forty-four

It was late afternoon and I knew Wizard would be hungry. I filled his dish with some fresh food and checked the answering machine. No new calls. I played Geneva’s message again and noted all the birth information. My head felt as if it was ready to burst, but I clicked on the astro program and forced myself to set up the charts.

I sat staring at the computer screen for a long time. His birthday was October 6th. He would be thirty-nine this year. He was born in Los Angeles at 9:31 p.m. His Sun was conjunct Pluto and his Venus, Mars, and Uranus formed a stellium in Scorpio. A deep need for power and control. His Moon and Neptune were in Sagittarius very close to his seventh house cusp, connecting with Moira’s Sun and Moon. He had had a tremendous hold over her. He would appear sensitive and compassionate, but at a deeper level, he had the ability to manipulate others ruthlessly. He was a Svengali, able to display whatever characteristics suited his own immediate needs. How could I have been so blind? The Uranus connection would make him unpredictable and explosive. And all of this fell in his fifth house. He would use sexual energy to gain his ends.

And where was Cheryl? Had she returned to Macao by herself ? Had she stumbled into danger? A low-level feeling of dread had been dogging me since the open house. Now I felt a full-blown rush of anxiety. I had to find her. I’d start with her apartment. I’d find someone to open it up if necessary.

I threw my jacket on and rushed down to the car. As soon as I started the engine, my cell rang. It was Gale.

“Where are you?”

“In the car. I’m going back to Cheryl’s. I’m really worried about her.”

“Me too, but I just picked up the new Eccola! Have you seen it?”

“I actually have it, in the car, I think. I got one from Brooke’s office when I was there. Hang on.” I pulled the car over to the side of the street and left the engine idling.

“Look inside, where they list the editor and the staff.”

“Okay. What am I looking for?”

“The Assistant Editor.”

My eye scanned the page and I found it. “Lana Barron.” “Oh … oh … L. Barron, the person who bought the bracelet at Rochecault?”

“Cheryl told me all about that. Interesting coincidence, isn’t it?”

“Very. Not exactly sure how it fits in yet, but I want to tell you my theory. I’ll call you when I get to Cheryl’s.”

“Stay in touch and stay out of trouble.”

“I intend to, now that I know who did it. I’m just not certain how or why.”

 

I reached Cheryl’s building in record time and, ignoring the no parking signs, pulled up in front. The sky was dark with a threatening storm. The building lights had not yet come on. Had it only been a few hours since I was last there? I stood on the sidewalk and looked up at Cheryl’s windows but didn’t see a light. I ran up the front steps of the building and hit the buzzer.

He stepped out of the shadow of the columns. I took a step back, my heart thudding wildly.

“Hello, Julia.” Rob smiled. “I knew you’d turn up sooner or later.”

I began to tremble but didn’t want him to see that. “What do you want?”

“I want you to come with me.” He smiled again.

“And I would do that … why?” I did my best to muster some courage.

“Because I have something you want—or should I say, someone.”

I felt my heart sink. He had Cheryl. “Why her?”

“Simple. I had to get to you before you did any more damage. Get in.” He pointed to the driver’s door of my car and walked around to the passenger side. “Just drive nice and slow down to the Marina.”

A cold sweat broke out on my forehead. My hands were shaking, but I managed to start the car and drove straight up the hill to the top of Powell. Rob indicated a turn that took us down to Van Ness. I drove, occasionally glancing in his direction. He seemed completely relaxed, a folded jacket over his right hand covering a gun. I wracked my brain for some way to attract police attention, but without spotting a cruiser on the street, I couldn’t imagine how I could do that.

“Drive nice and slow and don’t think about doing anything funny. If you do, you’ll never see your friend again.”

We cut down Lombard and turned onto Marina Drive.

“Take this turnoff coming up.”

I pulled into the drive leading to the yacht club, following it to the edge closest to the docks, and turned off the engine. “Now what?”

“Get out slowly. Don’t try any tricks.” I climbed out and Rob followed me. We approached a gate in the chain-link fence separating the parking area from the docks. Rob pulled a key ring out of his pocket and tossed it to me.

“Unlock the gate.”

I considered what he might do if I tossed the keys over the fence into the water. But after Gale’s call, I knew he wasn’t working alone. Now I understood how he and Lana, the Assistant Editor, had managed to set Brooke up. I unlocked the gate and we stepped onto the wooden pier. I pulled it shut behind us and Rob indicated we should head down the dock.

The boats were bobbing slightly in the current, their masts upright, their sails down. The sky was darker now, with heavy, water-
laden clouds. The wind had picked up, blowing in short intense gusts. Water slapped against the hulls of the boats and the pilings of the pier. The smell of ocean brine filled the air. The pier was deserted. There was no one in sight to call to for help. Unlike some of the other Bay Area marinas, this one allowed no residents.

Rob smiled and hummed softly to himself as he followed me. Near the end of the pier, he said. “Stop right there.” We were next to a long sloop with an aft cabin.

“Climb aboard and watch your step, Julia. I wouldn’t want you to fall,” he chuckled. His amusement chilled me to the bone.

