was a most disturbing development. Especially now that Jason Cross was involved.

"What progress has Gwen made?"

"We've visited the woman's shop. An herb shop down in Tiverton called The Green Man."This, too, was disturbing news.

Shaken, Ian left the little house and hurried to his car.

He drove to Erin Westland's shop and bought a box of the store's tea.

As soon as he got back to his car, he spilled some of the dried herbs into his hand. He sniffed them, then touched a pinch to his tongue. The taste was unmistakable.

It was true, then. These herbs, banished for centuries, must have blown into the Burren from a gate that led into the Hidden land. And that could mean only one thing: James Avalon, Gwen's father, had figured a way in.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

Gwen decided to take Sylvia's car to East Greenwich. In Kyle Radcliff's neighborhood, a black Mercedes was the next best thing to camouflage. And unlike her aging economy car, the Mercedes could exceed the speed limit. She drove with grim concentration, weaving around slower vehicles and pushing the sedan to its limits. The sooner she got to Kyle's place, the sooner the coming confrontation could be done and over.

She'd never seen his house in East Greenwich. The home he'd shared with Marcy in Providence had been pretty spiffy, but this place was obscenely huge. A sprawling French colonial, all steeply peaked rooflines and small gables, was set in at least an acre of manicured lawn and carefully landscaped beds.

The circular drive curved around a sea of late tulips, and azaleas bloomed amid the foundation plantings.

A fenced area behind the house suggested an in-ground pool. Erin Westland was escaping a very posh cage.

Gwen pulled up at the front and rang the bell. No answer. She tried a couple of times before deciding that Kyle had missed their appointment, probably just to be a pain in the a.s.s.

She was turning to leave when a fluttering curtain caught her eye. The movement drew her gaze to the open window-and the grim scene beyond.

A tall, fair-haired male lay faceup on the carpet, his arms flung out wide. Gwen went over to the window for a closer look.

It was definitely Kyle. His cable-knit sweater, once a natural sheep-colored beige, was dark with blood.

His face was unmarked, and his cold gray eyes were open and staring.

Gwen reached for her phone to call it in. On impulse, she stopped, stuck the phone back into her pocket, and climbed through the open window.

The room was remarkably tidy and very, very beige. The carpets, walls, and furniture were all shades that could be found in a bowl of oatmeal. The only color in the room was the pool of blood seeping into the carpet around Kyle Radcliff's body.

As far as Gwen could tell, there was only one wound, but it had done the job. Someone with remarkable aim had gotten him right in the heart. Judging from the angle of the body, he'd been facing the open window and had fallen straight back.Gwen crouched beside the body. Her brow furrowed as she studied the wound. The placement was perfect, but it was like no gunshot wound she'd ever seen. Both his clothes and the flesh beneath had been torn, as if he'd been stabbed with some sharp but strangely shaped object.

A glance at his hands discouraged that theory. Kyle lay with his arms flung out wide and his palms turned up. There were no defensive wounds on his hands. There probably would have been, if someone had come at him with a knife.

She picked up one hand and turned it to study the nails. They were neatly trimmed and buffed, so her eyes went at once to the single imperfection: caught under one nail was a single wavy, bright auburn hair.

Trudy's hair.

Gwen sat back on her heels, stunned into immobility. True, the woman was ridiculously jealous. Marcy had said Trudy had been acting strangely, and yes, she'd taken a swing at Gwen, but murder? It didn't seem possible.

She rose and walked over to the window. The angle was too perfect. Whatever had hit Kyle had come through the open window. And the red hair? It was Trudy's, Gwen had little doubt of that, but that didn't necessarily mean that Marcy's lover had been in this room. Someone was manipulating the scene.

Gwen pulled out her phone and dialed Sister Tamar's private line. "Is Erin still there?" she demanded.

The nun sniffed. "Yes, and she's quite the princess. Why? What's happening?"

"Her husband's dead. There's a chance that whoever killed him might come after Erin. Lock the place down. Don't let anyone come or go."

"Done," Tamar said. "Do you know who did this?"

"Not yet. I've got to go."

She went to work on the body, searching for more telltale hairs. There were three, two on the sleeves of Kyle's sweater and one entangled in his hair. None were on the blood-soaked torso, which, to Gwen's way of thinking, argued strongly for their placement after Kyle's death.

Her next stop was the kitchen, where she denuded a roll of paper towels. She set to work wiping clean every surface in the room, including the windowsill and the doork.n.o.bs, inside and out.

When she was reasonably satisfied that she'd obliterated every false trace of Trudy's presence, she picked up her phone to call it in. She started to dial Quaid's number before she remembered he was on leave, pending investigation in Kate's murder. After a moment's thought, she dialed the station and asked to be patched through to Ben Cerulo.

"It's Gellman," she told him. "I'm working on a missing-persons, and I just got to a client's house for a meeting. Instead of a client, I have a body."

"I'll be right there," he said without hesitation. "Give me the address."

"Well, that could be a problem. It's in East Greenwich."

He huffed in exasperation. "Why are you calling me instead of the townies?"

