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I fish out my cell phone and quickly snap a few quick shots. I also check the time, realizing I need to remember to contact Victoria today. Still no Wi-Fi, however, so that’ll have to wait.
I carefully replace the painting just as the dryer buzzes. First load of freshly fluffed and lavender-scented bedding out, next load in. I carry the still-warm pile of sheets to the main bedroom, where I toss them in the middle of the mattress, then quickly scour the rest of the space. I discover three photos on top of the dresser. One is of MacManus framed by palm trees and holding a giant pair of novelty scissors. Ribbon-cutting ceremony for something, maybe the start of construction on the base camp. Next, a tuxedo-clad version of him with a beautiful young Hawaiian woman in a hot-pink cocktail dress. I’d recognize those rich brown eyes and sculpted cheekbones anywhere. Lea definitely looks like her older sister, sans the air of growling menace.
MacManus is beaming in this photo, his arm around the girl’s waist. Lea appears more subdued. She isn’t looking directly at the camera, but off to the side. There’s nothing untoward in their stance. If anything, it’s a pretty standard welcome-to-the-party snapshot. MacManus could very well be some rich dad escorting his self-conscious teen to a formal function.
I don’t like it, however. Has anyone ever questioned how Lea became MacManus’s responsibility? Who has wards anymore, anyway? Sounds very Downton Abbey for a tech mogul.
The third framed photo is smaller, a gritty black-and-white. Two teenage boys next to a boxy desktop computer, definitely not from this decade or maybe even century. One boy is hunched over the giant keyboard. The other stands behind the monitor, arm resting on its frame as he laughs at something the typing kid is saying/doing. It takes me a moment; then I think I have it. The standing figure is a young version of MacManus, which makes the second male most likely his high school buddy and former business partner, Shawn Eastman. Based on the quality, the picture looks like something that might have appeared in a yearbook.
A reminder of better times? Before their joint venture launched them into the stratosphere of the tech elite? And his partner, Shawn, died under questionable circumstances?
Interesting.
A search of the bathroom turns up basic toiletries and nothing more. The shampoo and conditioner in the shower promise to be environmentally friendly and smell like coconuts. It seems feminine to me, another argument Lea spends more time in this room than the tiny single, but maybe in a place such as this, coconut is a given.
The dryer buzzes again. I realize belatedly that Trudy should be returning at any time and quickly make up beds, wipe down countertops, and dust all flat surfaces. I’m just preparing some eco-friendly solution to mop the hardwood floors when I’m struck by a new thought.
Quick, before Trudy comes roaring through the rain, I know one last place I should explore.
CHAPTER 16
I TAKE PRIDE IN MY SEARCH skills. Especially because, as a cold case expert, I arrive late to the party. Whether it’s law enforcement engaging in at least a rudimentary investigation or a worried family member desperate for answers, others have generally scoured the premises first. Not to mention, with the passage of time, more and more traces of the individual have vanished. Or, in some very sad instances, there was never much to begin with, merely a whiff of a memory of someone who once was and now is no more.
Generally, I can still discover at least something and almost always more than the police. Cops have a tendency to think like criminals. Where would they hide evidence of a crime? Some of the better detectives will at least play at being the victim. Where would I stash my personal diary or compromising photo?
Me, I try to think like the person. I’m a five-year-old boy with an entire dilapidated farm as my playground. I’m a fifteen-year-old girl, trying to carve out some sense of identity and privacy while sleeping on the sofa in an overcrowded apartment. I’m an exhausted single mom, struggling to preserve a drop of sanity between working three part-time jobs and raising a two-year-old.
I learn about the person first, then do my best to view the world through their eyes.
Which is why this space is throwing me. For one thing, I don’t know Lea. I’ve heard about her five-year-old self from her older sister and possibly read a single note from her teenage version. Neither is particularly illuminating.
Nor does this lodge feel like a home. For personal effects, I basically have one painting, three photographs, and coconut-smelling shampoo. This might as well be a hotel occupied by tourists.
Which is how I need to approach it: not with my usual customized Frankie flair, but with a cop’s instincts. If Lea is being held as MacManus’s personal plaything, she’s a victim. This isn’t her home, then, just a particularly well-decorated prison.
Considering she got out one note to her sister, chances are she’s made other, more subtle attempts at communication. She wouldn’t trust MacManus’s full-time staff, assuming they’d be loyal to him. But this island, populated mostly by contract employees who’ve never worked for MacManus before and don’t necessarily plan on working for him again…
This would be a place to drop breadcrumbs.
I’m jittery now. Clock is ticking. I might be able to pull off an awkward excuse if I’m caught snooping by Trudy, but what if Vaughn appears, or Charlie, or even Aolani? They’d be much more suspicious.
I skedaddle for the tiny bedroom—the one that ostensibly belongs to Lea. Even if she does spend most of her time in the main bedroom, that’s MacManus’s domain; she wouldn’t risk leaving anything behind there.
The single bed is wedged kitty-corner to the window-dotted outside wall, a single nightstand to its left. Not much to work with for a desperate girl looking to stash secret communiqués, but enough to take me more than a few minutes to properly search.
I start with the freshly made mattress, running my hand beneath it. Then I pull the bed away from the wall and inspect behind it, from the headboard down along the far mattress edge to the base. I marvel again at my new and improved phone, which includes a built-in flashlight, perfect for scouring the shadows. I don’t find anything notched, taped, or scrawled behind the bed. Next up, the pillows. One decorative, one meant for actual sleeping. I start at the bottom of each and run both of my hands up the sides, squishing as I go. I feel for any inserted object, like a note, personal token—hell—drugs, weapons, cash. Never make assumptions in my line of work.
There’s something in the sham pillow, thin, flexible. Maybe paper? I excitedly rip off the quilted cover and unzip the case. Feathers poof out in an annoying cloud. I have to huff and puff to clear them from my face. I thrust my hand inside, churning around with my fingers, more feathers flying as I reach all the way to the bottom. The side of my hand brushes against something thin and rough. Definitely not a feather. Now if only I can get a grip on it. It slides out from between my fingertips a first time. Then a second. I jam my arm in deeper, eyeing the bedroom door, knowing I’m pushing my luck.
Through the window, I can still see pewter-colored rain sluicing off the roof outside, but that only makes it more likely they’ll send someone to pick me up. And it’s a little hard to come up with a cleaning technique that requires me gutting a feather pillow. Especially as dozens of the tiny white feathers are now scattered across the bed as well as stuck to my hair.
I finally get a grip on the pliable scrap. Tug at it. It doesn’t budge. Pull harder. Watch the entire pillow cover bow inward and realize it’s only some kind of internal tag.
Great. I’ve made a mess for absolutely nothing.
A fresh glance out the window. I register nothing but doom and gloom everywhere.
I quickly do my best to catch wayward feathers and return them to their pillow prison. I’m breathing hard by the time I’m done, and there are still random feathers clinging to the bedding, the wall, and me.
