Play Dead (10 page)

Ryan didn’t know what to say so he kept his mouth shut. He’d felt loved by both his parents when his mother had been alive. After her death, his father gave him all his attention. He’d always felt loved and appreciated. He sensed that Hayley never had.

“How did Cynthia feel about you?” Ryan asked without revealing he’d met the woman at the Balboa Bay Club.

“She hated me and my mother,” Hayley responded matter-of-factly. “Who could blame her? My mother ruined her life.”

“Would she want you dead?”

Nervously, she bit her lip. “Maybe…I don’t know. Why now, after all this time?”

“The money,” Ryan said with a second jolt of insight in just a few minutes. “Cynthia believed the entire estate rightfully belonged to her children—not you.”

Uncertainty shadowed her face. “I—I guess it’s possible.”

An idea had been niggling at the back of his brain all day. He asked, “Did your parents use a computer?”

“My mother did a lot of work on her computer. Designing. Spreadsheets to track the company business and Internet sales. My father rarely used a computer. He had my mother’s computer and the ones at the office set up to instantly alert him whenever waves were over ten feet on the California coast or down in Baja. Somebody would have to run and get him when the Surf Alert flashed.”

“Your mother’s computer was at home?”

“Yes. She did most of her designing on a laptop. That way she could bring it with her and work wherever Daddy was.”

They ate in comfortable silence for a few minutes. Ryan kept thinking, trying to decide who had the big three—as they’d called it during his training. Motive. Opportunity. Means. Others could have been paid to have the means and opportunity. But what was the motive? Money was all he could come up with.

“Where is your mother’s laptop?”

“At their house.” Hayley pushed her plate aside, her steak only half-eaten.

“I think I should take a look at it. Can you get me into their house?”

“Sure. It’s just sitting there until the probate is processed.”

Ryan wasn’t sure checking the computer would do any good but he didn’t have a better idea. A drive he couldn’t quite explain compelled him to try anything and everything to help this woman.

H
AYLEY LOOKED
over Ryan’s broad shoulder as he attached his laptop to her mother’s computer. After dinner they’d driven to her parents’ home on Linda Isle. The small private island in Newport Bay had a guard at the entry gate. Ryan had phoned the gate in advance, pretending to be Trent, and put his name on the gate list. The guard didn’t look twice at Hayley in the passenger seat when they arrived and gave Ryan’s name. She’d tucked her hair up under a baseball cap and put on a pair of Ryan’s father’s glasses. It hadn’t mattered. The night shift guard was new and wouldn’t have recognized her anyway.

It was the first time Hayley had returned to the home where she’d grown up since the evening her parents’ plane had vanished and the family had gathered here to await news. Although the house was still furnished and her parents’ things hadn’t been removed, the place seemed to have a hollow echo, like a tomb. She tried to remember all the happy times of her childhood, but couldn’t. As they crept through the dark house, she kept hearing her parents’ laughter as they talked and teased each other. They’d been so in love.

“What are you doing?” Hayley whispered, even though she knew he was removing information from her mother’s computer. “Don’t you need her password?”

“No,” Ryan said, his voice pitched low. “I’m doing what’s called a ‘wipe-job,’ which means I’m using a program on my computer to wipe everything off her hard drive onto a disk so I can analyze it later.”

“Good.” She knew they didn’t want to be in the house any longer than necessary. Linda Isle was a U-shaped island with every house on the water. This type of real estate was so valuable that the homes were very close. They’d parked down the street and entered, using a key that her parents had kept hidden. They didn’t want the neighbors to see lights and report them to the police so they’d brought flashlights

“This will take about ten minutes,” Ryan said, turning to her. “Let’s look through the file cabinet.”

On the way over, she’d told him that Trent and Chad had checked the computer and files after the plane crash, but Ryan insisted on having a second look. Hayley had grown up with Trent and knew he sincerely adored their father. Trent couldn’t have had anything to do with his death. Chad was a different story. He’d charmed her, Hayley silently admitted and not for the first time.

What had she seen in him? A smart, handsome guy with a promising future in his father’s law firm. He’d been fun—at first. Then she realized how much he depended on Ritalin. She’d researched and found it was an addictive substance. Still, Chad claimed he didn’t function well without it.

Later she began to suspect he was cheating on her. Why? They’d been together less than a year. Was he tired of her already? Obviously. The experience had undermined her trust in men. In herself.

Was Chad sorry? He claimed to be, wanted to get together again, but she knew better. If he’d been tired of
her within a year, how could their marriage last? Did Chad cry at her funeral? she wondered. Somehow she couldn’t imagine him with tears in his eyes.

Hayley kept asking herself why she fell for the lout. All she could come up with was she’d wanted a happy marriage like her parents had. She’d never had trouble getting dates, but she’d never been serious about anyone until Chad Bennett. Why? And why couldn’t she get over his rejection? He kept asking her out, trying to make up but her pride wouldn’t allow her to forgive him.

