Truth or Dare (30 page)

“Now, honey, this really isn't—”

“Tabitha Pine said something after the session about how our private fears lock us into certain perspectives. I think she has a point. Nelson is trapped by his own worst-case-scenario perspective. He can't get past it.”

“As a general policy, it's never smart to interfere in someone else's private life.”

“No offense, Ethan, but you do it all the time. You make a living interfering in other people's private lives.”

He exhaled deeply. “There is that.” He contemplated the situation for a while longer. “Thinking that his wife is having an affair is eating Radnor alive.”

She considered him for a long, somber moment. “If the situation was reversed, what would you want Radnor to do?”

Everything inside him tightened. “I wouldn't have asked someone else to get the truth for me.”

“What would you have done?”

He shrugged and reached for another chunk of bread. “I would have asked you.”

The answer startled her. “Me?”

“You wouldn't lie to me.” He felt the tightness in his gut ease
as he followed the path of his own logic. “Which means you wouldn't cheat on me in the first place.”

“Of course not.”

“Which, in turn, makes the whole question one hundred percent hypothetical. So let's change the subject.”

“Okay. You know, I've got to tell you that this detecting business is sort of fun. It felt good to close the Radnor case today.”

His mouth twitched. “Once in a while you get a good one.”

“Makes it all worthwhile, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“That reminds me.” She reached under her chair and grabbed her purse. “I got you a little present.”

“Oh, boy.”

She pulled out a small, neatly wrapped package and handed it to him across the table.

He took his time opening it and grinned when he uncovered the package label. “Just what I've always wanted. Pepper spray.”

39

A
rcadia lowered herself slowly into the bubbling spa pool and sat down across from Zoe and Bonnie.

“I've got a confession to make,” she said. “I will never again make fun of you, Zoe, for buying all that safety gear and health stuff for Ethan. Yesterday afternoon I went out and bought vitamins and an industrial-strength sunblock for Harry.”

“That sounds like an eminently reasonable thing to do under the circumstances,” Bonnie assured her.

Zoe shuddered. “Every time I think of the two of you out there in that alley with Grant Loring, I get twitchy.”

“You and me both,” Arcadia admitted.

“I can't even imagine how awful it must have been for you inside that janitorial cart,” Bonnie said.

“That was bad enough. But the worst part was hearing Harry
call Grant's name. I realized that he was not certain of the identity of the janitor and was trying to make sure he had the right man before he made his move. I was terrified that Grant would kill him first.”

“So you leaped out of the cart to distract Grant and give Harry a shot.” Zoe shuddered. “That was very brave of you. Grant might just as easily have tried to kill you first.”

“You two would have done the same thing and you know it. Besides, look at the alternative,” Arcadia said. “I still can't quite believe that Grant is gone for good. I feel as if I can breathe freely again for the first time in ages.”

“What are you going to do now?” Bonnie asked. “Return to your old life?”

“No. I've got a new life now. It feels like my real life. I'm sticking with it.”

“I know just what you mean,” Zoe said fervently.

Arcadia tilted her head a little, examining her closely. “How's it going with you? Any more encounters with the crazy stuff?”

“No, thank goodness. But I have to say that I'm convinced those spiderwebs weren't left behind by John Branch. I'm sure I would have picked up some trace of them in his apartment if he was the source.”

“What next?” Bonnie asked curiously.

She looked at her two friends, steeling herself. “There is one more possibility that I want to check out. Lindsey Voyle.”

Bonnie and Arcadia stared at her. They looked worried, she noticed. Very worried.

“Just how do you plan to check her out?” Arcadia asked.

“Well, as it happens, I've been working on a plan.”

“I was afraid of that,” Bonnie said.

Arcadia looked resigned. “Tell us about it.”

Zoe sat forward. The water simmered and bubbled around her. “I've been thinking about the two locations where I picked up the bad energy. In addition to the crazy vibes, there were a couple of other similarities.”

“Such as?” Bonnie asked.

