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These were the most honest, self-aware and heartfelt words she had heard from her sister in years. And, thanks to Melanie’s obstinate refusal to talk to her sister, this last communiqué was one- sided. “What a fool I’ve been,” she whispered.
“Are you all right?” Kent asked.
He was standing very close. Probably ready to catch me again.
“Just give me a minute,” she said, not turning. Instead, she looked up from the letter and out the window. The sun was over the Pacific and the waters gleamed with a thousand jewels on the waves. It had been their favorite time of day. In happier times, it was the kind of late afternoon when she would have come home from a long day on set with a huge bag of Chinese takeout and a wealth of Hollywood gossip to share with her little sister. The two would take the food and a blanket down to the private beach below the estate and have a feast, staying until the last golden rays fell below the waves.
“We never did see it,” she said out loud.
“Excuse me?” Kent said.
“The green flash, we never saw it in all the time we were here.”
Kent was looking at her oddly. Perhaps he was thinking the letter was the final straw needed that day to break the back of her sanity.
Without turning from the window, she said, “You mean to say that you live and work on the California coast and you’ve never heard of the green flash?”
“Hey, I just work on the coast. I’m a mountain man, born and bred.”
She finally turned toward him. “Few people have seen it and lots of folks don’t even believe it ever happens. But the story goes, on evenings when the conditions are right, as the sun sets behind the ocean its last rays, just for an instant, shine through the waves far out to sea. In that instant the sunlight flashes green across the sky. Ari and I spent a lot of nights down on the beach waiting to see it.”
In the ensuing silence, Melanie was able to collect herself and, for the first time in those awful months since the aborted wedding, think clearly. It was as if a fog was lifting and she could look inside with brutal objectivity. She had spent the last six months foolishly blaming everyone but herself for her misery. She had blamed Mitch for his philandering, she had blamed Victor for introducing her to Mitch and most of all she had blamed Ari for ruining her life. Now she realized the only blame belonged on her shoulders. She had been faced with a choice: deal with what had happened and move on, or wallow in self-pity and melancholy, thereby punishing everyone around her.
Her choice had cost her dearly. One by one her friends, all but Stephanie, had given up on her, leaving her to her own state of misery. Her work had suffered to the point that even Victor had warned her that her career was in real jeopardy. And the heaviest toll of all had been the erosion of her relationship with Ariel. Well, no more. The dreadful, endless day that had started with the desperate move of seeking help from an outside professional had somehow brought her to this point of realization: The only one who could help her was her. On the spot she made a series of promises to herself. No more excuses. No more self-pity. No more wallowing in the past.
She straightened, squared her shoulders and turned to Kent. “Dr. Mattson, we have to find my sister as soon as possible.”
SOMETHING IN Melanie’s voice made Kent look closely at her. Gone was the vulnerable patient who had bolted from his office. Gone, too, was the bewildered woman who had just suffered through the discovery of her best friend’s corpse, the official identification of the body and nearly two hours of police questioning.
Instead, he had the distinct impression he was seeing the real Melanie Harris for the first time, and he marveled at the change. Kent would have predicted months, if not years of intensive therapy to put back together the broken woman he had met that morning. He raised an eyebrow.
“Do you know where she was planning to go?”
“No, I don’t, but at least we know she’s all right. This letter was dated two days ago. She knew she was going away and must have been planning to have Victor give me that letter,” Melanie said. “Victor might know where she’s gone.”
“Who’s this Victor you keep mentioning?”
“Victor Korchin. He owns this estate. He’s my boss, and a good friend.”
“Why is that name so familiar?”
“Victor’s a film director.”
“Ah, yes. Korchin Studios.” Murphy had mentioned that name to him earlier. This time, Kent did curse aloud. “No doubt Victor has close ties to your sister, who happens to be a successful actress,” he prodded.
Melanie hesitated. “Yes. Victor’s been like a father to her.”
“But somehow you just forgot to mention to us this little connection between the two of them?”
Melanie dropped her eyes from his accusing stare. “I’m sorry.”
“I hope he knows something about your sister’s whereabouts, since she didn’t leave many clues in that letter and the only other person we might have questioned is dead. I’ll have a couple of detectives dispatched here immediately to question him and search this place properly, now that we’ve messed up any potential evidence.” He reached for the cell phone clipped to a holder on his hip, but before he could make his call, it rang.
“Mattson here,” he said.
Melanie could tell that Kent was on the receiving end of a call from his boss.
“Hold on a sec,” Kent was saying as he fished a notepad out of his pocket and leaned over the desk, pen in hand. “Okay, what do you have?” He listened, scribbling furiously. “Got it. Thanks. And Murph? You might want to send a team out to Victor Korchin’s estate. Ariel Moore and her baby might have been living at the guest cottage here. We found a letter that she wrote two days ago to her sister, and she could still be somewhere on the premises. We haven’t approached the main house yet.” He gave her the address before ending the call and turning back to Melanie.
