Benjamin carried two cell phones this trip, his personal and one that all the players in the game could call. The auction was digital, and no one was certain who was participating. They could only guess. As the auctioneer, Benjamin knew them all. He had a personal favorite, and it wasn’t the woman paying him three million dollars for inside consideration. He wasn’t new to this. Geneva Sanders would gladly slice him down the middle and leave him for dead, so she had paid up front, the full monty. And Benjamin, being the superior planner and with a lust for sweet revenge, had made an annotation to his will before leaving Atlanta. He had named Nicole beneficiary to that bundle of money should something happen to him. And he had left specific instructions so that she would know exactly how the money had been garnered, the when and where. It would forever be tied to the death of their son.
It was fortuitous that Blue Mesa had its very own turbine farm. There was something about wind that set his sails. The sheer force of it, probably. The ability to harness it, certainly. Few people could. Not without the help of canvas or fuselage. And he had paid well for the right information. Benjamin was the kind of guy who liked to make an exit. An exclamation point, that’s what he was. Only this time, it would act as a sword as he cut Nicole’s world to ribbons.
The phone rang again, and Geneva Sanders’s name scrolled across the screen. Benjamin continued to ignore it. All work and no play was never his way. Now that was an epitaph. He’d have to remember that.
There was a knock at his car window then, and this startled Benjamin. He’d always been an avid daydreamer. It was his escape but also his place of greatest creativity.
He jerked his head back and turned toward the sound of rapping knuckles. He’d had the engine turned off for more than a few minutes, and the cold air was collecting on the glass. Still, he could make out the face and uniform of a Toole County sheriff’s deputy. Benjamin turned the key just enough to roll down the window.
“Problem, sir?”
“Check-engine light,” Benjamin said. “It’s a rental, so no telling what kind of miles were put on it. Thought I’d let it rest a bit.”
“There are better places for it,” the officer recommended. Behind him, the blades of the turbines spun, and the air was choppy and rocked both the officer and the SUV.
“I don’t know a lot about cars,” Benjamin said. “Do you think it’d make it back to the hotel?” Benjamin named the resort he was staying at, and he had the parking tag hanging from the rearview mirror as proof.
“That’s just another few miles,” the officer said. “Unless you’re out of oil or radiator fluid, you should be good to go.”
“Topped off this morning,” Benjamin assured him.
Another gust of wind swept through the fields and blasted them.
“That’s some wind farm you have there.”
“Yeah, but not without its trouble,” the officer said.
“Oh?” Benjamin returned. “I don’t like the sound of that.” Though really his heart was doing cartwheels just thinking about what he could do with just a pocketful of that power.
“Turn the engine,” the officer suggested, and Benjamin did. They both peered at the dash, waiting for a red warning light that wasn’t going to show.
“Guess she’s ready to go,” Benjamin said.
The officer nodded. He gave Benjamin a considering look. “I’ll follow you,” he said. “A mile or so, to make sure you’re good.”
Benjamin expressed his appreciation. Window closed and back on the road, he laughed at the sweet irony as he led one of Nicole’s finest away from the scene of what would be their son’s untimely death.
They gave Esparza a moment to compose himself. They gave him a bottle of water and a box of tissue and space. But they had their limits. They wanted a viable conversation with the doctor, and they needed him responsive. Inside five minutes, Nicole was back in her chair, not rubbing knees with Esparza but close.
“Your wife called you last night,” Nicole began.
“Yes, much later in the evening.”
“Did she know Beatrice was dead?”
“She knew something terrible had happened.”
“Because Beatrice had called her?”
“Yes. And because Beatrice was hysterical. My daughter was at times unreasonable. Theatrical, even, but she was never hysterical.”
“And what did you do?”
“Nothing.”
“I don’t believe that.”
His gaze distant, he crossed his arms and leaned back against the chair. “My wife called me seven times. Beatrice and Joaquin ordered cable and brewed hot chocolate in the coffeemaker. My sweet little ones have colds. My discovery, it will change the world.”
His voice was an even monotone, no pitch but distant. The doctor was slipping away.
“What is that?” Lars asked. “Are you recapping events, or are you reciting your lines?”
Esparza didn’t answer. Nicole watched his body vibrate as a tremor ran through him.
The man had lost his daughter and possibly his career. And he’d had a hand in their demise, Nicole was sure of it.
She needed to pull him back and reached for the large envelope on the table. She opened the flap and let Beatrice’s cell phone slide out onto the table. It had been processed for fingerprints, and a backup had been made of all the data. The techs were at work tracing numbers, looking for image matches in the cyber world of Beatrice’s extensive photo gallery. One image in particular. Nicole held the phone in her hand and pushed a few buttons, then turned the screen so that the doctor could see it.
“Who is this man, Dr. Esparza?”
The photo was the one of Beatrice snuggled up to the side of a man her father’s age. She was smiling. The man’s hand curved around Beatrice’s side, resting in the innocuous dip at her waist.
“A colleague,” he replied.
“He a touchy-feely kind of guy?” she asked.
“He’s a doctor and handles himself with decorum.”
Nicole turned the phone so that Lars could see the photo. He shook his head and eyed the doctor.
