Authors: Laura DiSilverio
It was a pale tan stucco with a rock garden instead of a lawn. Actually, calling it
a “garden” was mischaracterizing it, since the two dusty junipers and one skinny aspen
sapling in the sea of rock hardly constituted a garden. Charlie liked xeriscaping,
the art of landscaping with plants and materials that didn’t require much water, but
this looked more like someone had backed a dump truck up to the curb, let the rocks
slither out, and then raked them into perfunctory evenness. Charlie wondered if that
meant the homeowner was lazy, unimaginative, or simply not that interested. She drove
slowly past the house, noting the pulled-down blinds and closed garage door. There
was no hint the house was occupied: no seasonal pennant, skateboard on the sidewalk,
or petunias in a planter on the stoop.
Driving past as slowly as she dared, Charlie rounded a corner and parked down the
block, then sat thinking. Most of the other houses looked lived in, with the sound
of a daytime drama drifting from one and a woman scrubbing a barbecue grill in the
backyard of another. The Wolf Ranch covenants didn’t allow fences, so Charlie’s view
was unobstructed. She gazed across several yards to the house where Heather-Anne had
lived and pondered what approach to take. There was no guarantee that Heather-Anne’s
former roomie—Al, according to Robyn—still lived in the house. If he did, would he
respond better to the truth, or would a little improvisation yield better results?
Charlie had nothing against the truth; it had its place. Frequently, though, a little
creative manipulation of the facts garnered more information.
Decision made, she wriggled out of her blazer and reached over the seat to rummage
through the box of clothes she kept for occasions like this. She thought she had …
yes! Triumphantly, she pulled out an oversized purple and gold LSU sweatshirt. That
shouted “Deep South” in a big way. Exchanging her low-heeled pumps for a pair of worn-down
athletic shoes, she mussed her dark hair a bit and patted on pale face powder to make
herself look wan. Not perfect, she thought, looking in the rearview mirror, but she
could pass for a woman on the run from an abusive boyfriend, a woman who was hungry,
scared, looking for an old friend.
Leaving her purse tucked under the seat, Charlie took a deep breath and headed toward
Heather-Anne’s former house. The twinge deep in her ass didn’t bother her, and she
took a deep breath, surprised at how happy she felt to be embarking on her impromptu
charade. She’d missed investigating while she was laid up, she realized. Missed the
zing of adrenaline when heading into a sticky situation, the mental challenge of tracing
a runaway’s route or sorting the lies from the truth in an interview. She had to concentrate
on adopting a slumping posture and making her steps weary, since she felt more like
skipping.
Shit,
she chastised herself mentally.
Only animated characters, children, and Gigi skip
.
Hesitating at the driveway, she wondered if anyone was watching her. Even though the
house seemed emptier than a Popsicle carton in an elementary school lunchroom, she
had the feeling that someone was in there. Reminding herself to stay in character,
Charlie trudged up the driveway to the front door, paused a moment as if unsure of
herself for the benefit of anyone watching, and pressed the doorbell. It buzzed deep
in the house, sounding a bit like a rattlesnake’s warning. Charlie stepped back and
waited. After a long moment, she heard footsteps approaching. They stopped, but the
door didn’t open. Charlie and the unknown person stood on opposite sides of the closed
door, unmoving. Interesting, Charlie thought.
She knocked timidly. “Hello? Cindy?” If she were posing as a friend from Heather-Anne’s
past, she thought it best to pretend that she’d known “Lucinda Cheney” rather than
Heather-Anne, who, Charlie suspected, hadn’t existed before the woman arrived in Colorado
Springs.
The door swung inward. Charlie found herself facing the most handsome man she’d ever
seen, a man straight out of a Calvin Klein underwear ad or the cover of
People
’s Sexiest Man Alive issue. Just over six feet tall, he had black hair that brushed
his shoulders, strong cheekbones and jawline, a straight nose, and eyes of such a
light green Charlie figured he was wearing contact lenses. His olive skin was lightly
tanned, and his physique—which was on display since he wore only a pair of gray sweatpants
that sagged from his pelvic bones—testified that he spent many hours in a gym. Once
the shock of coming face-to-face with a sex god wore off, Charlie gave an artistic
start and stepped back. Channeling Gigi, she affected what she hoped was a generic
southern accent. “Oh! I was looking for Cindy.”