“Do they have any leads?” she asked.
“No, but they’ve made a positive ID of the other victim found earlier this morning.”
“There was another victim? Who?”
Kent paused. “What the hell. You’ll probably hear it on the evening news.” He flipped through the pages of his notepad. “Her name was Rachel Fisher, age thirty-seven, and she lived at…”
“Sixty-five East Corinth, right on the beach,” Melanie said, her mouth going dry as her heart skipped several beats.
Kent appeared stunned. “Don’t tell me you’re psychic.”
Melanie shook her head, trying unsuccessfully to rid herself of an all-too-familiar feeling triggered by one of her earliest childhood memories. When she was a little girl and Ariel just a newborn, their parents had taken them to a family gathering at an aunt and uncle’s farm in the country. It had been a day of picnics, games, cousins and, to a young Melanie, seemingly endless fussing over “baby Ari.” By midafternoon she had grown resentful of the fawning over her new sister. Determined to recapture some of the attention, Melanie was drawn to the huge and ancient apple tree behind the barn. She knew Uncle Tukey loved red apples and set out to prove her worth by scaling the tree and fetching the biggest, reddest apple she could find. As it happened, the biggest, reddest apple was hanging from the tree’s uppermost branches. With scarcely a thought to her mother’s standing admonishment to remain in sight of the grown-ups at all times, she skipped around the back of the barn and clambered up the tree.
Melanie had climbed higher and higher, until she was a full fifteen feet off the ground. She looked down only once, and that was enough. She was an accomplished tree climber, but this was certainly higher than she had ever gone before. Smiling in anticipation of the look of happy surprise on Uncle Tukey’s face when she presented him the trophy apple, she shinnied out onto the branch, which was swaying a bit under her weight. Clinging to the rough bark with one hand, she extended the other and, just as her fingers brushed the red fruit, the branch gave one last mighty sway and snapped.
She remembered feeling not as if she were falling, rather as if she were suspended in midair and the ground was rushing up to meet her. Everything was pretty hazy after that. She must have screamed because there was a knot of adults and cousins around when she came to, all with the same concerned look on their faces. Melanie’s plan to divert their attention from Ariel had worked, but the price had been a costly one—a broken arm and a month-long grounding. All of that was a dim recollection, however. What had stayed with Melanie was that feeling of inertia while inevitable events rushed toward her. It was one that had followed her all her life and, as she looked at Kent, she felt it again for the second time that day.
“Dr. Mattson, I know Rachel. I know her address because mine use to be Sixty-seven East Corinth. We were next-door neighbors until I moved closer to the studio. She’s one of Victor’s best screenwriters, and I’ve known her for years.”
A DOZEN THOUGHTS were competing for Kent’s attention, but rising fast among them were these: two young women had died mysteriously, mere miles and hours apart. Both were affiliated with the movie industry, and both knew the missing Ariel Moore and her sister, Melanie. It was obvious from the expression on her face that Melanie had made the same sinister connection.
“What’s going on?” Her eyes reflected her confusion and fear. “Dear God, do you think Ariel and the baby might be in some kind of danger?”
“I honestly don’t know,” Kent said, putting his hands on her shoulders as he looked at her. “But I can promise you this. We’ll find your sister and her baby as quickly as we can. In the meantime, I’m not about to let you out of my sight.”
CHAPTER FOUR
MELANIE TURNED AWAY from Kent and gathered her wits. “Was Rachel killed at home?” she asked. “Do you think the same person killed them both?”
“Rachel’s body was discovered on the beach below her apartment by a jogger early this morning,” Kent said. “This early in the investigation we can’t be sure, of course, but there’s a strong possibility the two deaths are connected.”
“But who would want to kill either of them?” Melanie bit her lower lip, damning the quiver in her voice.
Before Kent could respond, they heard the throb of an approaching engine and the crunch of tires on the gravel drive. A green-and-yellow John Deere garden tractor puttered into view, a spry-looking elderly man perched on the seat, dressed in drab workingman’s clothing and wearing a straw hat. “The gardener?” Kent asked.
Melanie shook her head. “Victor Korchin,” she said. “I’m hoping he can tell us where Ariel is.” She turned from the window and hurried for the door, but Kent reached for her arm to hold her back.
“Wait,” he cautioned. “Until Captain Murphy gets here, the less said about anything that’s happened, the better. You’d better let me talk to him.”
“That’s ridiculous. I just want to ask him about Ariel.” Melanie pulled out of his grasp and backed up a step. “Victor has a right to know about Rachel and Stephanie. You can’t possibly think he’s involved in any way.”
“This is a murder investigation. I’m talking about police procedure here and we’ve already violated a number of important protocols. I’d like to keep my job, if you don’t mind.”
