Swift Edge (12 page)

“Like vibrators and stuff? Cool.”

The woman gaped at Kendall, then bent her flinty gaze on me. I could see she was debating calling Child Protective Services to accuse me of corrupting a minor.

A news van pulled into the lot, generating a twitter of excitement among the protesters. Kendall’s eyes lit up as a handsome reporter from the local CBS affiliate climbed out of the van. She smoothed her hair and reached for the lip gloss in her pocket. I did not think Gigi would appreciate seeing her daughter discuss the merits of a sex toys store on the nightly news. “Inside,” I ordered her.

“But—”

“It’s time to study your catechism.”

“Huh?”

“Kids,” I said with a “what can you do?” smile at the picketer as Kendall stuck her lower lip out and reluctantly trudged the four steps to Swift Investigations. I heaved a sigh of relief as she disappeared inside, grabbed the leaflet Poetry Woman thrust at me, and ducked into the office before the reporter got within recording distance.

Once inside, I balled up the page and tossed it toward the trash can.

“Did you hear about Domenica’s?” Gigi asked, with a sideways look at her daughter.

Kendall had settled at her card table and was busy painting her fingernails cotton candy pink.

“Hard not to.” I jerked my head toward the demonstrators outside. They were chanting something now, probably for the benefit of the news crew. Thankfully, the words were muffled. “Have you been over to check out her stock? Maybe she’s having an after-Christmas sale.”

“Charlie!” Gigi stared at me, then giggled when she saw my grin.

“I don’t know why they’re kicking up such a fuss about a few dildos,” Kendall said nonchalantly. “It’s not like you can’t buy them, like, all over the Web.” She blew on her wet nails.

“What do you know about—? Where did you hear—?” Gigi goggled at her daughter, clearly agitated. “We are canceling our Internet—we can’t afford it anyway.”

I’d never heard Gigi sound stern. I didn’t know she was capable of “stern.” I suppressed the urge to yell, “Go, Gigi!”

“Mo-om!” Kendall shot to her feet, face a picture of outrage.

“Maybe Kendall should take the rest of the day off,” I suggested. “We’re not going to get any customers through here with all that going on outside. This might be a good time for me to head up to Estes Park if you found Dmitri’s cabin.”

“It’s Yuliya Bobrova’s cabin,” Gigi said, crossing to Kendall and trying to hug her. “I’m sorry, sugah.”

For what? Trying to protect her daughter from Internet smut?

Kendall held up her hands to fend off the hug. “Now look what you’ve done—my nails are smudged.” She flounced to her table.

So much for acting parental. Still, Gigi’d actually been angry with Kendall for 6.2 seconds—a record in my brief experience with the Goldmans.

“Why don’t you call your brother? He can pick you up.” Gigi returned to her desk and sorted through a stack of papers. “The title’s in her name. Here’s the address. She’s owned it since 1990. There’s no phone listing.”

I glanced at my watch: one thirty. I was suddenly eager to get away. The morning’s discovery of Bobrova—was it really almost nine hours ago?—and the day’s interviews, not to mention my injuries from yesterday, had worn me out. I wanted time alone to think and sort through the bits and pieces of the Fane puzzle without interruption. The two-and-a-half-hour drive to Estes Park was just the ticket. If I left now, I’d arrive before dark.

I told Gigi my plan. “Oh, and I’ll stop by Memorial and see if I can talk to Bobrova on my way out of town,” I added, hoping the woman was conscious. The sight of Gigi taking notes as I talked jogged my memory. “Didn’t you say you’re staking out a tattoo parlor? Something to do with that kid Dan wants to find?”

She nodded. “I’m sure the man that works there—Graham—recognized Kungfu’s photo. In fact,” she leaned closer and dropped her voice, “it wouldn’t surprise me if there was skullduggery going on at Tattoo4U.”

“Really? Skullduggery?” I’d never heard the word used in conversation and wondered if she’d picked it up from one of the PI magazines she devoured. “Well, it wouldn’t be the first time there’s been a little back-room drug dealing at a tattoo parlor. Try not to blow the place up.”

Gigi looked hurt. “That only happened once. Besides, I won’t be going into the place; I’m going to try out some of the new long-range surveillance equipment. The parabolic microphone should work great, and maybe I’ll take the NVGs”—she used the acronym self-consciously—“in case I’m there after dark.”

“Don’t get caught.” I thought her chances of getting a lead on Kungfu were nil, but if it gave her joy to try out the spy gadgets she’d insisted Swift Investigations purchase, I wasn’t going to stop her. After all, how much trouble could she get into with a microphone and some night-vision goggles?