Once on deck, he pushed me toward an opening that revealed a small inner light. I ducked my head and descended the few steps to
a small under-cabin. Cheryl was seated on one of the cushions, in the same black cocktail dress and heels that she’d worn the night we had gone to Macao. She was bound and gagged with strips of white cloth that looked like ripped sheets. Lana Barron sat opposite her, her long legs crossed, with a gun aimed at Cheryl’s chest. Cheryl’s eyes grew large when she saw me, streaks of mascara marring her cheeks.

“See? I wouldn’t hurt your friend. I was very gentle. I wouldn’t want there to be any marks on her wrists and ankles later. Although I doubt either of you will ever be found if I’ve judged the tide and currents correctly.”

I shuddered involuntarily. He meant to throw us overboard. An ebb tide must be approaching. Ebb tides in the bay are far more powerful than incoming flood tides. Even ocean liners and military ships will choose to enter the bay on a flood tide, but not when water is moving out of the gate. The Coast Guard is forced to haul in stranded windsurfers on a daily basis, but if anyone has passed the “line of demarcation,” an imaginary line extending from Mile Rock off Land’s End to Point Bonita in Marin County, it’s too late. They are invariably swept out to sea. Even if we could survive the cold water, we’d have no chance.

“Let her go.”

“Sorry. No can do. I saw her with you the other night. At Macao.”

“So that was you!”

“And then I saw her there again last night. I don’t believe in coincidences. Picking her up was actually amazingly easy.” Rob reached over and stroked Cheryl’s cheek. She would have bitten his hand if she hadn’t been gagged.

I felt a hot rush of anger well up. Lana smiled but remained silent.

“And then of course I knew you’d try to rescue her, like the little do-gooder you are.”

“And Rita?”

“Poor Rita. I’m afraid it’s all your fault,” Rob said lightly. “That day at the Palace restaurant, you told me you’d questioned her. I couldn’t take the chance. She might have seen me picking Moira up outside that disgusting bar.”

“I see.” I was doing my best to breathe normally. “And Moira?”

“That was unfortunate. That wasn’t my plan, you see. Poor deluded Moira. I had her convinced only Brooke stood in our way. She was supposed to shoot Brooke in the garage when Brooke went down to let Cassie out. That was the plan. She was so in love with me. It was really too bad she couldn’t stay the course. It would have been the perfect murder. She would have been caught, of course, and then it would have been my word against hers.”

“You wanted Brooke dead?”

Blood rushed into his face. “She thought she could divorce me!” he shouted suddenly, spittle forming on his lips. “My perfect blonde wife thought she was too good for me.” He took a deep breath and gained control once more. “I couldn’t have that, you see.”

I hoped that if I could keep him talking long enough, I might think of some way for Cheryl and me to escape. “What screwed up your plan?”

“At the wedding, Moira told me she had a change of heart. She was pregnant and she wanted to come clean and tell Brooke everything. She wanted to do things right, she said. She wanted me to leave Brooke for her, if you can believe that.”

“But that would have shown up on the autopsy.”

“Exactly. Turns out the bitch lied.” Rob laughed bitterly. “But I couldn’t take that chance, that something could tie me to her. I had to move quickly.”

“You poisoned her drink.”

“Twice actually, but not poison. Barbiturates. No one would have believed she didn’t take them herself, given her history.”

“And Sally Stark?”

“An unforeseen glitch.”

“And you shot Moira with David’s gun.”

“Of course.”

I gasped. It was clear in a blinding flash. I saw Harry, Michael’s poodle, the day I’d stopped at Michael’s family’s house, with Michael’s glove in his mouth. It was the vision hovering at the back of my mind. It all clicked into place. “You trained Cassie.” I remembered the muddy prints she’d left on the carpet when she’d rested her head on Rob’s knee after the shooting.

Rob smiled slowly. “Isn’t Cassie amazing? She’s actually a very clever dog, well-trained. All I had to do was let her out the back door of the garage and off she went, over the fence. The gun and the glove I used are somewhere at the bottom of a pond in the Presidio.”

“And you and Lana wrote those emails?”

“Oh, yes. Months ago.” He nodded in Lana’s direction. “If Moira screwed up and Brooke survived, the plan would still have worked. The emails were proof of their conspiracy to murder me. The police would assume Moira mistook Brooke for me in the darkened garage. I, of course, would play the dutiful husband, believing in my wife’s good heart while she and Moira went quietly off to jail. Unfortunately, none of that came to pass, so I had to improvise. Oh, before I forget. Let’s have that bracelet you’ve been showing around town.” He grabbed my purse and dumped the contents on to a tiny fold-down table. He grabbed the Rochecault box with the bracelet inside.

“Here you go, dear.” He smiled and tossed the bracelet to Lana, who slipped it into a small purse. She stood and walked toward Rob. As she passed him, she laid her gun on a shelf. He slipped an arm around her waist, pulled her body close, and kissed her passionately. She responded to his kiss, glanced over at me one last time, and smiled. She hadn’t said a word. She climbed the narrow stairway and clambered off the boat.

“Lana will be happy to provide an alibi for me just in case either of your bodies ever wash ashore, which I doubt, but it pays to be careful.”

“So Lana gets the prize, huh? Brooke’s career and her husband?”

“Lana and I are so much more compatible. Twin flames, you might say. But enough chatter, ladies. Julia, turn around.”

“No!” I spit in his face in a desperate burst of anger.

I never saw it coming. He backhanded me across the face. I went flying into a corner of the cabin hitting my head on a cabinet. Everything went black.