“I won’t mention them,” she promised, inwardly seething at the way he was treating her. She wheeled around and exited the little nursery, dashing down the stairs in angry haste. As she rushed forward to meet Victor, she heard the faint sound of sirens approaching from the main road. Victor stopped the tractor and cut the ignition.
“Melanie,” he said, climbing off the seat. He seemed surprised and pleased to see her. “Have you come to see Ari? This is good, so good, but I don’t think she is here.” Victor’s eyes focused over her shoulder. “Come up to the house, bring your gentleman friend, we’ll share a glass of wine and talk….” His expression changed as he heard the approaching sirens. “What’s wrong, Melly? What is it?”
“Oh, Victor,” Melanie said, crumbling at his use of her pet name. “We were hoping you’d know where Ariel was. It’s very important that we find her.” Melanie turned as Kent stepped up beside her. “This is Dr. Kent Mattson, and he’s…”
“Is Ariel sick? Is the baby all right?” Victor interrupted, his face becoming pale. “Something terrible has happened. What is it? Dear God, tell me.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” Kent said. “I’m afraid you’ll have to wait for the police to arrive. Maybe you’d better sit down.” He guided Victor toward the passenger side of the unmarked car before walking away to meet the police cars, and Melanie’s heart broke at how old Victor looked as he half collapsed onto the seat with a dazed, apprehensive expression.
“Melanie?”
“I’m here, Vic.” She knelt beside him. “I’m right here.”
“What has happened? Why can’t you tell me? Is Ariel all right? And her baby?”
Melanie closed her hands around his, feeling their cold tremble. “I don’t know, Victor. I honestly don’t know. Do you have any idea where she might be?”
“At her apartment, maybe? She spends most of her time there, now that Mitch is dead.”
“She isn’t there. We’ve checked.”
“I just cast her as the lead in our next production, Celtic Runes. Did she tell you? We were going to begin filming shortly…. Is she sick? Is she in some kind of danger?”
Victor was so distraught that Melanie was on the verge of telling him everything she knew when she felt Kent’s hand on her arm, drawing her to her feet as the police cars, a seeming platoon of them, careened around the corner and skidded to a stop, blue lights flashing, sirens cutting out one after another. Kent propelled Melanie along with him as he approached Captain Murphy’s car. She fixed Kent with a steely expression as she exited her vehicle. “Well?”
“The man over there is Victor Korchin,” Kent said. “According to Melanie, he was like a father to Ariel. All he knows is that she’s missing, and he learned that from us not five minutes ago. We told him nothing about the two murders, and we didn’t touch anything inside the cottage except for the letter in the nursery, and I wore gloves when I took it out of the envelope.” Kent glanced at Melanie, then ran his fingers through his hair. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to get Melanie out of here. It’s been a helluva long day for her.”
Murphy gave Kent a curt nod of dismissal as she moved toward the unmarked car, signaling two other officers to accompany her. The three of them assisted the visibly shaken Victor to the captain’s vehicle. Halfway there he paused.
“Where are you taking me?” he asked, removing his straw hat. “I will need to leave a note for my wife that I am going.” He reached into his trouser pocket and drew forth a large handkerchief to dab the sweat from his forehead.
Melanie took a step forward, but before she could voice a single word, Kent pulled her back. He escorted her firmly to the car and planted her in the passenger seat. “But, Dr. Mattson, I can’t just leave Victor like this….”
“Not another word,” he said, his eyes steely. He shut the door and returned to where Murphy stood, bending close for a brief conversation before returning and climbing behind the wheel.
Kent backed up carefully, threading through the maze of police vehicles. “Murphy’s aware of the details. She’ll handle the questioning from here on out. She’s an expert at that.”
He was heading back down the winding driveway as he spoke, driving cautiously and yielding the right of way as other police vehicles approached. Melanie stared at his calm, impassive profile, experiencing another wave of heated indignation at his words. “You talk as if Victor’s a suspect.”
“It’s standard police procedure,” he repeated. “Murphy might not take him to the station house, but we have to question everyone who has any connection to these women.” He paused, then glanced sidelong at her. “I don’t suppose there’s anyone else Ariel was close to that you haven’t told us about, or any other places she might have been living?”
Melanie faced front and laced her hands tightly in her lap. “No.”
“Okay.” He turned left when he exited Blackstone’s impressive gate. “Then I think it’s time we found you a safe haven for the night.”
“Just drive me home, please,” Melanie said, battling an overwhelming weariness. “I want to be there if Ariel calls. She could be in terrible trouble.”
“It’s not a good idea for you to be alone.”
“You can’t possibly believe that I’m in danger, too,” Melanie said.
“Until we know for certain that you aren’t, I’m not taking any chances. I’d like you to give us permission to stake out your apartment for a few days, just in case, and if you insist on staying there, I’d like you to consider having an undercover officer on the premises. A woman, of course,” he added, as if she might have thought he was volunteering himself.