"He has an estranged wife. She's not a suspect-she's been in Sister Tamar's safe house since this morning. But she might be in danger. Can you get someone over there? Preferably plainclothes?""You got it. Do you have any idea who might have killed your guy?"

Gwen's eyes slipped to the telltale red hairs she'd placed in a Ziploc sandwich bag. "I'll leave that to the East Greenwich people. Thanks."

On her way out, she left a fresh set of prints on the windowsill, the front doork.n.o.b, and the doorbell. The town cops would know there'd been a housekeeping, and her prints would suggest that it had happened before her arrival.

Before she called the townies, she did a circle of the property, looking for weapons conveniently stashed in the landscaping. When she was confident there was nothing to find, she sank down on the front step and dialed 911.

After the East Greenwich police were finished with her, Gwen drove straight to Marc's condo. Her friend's little silver BMW was not in the parking lot, but Trudy's Lexus was.

Gwen entered the building by following two male tenants and took the stairs up to the third floor. She knocked on the door for a while before Trudy swung it open.

The redhead was dressed-barely-in a sea-green teddy and a matching short robe. She looked rumpled and s.e.xy, as if she'd been called from her bed, but not from sleep.

Trudy regarded Gwen with a beatific smile. "h.e.l.lo gorgeous," she said in a cheerfully awful imitation of Barbra Streisand imitating f.a.n.n.y Brice.

Gwen cast her eyes toward the ceiling. "Forget it," she advised. "You don't have the nose for it."

The woman actually giggled. "I did, once," she confided. "I had it bobbed. See?" She presented her profile.

"Yeah, whatever. Where were you this afternoon?"

"Oh, who cares?" Trudy swayed closer and draped her arms around Gwen's neck. "Hold still, will you?"

"I'm not moving," Gwen pointed out as she tried to disentangle herself. It wasn't easy-the woman looked as boneless as a lap cat and twice as blissful, but she clung to Gwen with surprising strength and rapidly increasing pa.s.sion. "Jesus, how much of that stuff did you drink?"

"What the h.e.l.l is going on in here?" demanded Marcy.

Gwen glanced over her shoulder. Her friend stood in the open door, looking as if she'd just been whacked between the eyes with a two-by-four.

"Don't just stand there," she snapped. "Help me get Trudy into bed."

"Why? It looks to me like you're doing just fine on your own."

Just then Trudy managed to plant a wet one squarely on Gwen's mouth. Gwen seized two handfuls of wavy red hair and held her off. "A little help? She's higher than a weather satellite."

"Impossible," Marcy stated flatly. "Trudy doesn't take drugs."

Gwen raised an eyebrow."Okay, she'll smoke some weed once in a while, but other than that she is extremely health conscious.

Annoyingly so."

Trudy started to sag as euphoria gave way to stupor. Gwen staggered under the sudden deadweight.

"Give me a hand, would you?"

Finally convinced, Marcy kicked off her heels and came over to help. Between the two of them, they got Trudy into bed. She promptly rolled over to her side, curled up, and started snoring.

They slipped out of the bedroom. Marcy closed the door and walked over to the liquor cabinet. She poured herself a gla.s.s of wine with shaking hands.

"Has she been acting like this a lot recently?"

Marcy slumped into a chair. "If you mean has she been dry-humping my friends and a.s.sociates, no. But she's been having mood swings. She has definitely been more insecure and possessive."

"The weaknesses grow stronger," Gwen murmured, remembering Adrian's screed in the orchard.

"What is she taking? Do you have any idea?"

"An herbal blend. Something new. It's powerful stuff, but it hasn't found its way onto the list of illegals yet."

Marcy shook her head in sorrow and astonishment. "How long has this been going on?"

"The best I can figure, four or five months."

She was silent for a long time. "So it's gotten to be an addiction."

"I'd say so, yes."

She set down her gla.s.s and covered her face with both hands. "I don't know what to do with this." Her voice sounded m.u.f.fled and shaken, as close to tears as Gwen had ever seen her.

"Take your time. This has got to be a shock."

Marcy took a long breath and lowered her hands, folding them in her lap. "If this isn't a recognized substance, can she go into rehab?"

"It probably wouldn't be covered by major medical, but I don't see why not."

Marcy waved that obstacle away. "I can afford to pay for treatment. The thing is, what happens after? I don't know if I'm up to dealing with this. You know about my father."

Gwen nodded. Marcy had been raised by her maternal grandmother because her father was usually too drunk to pay much attention to his kids. The experience had left Marcy with an extreme aversion to any kind of overindulgence. That was one reason super-healthy, squeaky-clean Kyle had appealed to her. It was one of the reasons she'd gravitated toward health-conscious Trudy. There was something ironic in the fact that Trudy was probably an addict before she discovered the herb. The fact that she was addicted to a person just made it harder to recognize.

"Would it help to know that she didn't realize what the herb was when she started taking it?"

Marcy nodded slowly. "I hate to admit it, but yeah, that does help.""Good, because you've got a lot of hard decisions ahead of you. I hate to dump this on you right now, but it won't wait. Marcy, Kyle is dead."