*   *   *

Memorial Hospital on the north side of Colorado Springs is a modern-looking building of stone and curves and glass. When I arrived after packing an overnight bag at home and leaving a note on Dan’s door, the parking lot was mostly empty. At almost three o’clock on a Friday afternoon, the doctors had left for their ski condos in Aspen and Steamboat. Visitors were taking a break before sitting with their sick loved ones for a couple of hours in the evening. I hurried across the windswept parking lot and into the lobby. With its open plan, cozy seating areas, and Pikes Peak views, it looked more like the lobby of an upscale hotel than a hospital. Yuliya Bobrova was still alive, the woman staffing the information desk told me, but in ICU. She wouldn’t update me on Bobrova’s condition beyond “not dead.” Following the signs, I elevatored up to the ICU and bumped into Montgomery as I got off. Literally.

He grabbed my shoulders to steady me, and the warmth of his hands tingled clear down to my toes. He smiled down at me. “I’ve fantasized about you running into my arms, Charlie,” he said, “but I didn’t think it would be in a hospital.”

“I don’t want to hear about your fantasies,” I lied.

“You’re right. So much more satisfying to act them out, don’t you think?” The glint in his eyes made me catch my breath. My pulse thrummed in my fingertips.

Vaguely aware that I should move away from him, I found myself trapped by his gaze. He had such warm brown eyes. Caring, seductive. I licked my lips, and his eyes darkened. For a moment, I thought he was going to pull me into the nearest empty room, but the elevator dinged open behind me and a clutch of red-hatted women got off, holding bouquets of balloons and cookies.

“Is this maternity?” one woman asked, peering around. “We’re looking for Marjorie’s grandbaby.”

I took a couple of steps away from Montgomery and worked on slowing my heartbeat as he directed the women to the correct floor.

“Bobrova’s still unconscious,” he said, returning to my side. He nodded to a room where a still figure lay surrounded by machines with tiny lights blinking green, yellow, or red. A nurse hovered over her, squeezing the bag hanging from an IV pole. “The docs aren’t sure if she’ll make it. Skull fracture, hematoma, shock, a couple cracked vertebrae, surgery to relieve pressure on the brain, and I don’t remember what else. Even if she lives they’re not sure what she’ll remember. Hell, she may not remember her name or what an ice skate is.”

I took in the sadness of that in silence. How much memory did you have to lose before you weren’t you anymore? Would I still be me if I forgot the parents who serially abandoned me with various relatives so they could missionary around the globe? What about if I forgot my first kiss with what’s-his-name, or my air force commissioning ceremony, or the thrill of skiing Mary Jane with the rising sun rinsing the snow with pink? I shook my head to dislodge the melancholia. “Bummer. I guess that means she wasn’t any help with ID’ing her attacker.”

“Nope.”

“Have you got any leads?”

Without answering, he cocked his head and studied me. “We got a call from Sally Peterson. Says her daughter Dara’s missing. Know anything about it?”

“Not really.” I filled him in on my conversations with Dara and my own unease when I couldn’t reach her that morning. “It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours—why are you on it?”

“Given the circumstances, Captain Kean decided to issue a BOLO. He’s concerned there’s a connection between the attack on Bobrova and Peterson’s disappearance.”

Something in his voice alerted me. “You think Dara’s a suspect?” I moderated my volume when a nurse behind a semicircular desk shot us a “shut up already” look. “Why would she try to kill her coach?”

“Too many laps? Coach Grimsler used to make us run laps when—”

“This is ice-skating, not football.”

“Boy, your sense of humor really suffers when you get up early. How’d you make it in the air force? Isn’t their motto ‘We do more before nine than most people do all day’?” One side of his mouth slanted up.

“That’s the army, and quit trying to change the subject. If you think Dara attacked Bobrova, do you think she had anything to do with Fane’s disappearance?”

Montgomery sobered. “Maybe.” He drew the word out, and I could see him considering it. “I don’t know why she’d’ve hired you, though, if she offed him or made him disappear.”

“She’s a nineteen-year-old kid,” I said, exasperated. “Quit talking like she’s some Mafia kingpin who can have people ‘offed’ or ‘disappeared.’”

“I’m not saying she’s guilty of anything,” Montgomery said, “but I’d like to have a conversation with her.” His expression grew serious. “Besides, if she’s not the perp, she might be in danger. You will have her call me if you run across her.” He made it a statement.

“I’ll let her know you’d like to chat,” I said, determined to wring every ounce of information from Dara Peterson before passing on Montgomery’s message, “and you’ll let me know if anything changes with Bobrova, right?” I snugged my purse under my arm and turned to go. Trying to talk with the injured woman was clearly pointless, even if I’d been allowed into her room.

“Where are you off to?” He beat me to the elevator and held the door for me when it dinged open.