“There’s no Cindy here.” The man’s voice didn’t match his looks; it was light and
pitched a shade high. He started to close the door.
“She’s got to be,” Charlie said, infusing desperation into her voice. “Lucinda Cheney?
I don’t have anywhere else— She said I could find her here if I ever broke it off
with Trey and needed to get away.”
The man’s green eyes assessed her. “And you are?”
“Charlene,” Charlie said. “Are you Al? Cindy mentioned you.”
“She did?” Displeasure twitched the man’s face. Charlie thought he might be about
her own age, certainly a few years older than Heather-Anne. “You’d better come in.”
Charlie crossed the threshold. The oak-floored foyer opened into a great room lined
with wall-to-wall mushroom-colored carpet. The room held nothing but a sophisticated-looking
weight set and benches and an elliptical machine. Drapes closed off what would have
been a decent view of the Front Range. Stairs curved upward to a second story. Al,
if that’s who the man was, stalked toward a kitchen that was all gray granite and
white paint and poured a glass of water. Charlie stayed in the foyer.
“If Cindy’s not here,” she said with assumed nervousness, “I should go.”
Al took a swallow of water and leveled a look at her from under dark brows. “Hea—
Cindy’s dead.”
Charlie gasped and dropped her purse. “Oh, no! She can’t be. I—”
“How did you get here?” Al asked, unperturbed by her seeming grief and confusion.
“I didn’t see a car.”
“Uh, I hitched to the 7-Eleven over there”—Charlie pointed vaguely south—“and then
walked.” She bent to retrieve her purse and collected an escaped lip balm.
“Where did you say you knew Cindy from?”
The suspicion in his voice told Charlie he wasn’t buying her story. “I don’t believe
she’s dead,” she said, putting a little more aggression in her voice. “You’re just
saying that so I’ll go away. I understand if her circumstances have changed, if you
and her are—whatever, and she isn’t able to help like she said, but you don’t have
to lie to me.” She hitched her purse higher on her shoulder. “I’m sorry I bothered
you.”
“The police were here this morning to talk to me about Cindy. They knew her as Heather-Anne
Pawlusik,” Al said, sounding a bit less hostile. He rested his elbows on the counter
and leaned forward. “I’m sure you can read about it in the paper. It’ll be the article
about a woman strangled at the Embassy Suites.” His magnetic eyes watched her as he
delivered the news.
“Strangled? Was it— Did her husband catch up with her?”
Al clapped lightly. “Oh, very good. You’re very good. Your only mistake was in saying
‘Cindy’ offered to help you in some way; Heather-Anne never offered to help anyone
in her life. Now, do you want to cut the crap and tell me why you’re really here,
or shall I call the police? Given that Heather-Anne was murdered yesterday, I think
they’d be very interested in meeting you.”
Charlie shot the man an assessing look, then walked toward him with her business card
held out. “Charlie Swift,” she said in her usual crisp voice. “I’m a private investigator.
I was working for Heather-Anne.”
The man’s brows soared, and he took the card. “That’s only marginally more believable
than your first story,” he said, “although you look more like a PI than a mousy, abused
wife.”
Charlie wasn’t quite sure how to take that. “And you are?”
“Alan Brodnax,” he said, offering a ringless hand for her to shake. His nails were
filed and buffed, and she wondered what he did for a living. His grip was firm. “Call
me Alan. Heather-Anne was the only one who called me Al, and she only did it to piss
me off. Why did she hire you?”
“What was your relationship with her?” Charlie countered. They eyed each other.
“We were roommates,” Alan finally said. “Platonic roommates. We got to talking at
the gym. She mentioned she was looking for a new place, and I needed a roommate to
help with the mortgage, so she moved in. It wasn’t until after she’d lived here a
few months that she mentioned her homicidal husband might show up on the doorstep.
It explained a lot about how anal she was about locking up and not leaving windows
open, and the way she checked the backseat of her car every time before she got in.
And she hired you because—?”
“She wanted me to find Les Goldman, the man she was living with in Costa Rica.” A
muffled sound came from above Charlie’s head, and she looked at the ceiling, startled.
“Is someone—?”