“You take the top drawer,” Ryan told her as he sat on the floor and trained his flashlight on the bottom drawer. “I’ll check the lower drawer. Pull anything pertaining to finances.”

“I see a file marked
Chase Visa
and another called
Gas Company
.”

“Just take the Visa. Let’s see if there’s a pattern in how they spent money.”

“The company’s charges are in the office at Surf’s Up. An auditor goes over those books.”

“We’ll focus on the personal files.”

Hayley paused. “I’ve heard that nothing on a computer is really erased. Right?”

“Uh-huh. Think of it this way. When you erase, it’s like putting the info through a shredder. Not a cheap shredder but one that turns paper into confetti. All the words are chopped up and randomly dumped in the computer’s trash bin. We have a program that uses key words and puts the documents together again.”

“Wow! That’s impressive. Is the technology available to everyone or just the FBI?”

“It’s very expensive but firms that specialize in com
puter security invest in the latest version. Most people don’t know about it.”

Hayley checked the top drawer and withdrew two other files. Everything else seemed to be household expenses. She glanced down to see how Ryan was doing and saw the linear red scabs on his forearms.

“Oh, my gosh,” she cried, forgetting to whisper. “Did I do that to you? I’m so sorry.”

“Shh!” Ryan jerked his sleeve down, covering the angry red slashes. He tugged her hand and she sank down beside him. His intense blue eyes gleamed in the backwash of the flashlight.

“Don’t be sorry,” he told her in a husky whisper. “The best thing to do when someone attacks you is to fight back, try to escape.”

“I’ll remember that,” she said quietly. His intensity alarmed her, but she knew he was right. After all, this was his field. Fight rather than allow anyone to kill you.

Ryan rose to his feet, several files in his hands. “Is there anywhere else that they might have kept financial records?”

“No.” She glanced round the shadowy room. “This was my mother’s office.”

“What about her personal address book?”

“She kept it in the nightstand next to her bed.”

“Let’s get it. We’ll go through the names and see if there’s anyone listed that you don’t know.”

Using just one flashlight, they went up the sweeping staircase to the second floor, where Hayley’s bedroom was located along with two small guest rooms that Farah and Trent used when they visited. The master suite faced the water and had a panoramic view of the bay.

The room seemed to be just as she’d remembered it
from her childhood, except now it had a slightly musty smell from being closed up for so long. The bed, facing the water, was still made with the cream-colored silk coverlet and banks of cream and tan pillows with black satin accent pillows. The bamboo shades were down but Hayley could imagine her parents out on the balcony, gazing at the bay and chatting over morning coffee. How incredibly happy they’d been.

She tamped down the surge of sadness and walked over and opened the nightstand on her mother’s side of the bed. There was a floral notepad and matching pen but no address book.

“That’s funny,” she said. “It was here the day of the crash. I know because I had to look up Farah’s cell phone number.”

“Could it be downstairs somewhere?”

“I guess it’s possible someone moved it to the kitchen when we were calling everyone about the funeral.”

“Has anyone else been here since your parents’ deaths?”

Hayley shrugged. “Just the cleaning lady who vacuums and dusts. She wouldn’t take anything. We’re not supposed to dispose of anything until the probate is complete.”

“Let’s check the kitchen for the address book, pick up my computer, then get out of here.”

She clicked off her flashlight and followed Ryan downstairs. They looked on the granite counter and in the drawers, but there wasn’t any sign of the floral directory in the kitchen.

“That’s strange,” she whispered. “Who could—”

“Did your father have an address book?”

“Not really. Mom was in charge of social events—not
that they did much. Daddy kept a Palm Pilot with his surfing buddies in it. He had it with him.”

“Wait while I grab my computer. The wipe job should be finished.”

Ryan raced upstairs and was back again a few moments later. He motioned for her to slip out the kitchen door to the narrow side yard. He followed, closing the door behind them. She returned the key to its place under the stone tail of the lion near the kitchen door.

They didn’t speak until they were back in the car and driving off the island.

“Do you have a theory about this?” she asked as they went over the small bridge that connected Linda Isle to the mainland.

He seemed to hesitate and she studied his chiseled profile. “I’m not an investigator. I’m a computer—”

“I know, but you’re a smart guy. You must have a theory.”

“Well, there are two main ways to look at crimes.” He guided the car onto Coast Highway and drove toward his father’s home. “We prepare a psychological profile by looking at the crime scene. In this case, there wasn’t enough at the scene to leave what we would call a signature.”

“Wouldn’t the type of crime—a car bombing—tell you something?”

“The Bureau’s profiler at the Behavioral Analysis Unit said it seemed to be a very personal crime. The killer wanted you obliterated. It was the sort of thing an antisocial personality would do.”