“The mountains.” As the doors shushed closed, I felt a tingle at being alone with Montgomery in such a small space. He stood close enough for our arms to brush, and the fine hairs on my forearms stood up at the brief contact.

“Skiing?”

He half-turned as he spoke, and I found myself pressed into the corner of the elevator, a stainless steel rail digging into my back at waist height. I looked up, and my explanation died on my lips at the expression in his eyes. I gripped the rail with both hands to keep from flinging my arms around his neck.

“I could go with you,” he said in a low voice, bending so his lips almost touched my ear. “Skiing, a soak in the hot tub, a glass of brandy in front of a crackling fire … sounds like fun.” His lips grazed my ear, then whispered across my cheek to the corner of my mouth.

My mind ran with the scene he sketched, adding a sheepskin rug and subtracting unnecessary distractions like clothes. My whole body buzzed and I felt light-headed. My lips parted. If I turned my head slightly …

The elevator thudded to a halt, and Montgomery put a quick body’s width between us as the doors opened to admit two orderlies wheeling a gurney.

“We’ll have you down to X-ray in a jiff, sir,” the black orderly said, tucking a blanket more securely around the old man on the gurney. Age spots speckled the man’s rubbery scalp, and a nose like an ax blade dominated his thin face. Sharp eyes shifted from me to Montgomery, and he sniffed deeply, nostrils flaring. Apparently, he picked up the scent of pheromones and desire, because he cackled and shook a bony finger at me. “Not in an elevator, you shouldn’t,” he said. “In my day, ladies didn’t—”

To my fury, I felt myself blushing. I darted out of the elevator as the doors began to close, tossing a quick “Later” over my shoulder to Montgomery. Listening to the old man’s litany of what ladies didn’t do back in his day wasn’t on my agenda. Besides, I’d bet they did, although maybe not with him—and I wasn’t going to with Montgomery, I told myself, taking the stairs two at a time. He was younger than I was. He lived for the adrenaline rush of danger, like my fighter pilot husband had. He was hotter than an erupting volcano, my undisciplined side pointed out. Yeah, well, I didn’t want to get burned.

Pushing through the lobby doors, I welcomed the cold that knifed through me. By the time I reached my Subaru, I’d compelled my mind to shove my id back into its cave and concentrate on the case.

14

I reached the outskirts of Estes Park three hours later, as dusk edged into night and snow began to fall. I’d hit rush hour in Denver and been enmeshed in traffic heading west for a weekend’s skiing. Lucky bums. Now, tired and stiff, I wanted a room, a good meal, and a single-malt Scotch, not necessarily in that order. My cogitations about the case on the drive up had left me with a slight headache and no answers. I had a handful of facts but couldn’t line them up with supportable conclusions. Fact one: Dmitri Fane was missing, either willingly or un. Fact two: Someone had attempted to kill Yuliya Bobrova, Dmitri’s coach. Fact three: Dara Peterson, Dmitri’s pair partner, had also dropped out of sight. Fact four: The Olympic trials started next week, and if Peterson and Fane didn’t compete, Trevor Anthony and his partner were likely to win trips to the Olympics. The only common denominator I could see was Dmitri Fane, but I was darned if I could pinpoint a motive for his disappearance.

If Trevor Anthony (or anyone else) wanted to stop Dmitri skating, he (or she) could accomplish that by getting rid of Dmitri. There was no need for the attack on Bobrova or Dara’s disappearance. If Dmitri was into something hinky—say, dealing drugs—and disappeared himself, why come back to beat up Bobrova? How did Dara’s disappearance fit into that scenario? Gaagh. I hit the steering wheel. I wasn’t going to think about it any more tonight. Motel. Food. Scotch.

I turned into the parking lot of the first motel I came to, across Route 36 from Lake Estes, and secured a room by the ice and vending machines. Pausing in the room only long enough to dump my overnight bag and brush my teeth, I sallied forth in search of sustenance. Unlike the ski resorts, Estes Park is more of a summer town than a winter town, with its main attraction being Rocky Mountain National Park a couple of miles north. Consequently, the sidewalks weren’t crowded as I hiked a few blocks from my motel to find a restaurant. I enjoyed an elk steak and a Glenmorangie in a restaurant decorated in the rustic lodge mode favored in the mountains: exposed log walls, upholstery patterned with deer or bears, a taxidermied moose head reproaching diners with its glassy eyes, and a roaring fire. I enjoyed a second Scotch by the fire, tipped my server generously, and headed back to the motel to find a note tacked to my door. The gist of it was “No hot water until midday Saturday.” I glanced down the hall to see similar notes on all the doors. Damn. A freezing cold shower had about as much appeal as rolling naked in the snow.