Lynn Osterkamp - Cleo Sims 03 - Too Many Secrets (10 page)

Brandi jumped to her feet, shaking her head. “Don’t worry,
honey, we’re going to find her,” she said gently, embracing Ian and patting his
back. “You have my word. I’ll do whatever it takes.”

Ian gradually relaxed into Brandi’s arms. Slowly, she eased
him back down onto the couch, next to Maria, who had been watching the
interaction wide-eyed. Maria put her arms around Ian, squeezed him, and kissed
him lightly on the cheek. Brandi collapsed onto a large pillow in front of the
fireplace and gazed intently into the blazing logs.

My heart ached for this boy who I thought was trying so hard
to stay strong. From what Maria had said, while he was away, totally focused on
physical performance that required clear concentration, he had managed to keep
worries about his mother out of his consciousness. Most likely his belief that
Sabrina had gone off with Erik for a secret rejuvenating vacation had helped
sustain him through his competition. But now that he was back in Boulder, I
could see that Sabrina’s absence was a huge hole in his life that he couldn’t
ignore.

Ian straightened up, regained his composure. “Sorry I freaked
out,” he said to Maria, grabbing her in a big hug. “Gracias for the support.”

“No problem,” she said, giving him another quick kiss. “Whatever
I can do to help. Just let me know.”

“Me too,” Elisa chimed in. “I absolutely want to help if I
can.”

Maria jerked up away from Ian and glared at Elisa. “Don’t you
think you’ve done enough already, Mom? You just couldn’t let me decide when to
tell Ian and Brandi that I’d told you about Erik. You had to jump in and stir
things up. We can’t do anything about Erik right now. The police are busy with
this blizzard. Why couldn’t you let us have this evening before everything got
all crazy?”

Elisa looked dazed, like Maria had thrown a huge wet snowball
in her face. I could see her collecting her thoughts to respond, but I didn’t
want her to go from bad to worse. We needed a break to unwind. I stood up and
turned to Maria and Ian. “You two must be starved after your snowshoeing. How
about we have dinner before we talk more about all this?”

Relief all around. I could almost hear the tension release
like air hissing out of a balloon. Everyone pitched in to set the table, slice
bread, and put the food out, engaging in idle chitchat as we worked. Soon we
were sitting around my kitchen table enjoying the delicious sensation of warm
food in our bellies on a cold, snowy night.

Ian was plowing through his third helping of lasagna when
Elisa turned to him with a sociable smile. “I’d love to hear about the
Breckenridge competition, Ian,” she said. “Your event is the halfpipe, right?”

He jumped and dropped his fork as if he’d forgotten the rest
of us were there. “Sure,” he said with a slow smile. “Breck has this totally
perfect halfpipe. It was an awesome event. Highs and lows showed who’s upping
their podium percentages.”

Brandi was bouncing in her chair, grinning. “C’mon Ian, tell
them how you did. You should be so proud,” she squealed.

Ian beamed. “Breakthrough!,” he said. “I’m pushing myself
harder this year. Last year I wanted to make the Olympic Team. I rode to a
level I’d never gone to before, but I didn’t get there. I learned what it
takes, though, and I’m going to get there next time. So …”

Brandi couldn’t contain herself any longer. “But tell about
the prize,” she interrupted.

Ian stopped and glared at Brandi. “I wanted that to be a
surprise for Maria.”

Maria looked startled. “What surprise?” she asked.

“Like I told you earlier,” Ian said, “I came in
second place overall in the halfpipe, so I get points toward making the U.S.
Snowboard Team.” He stopped and gave her a loving smile. “But what I
didn’t say is I also got $3,000.”

Brandi clapped gleefully. Maria flew out of her chair to kiss
and hug Ian. “Really?” she screeched. “That’s awesome. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I was planning to take you out somewhere nice and surprise
you,” Ian said. “But I should have warned Brandi not to spill the beans.”

Brandi shrugged. “Sorry,” she said, reaching over to give him
a playful shove. “But, hey, speaking of surprises, I have a couple for you.
Let’s have some cake and I’ll tell you what I’ve been up to.”

We took our cake into the living room by the fire. Elisa and
Brandi shared the last of the wine, while Maria, Ian and I had milk. I felt
like I’d been demoted to the kids’ table. This
no-alcohol-no-coffee-while-you’re-pregnant thing was already getting old. But I
wanted to be a good mom to this baby, so I didn’t take risks.

Ian focused his attention on Brandi. “Show-and-tell time,” he
said. “What’s up?”