“I left the TV on,” Alan said easily, not bothering to glance up. “I was checking
the stock market report when the doorbell went. I’ll turn it off—you sit.” He gestured
toward the only seating visible, two webbed lawn chairs parked under a glass-topped
bistro table in the kitchen nook. He trotted up the stairs, and Charlie sat, looking
around at the kitchen, which was totally devoid of personality and appliances. Holes
gaped in the counter where a fridge, stove, and dishwasher should have stood. Alan
was back in under a minute, still sans shirt. He refilled his water and offered Charlie
one as well. “I don’t have anything else,” he apologized, setting the glass down with
a clink, “and no ice. You were telling me about looking for Les…”
Charlie found herself slightly distracted by the man’s defined pecs and the way his
biceps flexed as he lifted his glass. She wondered if his tan was natural or the spray-on
kind and if he made a habit of answering the door shirtless. She decided he probably
did. “My partner and I tracked him to Aspen, but he eluded us,” she said, seeing no
harm in admitting that much. “Do you know Les?” Something about the way he’d said
Les’s name so familiarly made her think he did.
“We met once or twice, before he and Heather-Anne took off for points south. I must
admit I didn’t understand what Heather-Anne saw in him.”
“Did you know she was leaving with him?”
A smile crooked his lips, revealing, as Charlie expected by now, perfect white teeth.
The man spent more time on his appearance, she was convinced, than a lounge-full of
drag queens. “Actually, no. She stiffed me on the rent. That’s what happened to the
furniture.” He gestured to the empty house. “I was in a slump, jobwise, and I had
to sell it to make the mortgage for a couple of months.”
“What is it you do?”
“I’m a researcher. I’ve got an office upstairs”—he jerked his cleft chin toward the
ceiling—“and clients around the world.”
“It seems a waste.” Charlie challenged him with her gaze.
“What does?”
“All that effort”—she waved her hand up and down to indicate his well-muscled body—“wasted
sitting behind a computer all day, not another person in sight. I’d’ve figured you
for a model or a salesman … something a bit more social.”
Alan laughed, a surprisingly infectious sound. “I get out,” he said, a glint in his
eyes. “Maybe you and I should get together sometime.”
The idea was not totally without appeal on a purely carnal level, but Charlie put
her libido back in its cage and said, “Mm. Maybe when this case is sorted. Who was
Heather-Anne before she became Heather-Anne?”
He gave her a surprised look. “Lucinda Cheney. I thought you knew that since you came
in here looking for ‘Cindy.’”
“Was that her real name?”
“As far as I know.”
“She told me her husband was abusive and she came here to escape from him. True?”
“Absolutely. She was scared to death of him.” Alan’s eyes took on a somber light.
“She used to check the online newspapers for Gatlinburg several times a week to see
if he was mentioned. I think she was looking for a wedding announcement, hoping he’d
remarry and forget about her.”
“Do you think he caught up with her?” Charlie took a swallow of her water, watching
Alan closely. Since busting her as a PI he seemed to be comfortable with her, answering
her questions in a straightforward way, but she got the feeling he was playing with
her.
“Oh, God, I hadn’t thought of that.” Alan looked thunderstruck, his mouth falling
open a half inch. “Of course that’s what happened.”
“How did you and Heather-Anne mee—?”
A slight click, like a door closing, was quickly followed by a rumbling sound, and
Charlie jumped. She struggled to get out of the saggy webbing that had her trapped.
The lightweight aluminum chair shot back several feet as she jolted out of it. “Someone’s
here.”
Alan didn’t look alarmed; if anything, he relaxed into his seat, a smirk smudging
his handsome face. Clearly the noise wasn’t made by an intruder; he’d known someone
else was in the house all along.
Not knowing which door led to the garage, Charlie rushed into the front room in time
to see a silver sedan, make unidentifiable, swing around the corner and zoom away.
The garage door gaped open, displaying a glossy black Saab. She stalked back into
the kitchen, making the muscles around the bullet wound complain. “Who was that?”
Arching his brows, Alan rose and put their water glasses in the sink. “A friend. Once
she heard you say ‘PI,’ I couldn’t convince her you weren’t after her.”
It took Charlie a bare ten seconds to work out what he was saying. “You had a woman
friend up there. Someone who thought her husband had hired a PI to document her fling.”