“Some items were missing or broken in both locations.” She looked at Arcadia. “Did you ever find your Elvis pen?”

Arcadia shook her head. “No.”

“Yesterday I went through the photos in the packet that I left on your file cabinet. I had ordered two sets of each. One of the pictures, a shot that Theo took of you and me, is missing.”

“Is that all?” Bonnie asked dubiously.

“Not quite. There was a vase broken in my library at the show house and I never found the red mug that I used in a display there.”

Arcadia pondered that information for a moment. “Think the missing and broken items are significant?”

“I don't know,” Zoe admitted. “But I'm convinced there's a connection. Like I said, I've ruled out John Branch as the source of the spiderwebs but that still leaves Lindsey Voyle. I'm going to need your help, Arcadia.”

“Don't you think you should ask Ethan for some advice? He's the expert, remember?”

“No,” Zoe said. “I don't want to get Ethan involved. Not yet.”

 

Ethan stopped at the gleaming front desk and looked at the well-groomed receptionist.

“Hello, Jason.”

“Mr. Truax. Are you here to see Mr. Radnor?”

“Yeah. Tell him I'll make it quick.”

Jason picked up the phone, spoke briefly and put it down. “This way, please.”

Ethan followed him through the handsomely appointed headquarters of Radnor Security Systems, past a series of desks occupied by a number of professional-looking types working hard in front of a lot of very expensive computers. Every time he came here he got a strange feeling of déjà vu. The corporate offices of Truax Security in LA had looked a lot like this place. He sometimes wondered if he and Nelson had been victimized by the same decorator.

Jason knocked once and opened the door of Nelson Radnor's private office.

Nelson looked up from a file. He had aged about a hundred years in the past week, Ethan thought.

“I'm a little busy at the moment, Truax. What's this all about?”

Ethan glanced at the door, making certain that it was firmly closed. Then he lowered himself into one of the expensive leather client chairs.

“Thought you might like to know that my wife ran into your wife yesterday afternoon.”

Nelson did not move but Ethan saw that the significance of yesterday's date had not escaped him. Yesterday was a Thursday.

“Where?” Nelson asked in a hoarse voice.

“They both attended a class on meditation techniques at the
home of a woman named Tabitha Pine. It was Zoe's first session, but evidently your wife signed up for the full course. She's been attending classes every Tuesday and Thursday for the past month.”

“Every Tuesday and Thursday.”

“In the afternoons. Pays in cash because she didn't think you'd approve and didn't want to have to go through a big scene about it.”

Nelson closed the file with great care. He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I don't know what to say. I've been an idiot.”

“Yeah, well, don't be too hard on yourself. When it comes to Zoe, it doesn't take much to make me stop thinking rationally, either. Nature of the beast, I guess.”

“Probably.”

Ethan rose from the chair and went to the door. “My advice is to buy some flowers on the way home tonight.”

“I think I'll do that.” Nelson leaned back in his chair. “Meditation classes, you say?”

“Yeah.”

Nelson made a face. “Daria was right. If she'd told me that she had signed up for a course in meditation techniques with that Tabitha Pine operation, I'd have hit the roof.”

“But you won't do that now, will you?” Ethan asked evenly. “I mean, what with your consciousness having recently been expanded and all.”

“Tell me the truth, Truax. What would you do if your wife announced that she was going to spend a couple thousand bucks to take a meditation course from a phony like Pine?”

“You're talking to a man who is married to a decorator who
specializes in maximizing positive energy flows inside the living spaces of her clients,” Ethan said dryly.

“Oh, yeah, right. The feng shui thing. I forgot.” Nelson grinned, looking a hundred and ten years younger. “I reckon if you can handle your wife's career, I can deal with Daria's new hobby.”

“Beats the hell out of the hobby you assumed she had taken up.”

“Oh, yeah,” Nelson said in prayerful tones. “It does.”