Their direct, good-natured communication style said a lot to
me about their relationship—and it was all good. Neither took offense
easily, or had to tread carefully, or beat around the bush. From what I could
see, they “got” each other at some basic level. I began to worry that I was
helping the wrong person. To hear Gayle and the other Moxie members tell it,
Brandi was the bad guy here and Ian was her helpless victim. But that didn’t
fit with what I was seeing.

Brandi leaned forward, facing Ian. “Well,” she began, “when
Sabrina first went missing, you and I agreed that we should give her a few
weeks to work out her shit before we panicked. That time is up,” she said
emphatically. “Last week, when the three-week mark came around, I decided
to put her up on a website called FindaMissingPerson.com. I put up pictures of
her, and information about her height and weight, when she was last seen, stuff
like that. And guess what?” she squealed, gazing at each of us in turn.
“Three people have already told me they’ve seen her—one in Dallas,
one in Albuquerque, and one in Las Vegas. Looks like Sabrina and Erik may be
moving around the southwest. We can pass that on to the police if you want,
Ian.” She sat back with a satisfied smile.

I doubted that the Boulder PD or the sheriff would follow up
on tips like those, but I bit my tongue and kept quiet to hear what else Brandi
would say.

Ian tapped a foot and nodded vigorously. “Definitely. We
should tell them right away—at the same time we tell them about Erik’s
call to you. Seriously—like Maria’s mom said, it’s been a month. We can’t
just be waiting for her to show up.” He hung his head and mumbled, “Because I
think something must be wrong. She should have called by now.”

“I agree,” Brandi said. “We should tell the police what we
know. And I have one more thing to tell them. A Boulder psychic named Dionysia
called me. She said she had important information about Sabrina and she wanted
to meet with me. I smelled a scam, but she said she wasn’t going to charge me,
so I got together with her.” Brandi giggled. “Strange woman,” she said,
wrinkling her nose. “Totally fat. A hippo. All puffy and gross like she never
goes outside. But she talked about Sabrina like she knew her, even though she
said they’d never met. Said she can feel Sabrina’s energy very strongly. She
had an image of Sabrina in a white room, focusing her energy on a higher plane
beyond daily life. Maybe Sabrina is at some sort of retreat where time has
become irrelevant, and maybe that’s why she hasn’t called.”

My skeptical side kicked in. A retreat like that didn’t sound
at all like Erik. “You have to be careful with psychics,” I said. “I can’t
imagine Erik going on a retreat like that. Did the psychic get a sense of Erik
being with Sabrina in the white room?”

“She didn’t say. She did say she got positive loving energy
from Sabrina directed especially toward you, Ian.”

Ian sighed dejectedly. Maria whispered something in his ear.
He squeezed her hand.

“And one last thing,” Brandi said, firmly. “I filed the
papers to be appointed Ian’s guardian and conservator of Sabrina’s property.”
She looked pointedly at me. “It’s just temporary until Sabrina gets back.”

Ian looked up sharply. “Did you have to get all legal about
it?” he asked. “Couldn’t we just go on the way we have been until she gets
back?”

“No.” Brandi said flatly, crossing her arms, eyes steely. “I
had to do it. That pushy bitch Gayle Winfield keeps insisting that Sabrina is
dead and that her will makes Gayle your guardian and puts her in charge of
everything Sabrina owns.”

Ian leaned forward, jutted his chin out and narrowed his
eyes. “Oh, no. Not going to happen,” he said shaking his head. “Not me staying
with Gayle. No way I can live there with Nicole.”

So Gayle was right that Ian would choose Brandi over her.
Gayle had said he would choose Brandi because he would expect Gayle to be too
strict about grades and studying. But he said it was about Nicole. I needed to
hear more about that, but was too tired to think how to ask.

To my surprise, Maria kept the spotlight on Nicole. “Oh,
Nicole Winfield,” she said rolling her eyes. “She is kind of weird. Smart but
strange.”

“For sure,” Ian said. “We kind of grew up together, since our
moms are best friends. We got along great until last year. Then she totally
changed, pretty much overnight. Started hanging out with the weird fringe. Got
a bunch of piercings and dyed her hair half-blond, half-black. Became a vegan.
She writes this dumb poetry that’s all about how shitty life is. She’s a dork—weirds
me out.”

“But it’s more than that,” Brandi said urgently. “Gayle and
those Moxie gals are into some deep shit. They basically hate men. That’s no
kind of atmosphere for Ian to live in.”

“What kind of deep shit?” I asked. “Does Sabrina know about
it? She’s a big part of Moxie. Is she involved?”

“It’s not for me to say, but you should get your friend Gayle
and the others to come clean with you. I think they’re going down. You don’t
want to be dragged down with them.”

