22
Leo’s firearms collection included some real gems: an 1894 Winchester .30-30 designed by John Browning and with the name of every owner engraved on the scabbard, a Winchester model 1873 with an octagonal barrel, a Colt Single Action Army, a Smith & Wesson Model 3. Kellen passed over the antiques and chose a Ruger LC9s. Slim and accurate, it felt good in her hands, and the holster fit well under her jacket. When she had it strapped on, she looked at herself in the mirror and nodded at her reflection. Only someone with combat experience would know she was packing.
Then she ran up the stairs to the office. She turned on the computer and searched for Maximilian Di Luca. She found him on the Di Luca Wines website, with a bio so brief as to be curt. Based on the information, she started a file in her mind.
MAXIMILIAN DI LUCA:
MALE, 30S, ITALIAN AMERICAN. FORMER FOOTBALL PLAYER. CURRENTLY WORKS FOR DI LUCA WINES. STERN FACE, TANNED SKIN, BLACK SHADOW OF A BEARD, CURLY BLACK HAIR CROPPED INTO A BUSINESSMAN’S LENGTH. BROWN EYES…
She zoomed in. Long dark lashes surrounding gloriously light brown eyes… Reaching out her fingers, she almost touched the screen, then clenched her hand into a fist. His face was not familiar, but he was from Pennsylvania. If she’d met him before, she didn’t remember.
Annie had behaved oddly about him. Did Annie know something she wasn’t saying? Or was the danger that haunted the resort stealing Kellen’s precious sanity? She’d always feared succumbing to whatever madness had taken that year from her. Had she not saved that child? Had she instead hurt the child?
That would explain…this… Kellen touched the scar on her forehead.
Oh God. She’d been through this a million times before, plucking at her mind, seeking memories. If the truth hid there, she couldn’t find it, only fragments of fear and, perhaps, insanity.
She pulled up the resort employee group email, then sat with her fingers on the keys, ready to address the issue of safety…as soon as she figured out what to say. She didn’t want to shout out that Lloyd Magnuson was missing when no one was sure what had happened to him. At the same time, she had to say something. Finally, she typed a brief note that let them know Annie was recovering, expressed her sympathy for those who had known Priscilla Carter, gave the assurance that law enforcement would investigate and that they had a new security director on his way. She included a heartfelt request that everyone be extra vigilant and take every care of themselves and others. Finally, she asked them to report to her anything they observed that struck them as peculiar, and thanked them for their continued diligence. She pressed Send, shut down the computer and the lights and sat in the dark room.
She had found herself unable to tell Mr. Gilfilen about Nils. She considered Mr. Gilfilen a trustworthy man, but she wasn’t willing to jeopardize a federal sting operation based on her belief.
She knew she would not tell Nils about Mr. Gilfilen. She didn’t completely trust Nils.
She didn’t trust Sheri Jean. Or Mara. Most definitely not Chad Griffin. Adrian and Mitch she believed would guard her back in a combat situation, but when it came to making a profit by whatever means? She felt a wobble in her trust-o-meter.
She couldn’t even confide in Birdie or Temo. Anything she said would put them in danger. So she would say nothing. She would tell no one what she knew from any source; she remembered her aunt’s favorite saying, “Of course I can keep secrets, it’s the people I tell them to who can’t keep them.”
This news about Lloyd Magnuson changed everything. He’d gone to the Virtue Falls coroner with the body of one of the Librarian’s victims…and disappeared. Sure, it was possible he’d hit the bars and run into trouble. But no one had seen him, and seriously, who went on a bender with a plastic container of rotting flesh in the trunk?
So what exactly had happened? The Librarian had disposed of Priscilla’s body somewhere close to the resort on the coast, it had washed ashore, and when the identity of the body became known, the Librarian had been alarmed. Perhaps having the body examined by a coroner might somehow lead to the Librarian’s identity.
Yes. What they’d discovered had worried the Librarian and made him, or her, take extraordinary measures to reacquire Priscilla’s body, and what happened to Lloyd Magnuson as a result didn’t matter. Except it did. The guy’s only crime was being a part-time policeman.
Kellen had, she realized, cratered in on herself, erecting that familiar ice wall between herself and everyone else, the way she had after the explosion, in those traumatic days in New York and on the grim streets of Philadelphia…
Turning on the desk light, she pulled a yellow tablet close, got a pen and in her brain pulled up the files for each person she deemed a suspect. If she believed everything Nils Brooks had told her, and she more or less did, then the Librarian was one of these people. Probably. And if she or he had a couple of flunkies, they’d be on the list, too. Probably.
