Claire agreed with Nick that, for Lexi and Jilly’s sake, they should try for some semblance of a family Sunday—at least in the morning—so they went to church. Steve didn’t want questions and concerns, and Jace was home with Brit, so it was just Claire, Nick and the girls. For once, Claire was relieved that Nick had convinced Lexi to leave the doll at home by playing up the fact Cindy needed more rest. Claire just rolled her eyes but she was so grateful not to have Lexi’s “crutch” with them for a while. As much as she’d tried to comfort and counsel her daughter using every psych trick she knew, until now, Lexi had not let go of that doll.
At church, everyone was supportive but also curious. Claire cried through the prayer from the pulpit for Darcy’s safe and soon return.
After lunch at home, the parade of television and newspaper interviews began, all carefully scheduled by Heck, who hovered over the lineup while Gina, home from med school for a few days, played badminton with Lexi and Jilly in the backyard. This time, instead of Steve, who still looked banged up, Claire did the sessions one at a time with the reporters and their entourage of cameramen: three TV reporters from Fort Myers and the Fox News reporter from Naples. She also gave the Naples Daily News and the Fort Myers News-Press interviews, asking for tips from anyone who might have seen or overheard anything about Darcy’s disappearance. She held the Christmas picture of her sister in front of her for the video and photos.
The only ground rules were that she would not answer questions about her and Nick’s “stumbling” across Captain Larry Ralston’s body, but would stick to Darcy’s disappearance. A few reporters tried out-the-door questions about Ralston, but she firmly declined to answer, and Nick stepped in to warn them there would be no follow-ups if they got off topic with their coverage.
When they watched the six and eleven o’clock coverages that evening, Claire noted that not only did her voice shake but also her hands. That made the photo she held look like Darcy was trembling, too.
The next morning, the voir dire went far more smoothly and faster than Nick had expected, so the jury was all seated for the trial, which would start the following day. He was even pleased with those he’d helped to select—and to have psyched them out to be sure they would not be prejudiced against his client. That reading of personalities was Claire’s forte, which was why he’d probably try to get her to work with him part-time when the kids were older. That was, unless another baby came along, which he wouldn’t mind at all.
But despite the demands of this coming trial, he had to help Claire and Lexi stay strong in this search for Darcy. He’d never say it aloud, but he had terrible vibes. Too much time had passed with no rational answer. This was the fifth day she’d been missing. She and her car might as well have been spirited away by aliens.
He’d talked to Claire the minute he got back in his office. She’d been “counseling” Lexi, as she called it, despite the doll chiming in. That tech doll was a blessing and a curse, he thought as he went back to wolfing down his sandwich at his desk. His secretary, Cheryl, buzzed him, and despite having a mouthful of pastrami and rye, he punched the talk button on his console.
“Nick, Bronco says there are two men downstairs at the security desk who insist you will want to see them—a Mr. Ralston and a Mr. Brown. Bronco says if they come up, he’ll come, too, and stay with them. It’s about that dead man you and Claire found.”
“They should go to the police.”
“They said they already have earlier today. Did you know it’s in the morning paper that you and Claire found that charter boat captain’s body?”
“No, in too much of a hurry to read it. Jensen probably had to put it in the official report and the newspaper desk picked it up.”
“I can call Detective Jensen or summon more security and have Bronco stall or remove them.”
“No. Send them up. And yes, with Bronco. Also, call Detective Jensen to tell them they’re here.”
“Will do. Right on it.”
After talking to Nick, Claire phoned the library to be sure Will Warren was there today. “Yes,” the receptionist told her, “he’s here now and will be all afternoon. Story time at two-thirty, so please also invite your friends and their children. We always have a lovely gathering. Will Warren is such a wonderful entertainer.”
“Oh, yes. Thank you.”
But she wasn’t telling her friends and especially not her husband. She did, however, leave Nick a note on his desk. She wrote that Will Warren was accounted for elsewhere and she was only going to look around his place to see if there was a shed or outbuilding, or if any of the windows looked nailed shut. In this part of Florida, at least, there would be no basement.
She had read and reread the pages where the villain of The Collector had taken and kept his victim imprisoned. That man was such an egomaniac and psychopath that he actually thought his victim would fall in love with him. And then it had ended so badly. The captive had tried to escape, been recaptured—had died. Villain and victim, villain and victim, the words kept revolving in her mind as she went to tell Nita she was going out for a little while. As she left without saying goodbye to Lexi for once, she felt almost grateful for the doll the girls were focused on in the Florida room. At least that horrible machine in its cute body didn’t bother Nita at all.