 

Lindsey Voyle lived in Desert View, an exclusive, gated golf course community that held some unpleasant memories for Zoe. She tried not to think about a former client who committed murder in one of the expensive homes. She had other problems today.

A uniformed guard wearing a patch on his pocket that identified him as a member of the Radnor Security Systems team checked his computer and then waved Zoe and Arcadia through the gate.

Zoe followed the guard's directions and drove along a curving road studded with palm trees, turned right and stopped in front of a large stucco-clad, southwestern-style residence.

She turned off the engine and examined the big house for a moment.

“Lindsey may want the Tabitha Pine project very badly,” she said, “but it doesn't look like she needs it, not if she can afford to live here in Desert View.”

“There are many reasons why a person might want
something very badly,” Arcadia reminded her. “Not all of them involve money.”

“True.”

They got out of the car and walked along a path that took them through a dramatically designed cactus-and-rock garden. For some reason, Zoe found it surprising that Lindsey had chosen to put in cacti. Then again, the Whispering Springs town council frowned on any landscaping that required a lot of water, unless, of course, you were building a golf course. Here in Arizona restaurants frequently served water only on request and private lawns were almost illegal, but golf courses never went thirsty.

If anyone had asked her what she thought of cacti before she moved to Whispering Springs, Zoe thought, she would have said,
Not much.
But a year in the desert had taught her to see many things differently. She had discovered that the varieties of cacti were never less than fascinating, and many specimens were truly spectacular. Lindsey had invested in a particularly stunning display.

Cactus names were often wonderfully descriptive, Zoe mused. They usually went straight to the point, as it were. She picked out examples of Bigtooth, Fish Hook Barrel and Toothpick cacti on the way to Lindsey's front door. A cluster of Golden Barrels marked the entrance to the house. Their plump, dark green bodies were gilded with a thousand yellow spines. They looked as beautiful and as dangerous as any objet d'art that had ever been created by a Renaissance craftsman.

“Do you usually personally deliver a specially designed piece of jewelry to a customer?” Zoe asked while they waited for Lindsey to respond to the doorbell.

Arcadia glanced at the silver box in her hand. “No, but Lindsey doesn't have to know that.”

The door opened. Lindsey looked out at them from a pale, limestone-tiled foyer. Her smile of welcome congealed when she saw Zoe.

“I didn't realize that you were coming out here, too,” she said.

“Zoe and I are on our way to a friend's house after we leave here,” Arcadia said easily. “We didn't want to take two cars. I hope you don't mind.”

“No, of course not.” Lindsey recovered quickly. She stepped back to allow them to enter the house. “Please come in. Do you mind removing your shoes?”

“No problem,” Zoe said. She stepped cautiously over the threshold, hoping to feel a trace of the foul energy.

But there were no spiderwebs in the foyer.

Damn.
She stepped out of her red slides.

Arcadia gave Lindsey a cool smile while she removed her sandals. “I think you'll be very pleased with the bracelet. In my opinion, it's far and away the finest work that Meyrick has done to date. A real masterpiece.”

Some of the tension eased out of Lindsey's shoulders. She looked at the small silver box with undisguised eagerness. “I can't wait to see it. Let's go into the great room. The light is excellent in there at this time of day.”

She turned and led the way.

Zoe caught Arcadia's attention and grimly shook her head. Nothing.

But this was a large home, she reminded herself. The spiderwebs, if they existed, might be trapped in one of the other rooms.

Lindsey's residence looked a lot like the bedroom she had designed at the Designers' Dream Home. It was a study of white-on-white carpets and furnishings accented with blond wood and pale stone. The great room windows framed the cool green of the golf course.

Lindsey poured three glasses of iced tea and served them on a white tray. Arcadia put the Gallery Euphoria box on the glass coffee table and removed the lid with an elegant flourish.

Amber and turquoise glowed in a heavily worked silver setting.

“It's fabulous.” Lindsey was clearly entranced. She picked up the bracelet and held it to the light. “Absolutely fabulous.”