I had no ready response. I was worn out, confused, and ready
for the evening to be over.

Fortunately I wasn’t the only one who was tired. Ian was
slumped back, yawning, his eyes drooping. “Sorry,” he said sleepily. “I’m still
zoned from the trip.”

Brandi stood up. “Right. We
should go while I still have the energy to drive home in this storm. Thanks for
the dinner and the company.”

After they left, I accepted Elisa’s offer for her and Maria
to clean up the dishes, figuring they could use some alone time to work out
their issues. I got out sheets and blankets for them to use on my futon couch,
and left them to their work. As I headed off to my bedroom to call Pablo before
I fell asleep, I could feel my resolve to tell him everything trickling away. I
had to find out more about what the Moxie members were up to before I betrayed
Bruce by sharing my concerns about them with a cop.

Thursday morning the snow stopped, the sun came out, and the
cleanup began. Elisa, Maria and I re-shoveled my walk and driveway before they
took off for their house in the foothills on the newly plowed roads. I pulled
on my fleece-lined Sorel boots and walked the six blocks to my
office—partly for the exercise and partly just to be out and about.

We’d had two feet of snow, so school and just about
everything else was closed. People celebrating their time away from the usual
routine created a winter-resort atmosphere . Besides the usual digging out of
cars and shoveling of walks, Boulderites were enjoying themselves with sleds,
kids, and dogs. Cross-country skiers and snowshoers passed me in the street.
Some kids were building a six-foot-high snow fort in the pocket park on Pearl
Street. Restaurant owners greeted passersby as they swept the snow off awnings
with brooms. Cheerful voices and laughter hung in the air.

But I wasn’t so cheerful. So far all reports were that the
Denver airport was still closed. Plows had managed to clear one runway this
morning, but deicing areas and other stretches of the tarmac were still buried
in snow. An estimated 4,700 travelers had camped out at the airport Wednesday
night, according to a solemn news report.

Pablo called several times with increasing frustration about
not being able to get the airline on the phone or to get on its website. For
sure he wouldn’t be getting home today. And the even worse news was that a new
storm was heading our way, expected to drop another foot or more of snow on us
tomorrow.

Since all my clients had cancelled, I had a good window to
get some work done. I planned to use my time at my office to catch up on
paperwork. As I walked along, I saw one of the kids building the snow fort
taunting another one: “Liar, liar, pants on fire!” I stopped and
stared at them, realizing that this morning could be a good time to meet with
Gayle and get to the truth about Moxie. She wouldn’t be showing real estate
today and she could get downtown from her house on Balsam without too much
trouble.

As soon as I got to my office, I called her and left her a
message she couldn’t ignore. “Gayle, I spent some time with Brandi last night,
and I’m troubled by what she had to say about Moxie. I’m rethinking my level of
involvement. I don’t think I can help you any more until I know more about what
Moxie is up to. We need to talk.”

Sure enough, she called back in fifteen minutes. “Why were
you hanging out with Brandi and what kind of trouble is she stirring up now?”
she barked.

I filled her in briefly on my evening, leaving out the stuff
Ian had said about not wanting to live with her and Nicole. “Look. I need you
to come clean and tell me what’s going on with Moxie. I’m at my office. Can you
come down for a talk?”

She sighed. “I’ll have to shovel out my driveway, but I’ll
get there as soon as I can.”

While I waited, I reviewed what various Moxie members had
told me about the group’s problems. In the beginning Gayle said Moxie had
turned into a nightmare. She also said she’s afraid that what Moxie set in
motion killed Sabrina. I’d been taking that to mean that Sabrina’s distress
about Moxie’s issues had led her to arrange the retreat that she didn’t come
back from. But what if there was more? Maybe Gayle actually suspected one or
more of the Moxie women of pushing Sabrina over a cliff. But why would they?

There was the secret Moxie mission some of them have alluded
to. Could that somehow have led one or more of them to kill her? What did I
know about that secret? Hana told me the Moxie members were taking action to
right the wrongs women suffer at the hands of men. She wants to make things
better for all women. Lark told me Moxie had turned sour and gone off on a
crusade to get revenge against exes who had mistreated them. She said they
started by setting up websites that revealed bad things those guys had done in
the past, but went beyond that to some risky and wrong way of punishing other men
who mistreat women.

If what they were doing was indeed wrong and possibly
illegal, would Sabrina have threatened to expose them? At the group meeting,
Paige brought up how Sabrina begged the group to return to the Moxie spirit.
Lark agreed, saying that Sabrina might have gone off to see if the group could
do that on its own. But what if Sabrina had been more forceful, given them an
ultimatum? What if that was part of her thirty-day plan?