“Antisocial? Like someone who doesn’t go out much?”

“No. They often appear to be just as well-adjusted as
the average guy. But someone with an antisocial personality disorder is convinced whatever they do is justified. Society’s rules don’t mean anything to them. They’re above the law.”

“Dead wasn’t enough. I had to be erased off the face of the earth.” Just saying the words made her neck go stiff.

“So it would appear.”

“I can’t imagine anyone who would hate me that much.” She bit her lip and looked away. It was a few seconds before she asked, “What’s the second way of looking at this crime?”

Ryan sped through the loop from the highway onto the street that went out onto the peninsula. “A geographical profile. It uses an area map and pinpoints the crimes. The theory is the perp has a comfort zone and operates in a neighborhood he knows, but not too close to where he lives, otherwise people would recognize him. We use this for serial killers, bank robbers, rapists—repeat offenders. I doubt the killer will do this again. My guess?” He turned and his intense eyes met hers for a few seconds. “A pro was hired to kill you. Not that it couldn’t have been done by an ordinary person, but it seems to have been someone with a lot of nerve or experience. Quite possibly a pro.”

Hayley couldn’t imagine anyone she knew hiring a killer. Where would they go to get one? “That’s why you’re concerned about a money trail. It would have cost a lot to hire a pro. But my parents couldn’t have paid to have me killed. They were already dead.”

“Right, but there could be a clue to the problem in their finances. Maybe they owed money or owned something even more valuable than the business that we don’t know about.”

“Well, my father did have an amazing collection of surfboards. He hung some of the best, like one of The Duke’s boards, in the shop where people could appreciate them.”

“The Duke? I didn’t know John Wayne surfed.”

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Hayley couldn’t help laughing. “No, silly. Duke Kahanamoku, the father of modern surfing. You’ve heard of him.”

“Vaguely…I’m not sure.”

“He was a Hawaiian who won an Olympic gold metal in swimming in 1912, I think. Anyway, back then Hawaii was like a foreign country. Few people had been there. When the Hawaiian swim club told the Olympic committee they had someone for the team, they laughed themselves sick. Then Duke showed up and had the last laugh. People began to travel to Hawaii and Duke and the other beach boys gave surfing lessons.”

“How did your father get Duke’s board?”

“Duke was a lot like my father. He kept designing his own boards and trying them out. In 1917—I know because the date is on the board Dad hung in the shop—Duke caught a wave off Waikiki and rode it for a mile and a half.”

“Wow! How far out did he go to catch that wave?”

“Not far. There was a big earthquake in Japan that caused huge waves. Duke was off Castle’s, a prime surf spot. He caught the huge wave as it angled along toward the shore, that’s why he had such a long ride. Lots of people were watching. They called it ‘The Big One,’ which is where the expression started.”

“Your father bought ‘The Big One’ board?”

“No, that board is hanging in the Bishop Museum in Honolulu. My father bought another of Duke’s boards
that was very similar. It was resting against a palm tree on the beach when Duke caught the big one. He carved the date in both boards.”

“Interesting. How valuable is it?”

“I don’t know. Dad bought it when I was two and the shop started to make real money. He bought lots of other boards. Some are at the warehouse where he made custom boards—the best he hung in the shop. I guess Duke’s board is worth thousands. I’m not sure about the others.”

“People collect anything and everything. I suppose there’s a market for vintage boards. I guess it’s part of the probate.”

Hayley considered this for a moment. “I’m not sure anyone brought the boards to the court’s attention. I don’t recall them on the asset list. Everyone must have forgotten about them.”

“You could have—what?—a hundred thousand in boards. I can’t see everyone forgetting about them. Not when a bunch are hanging in the shop.”

She was lost in thought the rest of the way out the long peninsula that formed one side of Newport Harbor. The cafés and tourist shops and small hotels that gave the area a beachy ambiance were scattered among cottages that rented by the week during the summer. In the winter students lived here. It was the only section of Newport Beach that was affordable. As they drove toward Peninsula Point, the cottages gave way to elegant single family homes shaded by tall palm trees that swayed in the ocean breeze.

When they arrived, the garage door slowly rolled upward and Ryan drove in, shutting the door behind them. He parked beside an older model Lexus.

She asked, “Do you think I could take a walk along the sand? At this hour no one will be around to see me.”

Ryan considered her request. “All right. I’ll come with you.”

Hayley followed Ryan through the dimly lit house out onto the open-air courtyard. In silence, they took off their shoes and she removed the baseball cap she’d been wearing. She fluffed her hair with her fingers. They left their things on the table where they’d had dinner. He unlocked the gate that opened onto a short path that ended on the sand. After Hayley passed through the gate, Ryan again locked it behind them and shoved the key in his pocket.