As Claire hit the remote to lift the garage door, she whispered the haunting refrain again, “Villain and victim. Whatever it takes, I have to find both.”
Cheryl escorted the two very different-looking men into Nick’s office with Bronco trailing. Nick nodded that Cheryl could go, and he shook hands with them, then indicated the chairs in front of his desk. Bronco hovered in the back of the room on a chair near the shelves of law books.
Jedi Brown was neatly but casually dressed whereas Ralston looked once again as if he’d stepped out of GQ Magazine or at least Golf Digest.
“May I call you Clinton and Jedi?” Nick asked.
“If we might call you Nicholas,” Ralston said.
“Nick is fine.”
“I don’t use my full name,” the dark-haired man said as he settled himself in the leather chair, then leaned forward as if he might leap out of it. “That is, I don’t go by Clinton, but Clint. Only my parents call me Clinton.”
“Clint, it is. And Jedi?”
“If we’re talking parents before business,” the tall blond said, “my name’s really Jedidiah, the so-called blessing name for King Solomon. My parents are big Bible believers. Anyway, I was a Star Wars fanatic for years, so I go by Jedi. But lightsabers are not my weapon of choice.”
Nick realized he must have been asked about his name ad nauseam. But the way he’d said that about lightsabers... Then what was his weapon of choice?
“Plus,” Clint said, evidently impatient with the small talk that kept him shifting around in his chair, “the Star Wars Jedi are wise as Solomon, and this Jedi is my information gatherer, which is where you come in. You and your wife, we saw in the paper today, were the ones who discovered my brother’s body.”
“True. We were in the area and since Larry had requested a Monday appointment with me to talk about his defense on the dolphin case—and I knew I’d be busy then—I thought we’d take a look at his fishing boat, and if he was there, I’d introduce myself.”
“Yeah, that makes sense,” Ralston said, sitting back a bit as if relaxing his stance to intimidate. “That’s kind of what we figured.”
Once again, Nick thought, Claire’s continual reading of body language was useful but nerve-racking. As a matter of fact, as calm as he usually kept under pressure, the stares of these men were getting to him. Now that he’d admitted he and Claire had found Larry’s body, what else did they want? To thank him or blame him?
Actually, Nick would like to grill this man about his occupation. Why wasn’t there any info on him anywhere online? But this was not the time for confrontation. Ralston had lost someone close to him under mysterious, tragic circumstances, and he sympathized with that.
He also wasn’t going to admit that he had mostly wanted to talk to Captain Larry about Fly Safe and any link dolphin suspended animation might have to the same in butterflies—and if Fly Safe had been at all hostile toward Tara Gerald. The idea sounded impossible, even as he thought of it now. And he certainly wasn’t going to bring up that Larry as well as Linc Yost were possible—though it was a long shot—suspects, at least in his mind.
Nick explained, “My wife and I were trying to talk things out over her sister’s disappearance, and strolling the docks seemed like a good diversion. We didn’t even know which boat was your brother’s and had to ask, then that quick storm came up. We saw his cell phone in the stern, saw the net bobbing, but didn’t find him at first. It was quite a shock, especially because our focus had been on our own family tragedy.”
“Understandable,” Ralston said with a firm nod. “Sorry to hear about your wife’s sister and hope you get her back soon. Families—joy and pain. So, I see you don’t have any photos of your family here in the office,” he said, craning his neck to look around. “Kinda unusual, but maybe, you being a criminal lawyer and all, it’s one way of keeping them safe in case people are here who want something from you—or are upset at the way things went.”
A sharp chill racked Nick. Were this man and his associate—or protector and enforcer—actually here to intimidate or even threaten him? Or was he just feeling paranoid to protect his own since Darcy had disappeared?
His eyes met Clint Ralston’s. He stared him down in the sudden silence. Time to turn the tables, go on the offensive.
“So what do you do here in Naples, Mr. Ralston?”
“Well, don’t confuse me with my father, who is a behind-the-scenes mover and shaker around here, funeral director extraordinaire up and down the Southwest Florida coast.”
“I take it you are not in business with him but have your own? It seemed to me that the two of you were at odds with the police and each other yesterday.”
“Our careers are in direct competition with each other, and he’s always taken it personally, that’s all,” he said with a shrug.
And that evidently was all. Was this guy a master of deception, in on something illegal or did he just value his privacy? And was his so-called associate indeed a bodyguard?
“That paper you delivered to Detective Jensen—some sort of living will to claim your brother’s body?”