“Absolutely not,” Melanie said with a firm head shake. “My apartment is in a very safe part of town and I’ll be fine there by myself. I’m not going to argue about this, Dr. Mattson. I appreciate your concern, but please, just take me home.”
AS HE ENTERED Melanie’s apartment for the first time, Kent fully expected that he’d be overwhelmed with Hollywood pretentiousness and was pleasantly surprised by the homey simplicity of the place. It was a small apartment—the kitchen, dining room and living room all blending into one open space— furnished in an inexpensive yet tasteful style.
“It’s small,” Melanie had said as she unlocked the door, “but I don’t need much.” She flung her purse on the sofa, ran her fingers through her hair and heaved an exhausted sigh that turned into a moan as her eyes fixed on a broken bowl on the kitchen floor. Her shoulders slumped. “Oh, no. That crazy cat of mine thinks he has the right to sample anything I accidentally leave out on the counter.” She knelt to gather up the broken pieces, her hair tumbling around her face in a soft glossy fan. “Trust Shakespeare to help himself. He knows the counter’s off limits, but apparently Anatanyia’s Mexicali shrimp dip was too much of a temptation. Never cared for it myself—too spicy. I’m sorry about the mess.”
“I’d like to check out your apartment before I leave, just to make sure everything is okay,” Kent said.
She glanced up at him, hands full of broken shards, and nodded. “All right. Thank you.”
It didn’t take him long to figure out that nobody lurked in the closets or hid in the bathroom, and no murderer lingered in the bedroom, but something caught his eye beneath the bed. The tail of a cat protruded from beneath the dust ruffle. “I found your dip thief,” he called to Melanie, “hiding out under the bed.”
“Typical,” he heard Melanie say, and he stood for a moment, wondering why the tail didn’t move. Cats were cautious creatures by nature. Kent knelt and lifted the bedspread. The cat was lying on its side—big, orange and unmoving. He reached his hand to touch the animal. There was no response, and he was not surprised. The cat was quite dead and he noticed a bit of white froth around the animal’s mouth.
With a surge of adrenaline Kent was on his feet, running to the kitchen. “Don’t touch that!” he snapped. Melanie had a wad of paper towels in her hand to wipe up the remnants of the dip that soiled her kitchen floor. She froze, then rose slowly to her feet.
“What’s wrong?” She stared at him, her eyes widening. “Where’s Shakespeare?” Kent closed the distance between them, as if by being near her he could protect her from the next bad shock of her horrible day.
“He’s dead,” Kent said. “I’m sorry. Wash your hands immediately and don’t touch the dip. We’ll need to get a sample of it to the lab and get it analyzed….”
“Dead?” she echoed faintly. “Shakespeare? Dead?”
“Did you eat any of that dip yourself? Even to be polite?”
She shook her head. “No. Like I said, I never cared for it. It was supposed to go in the trash this morning but I forgot to take it out with me when I left.”
“Where did it come from?” Kent asked.
“Stephanie dropped it off here the morning after the dinner party….” Her eyes filled with tears that spilled over onto her cheeks.
“Who is this Anatanyia? What dinner party? When?”
“Victor Korchin’s wife,” she said. “The party was at Blackstone the day before yesterday. It was held to celebrate the birth of Ariel’s baby. I was invited but I didn’t go, I didn’t want to go. I wasn’t ready to see her yet, I wasn’t ready to forgive her, and so Stephanie brought me the dip to tell me about the party and how beautiful Ariel’s daughter was and…” Melanie’s voice choked off for the second time and she leaned into him, pressing her hands to her face and drawing a deep, shuddering breath. She was trembling like a leaf in high winds. Kent supported her with one arm, while his other hand reached for his cell phone.
Murphy answered on the fourth ring. “This had better be important, Kent, because I’m in the middle of an interrogation that you should most definitely be witnessing.”
“I may have just discovered what killed those two women,” Kent said. “Send a crime team to Melanie Harris’s apartment, would you? Tell them there’s a dead cat in the bedroom and some dip on the kitchen floor that may contain a poisonous substance. And Murph? I think we’d better assign twenty- four-hour surveillance of her apartment, as well as an officer to stay with Melanie. I don’t think she’s safe here by herself, but she insists this is where she wants to be, in case her sister tries to contact her.”
Kent felt Melanie stiffen in his arms as he stuffed the cell phone into the holder on his belt.
“Dr. Mattson,” she said, drawing away from him and drying her cheeks. “I really don’t want to stay here now. Not after what’s happened to Shakespeare. If you could drop me at a hotel….” There was a flicker of dread on her face as she remembered that Stephanie had died in a hotel room surrounded by people. She shook her head, a small, helpless gesture. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know where else to go.”