“I have a daughter myself. She’s fifteen. And that picture makes me uncomfortable.” He jerked his chin toward the phone. “Who is he? A name this time.”
“Why? This photo was taken at a family gathering. We were celebrating Bea’s graduation from junior high. That has nothing to do with my work.”
“Then you won’t mind telling us his name,” Nicole pushed.
“He a close friend?” Lars asked. “You said family gathering, and Beatrice’s graduation from eighth grade is certainly an important moment but not a real ticket seller.”
“He is close, yes.”
“Beatrice seemed to know the man. Quite well,” Nicole pointed out.
“Look at her,” the doctor implored. “She is happy. Beaming with it. Why involve my work in this?”
“But you said this was family,” Lars challenged. He glanced at the cell phone, now sitting on the table between them. The man with Beatrice was younger than Esparza, but not by much. He was Caucasian, with dark hair just starting to go silver at the temples.
“It is both.”
“Who prescribed your daughter Augmentin?” Nicole pressed.
“Someone who doesn’t know her very well,” Dr. Esparza returned. “But Beatrice didn’t take it.”
“She was compassionate but not foolish?” Nicole asked. Esparza’s thinking was like a puzzle, and he was spilling the pieces onto the table. It was her job to build the edges, turn the pieces, and make them all fit.
“There’s a difference, and she was growing. Her mind and her emotions maturing.”
“And she was bound to turn your way.”
Esparza nodded. The act was curt, singular, like a period at the end of a sentence. It held arrogance and pride. But not hope.
Nicole shifted gears.
“Is it easy to put another doctor’s name on a prescription?”
“It is one minute at the computer.”
“A computer in your office?”
He nodded.
“We won’t arrest you for the murder of your daughter,” Nicole began. “We don’t have enough evidence for that. But we can arrest you for obstructing justice. And we’ll find out who he is anyway. We always do.”
“And when that happens, we’ll look at him hard,” Lars said. “Interfere and involve won’t come close to describing the scrutiny we’ll put this man through.”
“And we’ll do it because you tried so hard to hide him.”
“We don’t like secrets, Dr. Esparza,” Lars pointed out. “We like answers. That’s how we measure your willingness to cooperate. By the swiftness and accuracy of your answers. And time is running out on this one.” Lars looked at his watch.
“Our tech guys will score a match sooner than later,” Nicole confirmed.
“You’re right,” the doctor said. “Beatrice was not in favor of my recent decisions. She didn’t understand them.” He lifted his hands in frustration. “How could she? She was a child.”
“You’re referring to the sale of your research to the highest bidder?” Lars pressed.
“Yes.”
“Who’s the highest bidder?” Nicole pursued. “Is it this man? Is that why you’re working so hard to keep him out of this?”
“He’s a possibility,” the doctor allowed.
Lars’s cell phone chirped. He looked at the doctor. “What do you want to bet that’s the name we’ve been looking for?”
Esparza’s lips thinned, and a white ring rose up around them.
Lars nodded. “So be it.” He pulled his cell from his pocket, but before he could answer it, the doctor spoke up.
“Dr. Michael King.”
Lars pressed answer and spoke into the phone. He murmured a few words in response and stood up, pacing away from the table. The doctor watched him go.
“Your daughter didn’t come back from Christmas dinner, did she, Dr. Esparza?”
“She went to a party,” he confirmed. His face was beginning to show the stress, fracturing in places so that Nicole could see the fear and ruin running beneath his skin.
“Sofia and Isla too,” Nicole continued. “They went to the party, didn’t they?”
Esparza nodded. He paled, and the tremor she’d noticed earlier turned into a strumming. Nicole heard his teeth clack together and watched his elbows and knees twitch.
“Dr. King,” he whispered. “He had a small party. A few girls over to spend time with his daughter. She isn’t like our daughters. Not as capable. She has a neurodegenerative condition. It’s a slow deterioration of mind and body. She is wheelchair bound and has the intellect of a six-year-old child.”
“Dr. King is here? In town?”
“She wanted a slumber party. For Christmas. A kid like her, he said, didn’t get a lot of invites. And not a lot of girls RSVP’d. That’s what he said. Could Beatrice do their hair, their nails? That’s what he wanted, for his daughter, a small slice of normal.”
“Where is Dr. King staying?” she persisted. “Dr. Esparza?”
“It was the only wish in her letter to Santa.” He opened his hands and laid them on the table, searching his palms for some clue into the future. “Beatrice volunteered for the job. She wanted to do it. She was drawn to kids like that. Kids who are different.
“They wore fancy dresses, and Beatrice did their hair in ringlets and rhinestones.”
“Where are they?” Nicole demanded. She felt her heart race, the breath wispy in her throat. Esparza was unraveling. She didn’t want that to happen with the information still locked inside him. “Where are your daughters, Dr. Esparza?”
“Dress-up. Hair and makeup. All little-girl things to do. Disney movies and popcorn. That was on the agenda. I asked, you know? That’s what a parent does. A good parent asks, and I did.”
Nicole sat forward and snapped her fingers two inches from the doctor’s nose. He blinked and his eyes cleared. His lips trembled.
“Where are your daughters?”
He looked up, and this time his eyes were searching, imploring.
“He has them. But he’s promised to return them unharmed.”