“More or less. Privileged information, so the detective better not divulge it, either. Just asking for a quick handover of the body in case of an accident,” he added, looking suddenly more than nervous.
With a nod and a frown, Clint Ralston rose and his companion popped up, too. Maybe this guy was Mafia or something that he didn’t share his career. Most men liked to advertise what they did, even talk shop.
And when it came to this apparently well-heeled man’s mysterious profession, exactly what was a career which was in “direct competition” with a funeral home? What were the death choice options besides embalming and burial or cremation and ashes in an urn?
He almost demanded to know more, but the two of them, with Bronco right behind, were letting themselves out the door.
Good riddance, he thought, and decided to call Ken Jensen with a full report. Besides, Nick needed to know what had been on that paper Clint had thrust at Jensen on the dock, privileged or protected information or not. As soon as he got home—early today after a meet with his legal team for the trial—he’d tell Claire to be extra careful since Ralston had made that carefully worded comment about his family’s safety. But why?
Claire drove north on Collier Boulevard. Darcy had mentioned once that Will lived out at the end of Golden Gate Parkway, north of a dead end street called Safe Harbor Drive. She’d easily found his address online, but kept racking her brain about whether Darcy had told her why she’d been out to Will’s—taken Jilly along, too, if she remembered right. Claire did recall that Darcy had said they were in a hurry and only dropped something off.
Claire was fairly unfamiliar with the area so she used her Google search. When she drove so far out that she was approaching wilderness, the area reminded her somewhat of Tara’s. Actually, the wilderness was encroaching here, or else the vintage 1980 houses had encroached on the wilderness. Tall, spindly pines surrounded many of the one-floor stucco homes, most in bland beige. There it was, with his last name, Warren, on the mailbox.
The house was set back from the street with the next home a ways down the road. Widely spaced near-Naples property, however old and out in the boondocks, must be worth a lot these days. But unlike Linc Yost, Will seemed to have the resources for owning his valuable property. Heck had said Will had made a lot of money in Japan selling rare butterflies.
She got out of the car, locked it and walked toward the property as if she were just taking a stroll. No one was in sight. Of course, it was almost two-thirty, so Will would be well into his popular library story time by now, so no worry there. If, by chance, someone did suddenly appear, she could just say she wanted to see what butterfly-attracting plants were in his yard so she could enhance her own.
As she approached Will’s house, Claire hoped he was as concerned and kind—and genuine—as he seemed. Steve had taken him up on his offer to add ten thousand dollars to the reward for information. As far as Claire could tell, Will’s heart was in the right place, but the story of The Collector kept haunting her. And what she considered a terrible omen was finding Captain Larry’s drowned body. At least, except for people who had a swimming pool out here, there were not even lakes. As unnerving as it was, that drowning had to be unrelated to Darcy’s disappearance, didn’t it?
The house had a double car garage. Claire pressed her ear to the closed door. No sounds within. She knocked quietly, then a bit louder.
“Hello! Anyone here?”
No sound. Nothing.
She walked around the back of the house. Brilliantly colored bushes galore, but no house for butterflies. A few of the bushes she could name—fire bush, flame bush, both with flitting butterflies. She glimpsed a wooden shed beyond that, not big, partly hidden by a huge purple bougainvillea. She strolled to it, took off her sunglasses, cupped her hands around her face and looked through the window. The bill of her visor struck the dusty, rain-streaked pane. Inside she saw a riding lawn mower, a tiller and a bench with neatly arranged garden tools. Well, did she really expect to find Darcy tied up here? Still, she intended to look in every window of the house.
If Nick hit the roof over her admitting she was here, she’d tell him it was in broad daylight. But then, she’d have to agree that was when Darcy was taken. For once, she almost wished they’d had a gun at home she could have brought, not that she knew how to shoot one.
She hurried toward the back of the house, taking off her visor so she could get close to the glass to peer in. If there were drapes or blinds, at least they were open.
The first window was in the kitchen. Nothing looked out of place that she could see. She moved to the next one, which was larger. Her own reflection stared at her until she moved closer and cupped her hands again.
She saw rows of hanging frames, a collection of butterflies under glass that glinted back at her, all hung on the wall next to a realistic painting of a woman in a flowing old-fashioned gown who was holding a butterfly net in one hand. Her straw bonnet dangled behind her by its blue ribbons, and her gown was a gauzy, lacy white. So lovely, so old-fashioned. And the woman—except for the long, flowing hair—dear heavens, it was Darcy!