She jotted down each detail about each person.
Then she checked vacations. She knew when Jessica had been killed, so she looked for the employees who had been gone in January. Which was just about everybody except her, who wanted to hunker down here, and Birdie, who didn’t want to go home to Detroit. Oh, and Carson Lennex had been in Machu Picchu, a fact that hadn’t mattered before and now seemed grossly ominous. She weeded out a few names, but—the Librarian ran a big operation at multiple sites. What size was the Librarian’s organization?
Oh. And a large number of the Yearning Sands staff were still on vacation. What if Nils was wrong and the Librarian wasn’t currently here?
So many questions, and none of them easily answered.
Kellen tore off the paper and shrugged into her oversize coat, then headed down to employee dining. It was late; she needed something to eat.
There she found Temo digging through the freezer and loading ready-made dinners into a Yearning Sands Resort insulated tote bag.
“You’re back!” she said. “How was LA? Did you find friends to hire?”
“No.” He was brief to the point of being curt.
“Did you clear up the family situation?”
“Sí. Yes. Everything is fine.” He didn’t look as if everything was fine. He looked tired, he had two days’ growth of dark beard on his chin and his scowl brought his forehead down over his eyes.
More problems in the Iglasias family, she guessed. “How’s your mom and your sister?”
He looked back into the depths of the freezer, grabbed another couple of meals without looking and dropped them into the bag. “Fine. Good! Well, my mom’s in prison, but other than that—”
“That’s something different, isn’t it?”
“First time for federal prison, sí, but no.” He had a bitter set to his mouth. “I’ve bailed her out of jail more than once.”
“Is your sister okay?”
“She is now.” He shut the freezer a little too hard. “I placed her with relatives.”
“She’s okay now? You’re glad you went?”
“Sí. Sí.” He edged away.
“I could talk to Annie, ask if you could bring your sister to live with you.”
He froze.
“You know how kind she is. She would probably say yes.” Kellen’s mind leaped ahead. “School would be very different for her, and you’d have to cut back on your hours, but—”
“Look, I just got back. I have to go to my cottage. I have, um, things I…”
She caught his arm. “Temo, before you unpack and do some wash, I have to ask—did you see Lloyd Magnuson put that corpse into his car?”
Temo looked at Kellen’s hand, then into her face. “I loaded it into that policeman’s toy car.”
“Toy car?”
“He had a toy car, a Smart car. It looks like one of our golf carts, only smaller. I put the plastic box in the back.”
“Then he headed toward Virtue Falls?”
Temo pointed north.
“He didn’t get there. The body never got taken to the coroner. No one has seen Lloyd Magnuson.”
Temo stood with his mouth half-open. Then, “He wrecked his toy car?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. No one has found him, wrecked or otherwise. Maybe whoever killed that girl went after him.”
“I bet they find him wrecked somewhere.” Temo sounded oddly certain.
“Why? Did he say anything that sounded off?”
Temo scratched his cheek. “He was very cheerful for someone who was driving a toy hearse.”
“That’s weird.” She looked in Temo’s bag. “You’re going to eat all that tonight? Did you not eat the whole time you were gone?”
“Not much eating. It was a fast trip. Tonight, Adrian…he came over. You know him. Always hungry. I’ll see you tomorrow. You don’t have to worry. I’ll work.” Temo fled.
“I know you will,” Kellen called after him. She didn’t know if she was looking for trouble or whether Temo was acting weird. Maybe he was having a party and hadn’t invited her. That would be so embarrassing. But not surprising, either. Since they had both left the service, the things that had bound them had vanished. They were both Americans, both retired from the Army, yet they were separated by position, race and language. Only friendship held them together, a friendship she treasured. Had she been mistaken in his affections? Did he not support her as she supported him? That would break her heart.
She poked through the freezer, collected a small square aluminum casserole marked “Dungeness crab mac and cheese.” In the refrigerator, she found a bag of prepared green salad and a small container of salad dressing. She loaded them into one of the insulated tote bags, checked to see that her holster was in place and her tactical flashlight close at hand, left through the kitchen door and ran, avoiding the lighted paths, all the way to Nils Brooks’s cottage.
She knocked, and when he opened the door, she said, “The way I figure it, these killings are the jurisdiction of the FBI. So why is the MFAA investigating them?”