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The view out the window was to a driveway. Ocean views were reserved for the rooms of guests, not staff.
Kelly took a deep breath and moved into the bathroom, the most likely place to find meds. She had plenty of time for a thorough search. Maria was with Trey on the Drop Shot, and he would call her cell to warn her when they were done there.
Would the prescription bottles be hidden? Trey claimed to have never visited Maria’s quarters, but there were other staff members and all kinds of security personnel roaming the villa, including Hans, so the housekeeper might be cautious. Secretive about a nasty habit.
Kelly opened the medicine cabinet and her gaze immediately zeroed in on a package of birth control pills halfway through a cycle. The prescription, dated two weeks ago, was for Maria Navarre. Interesting. So Maria was sexually active. According to Trey, she got one day a week off and usually took a late ferry to Miami after dinner the night before, returning the following evening about the same time. She hadn’t taken a day off since the abduction, but under normal conditions did she meet a lover once a week?
No other meds, either marked or unmarked, were in the cabinet. Plenty of skin creams, though, hairbrush, comb, mouthwash, toothpaste and brush. Kelly shut the door and squatted to look underneath the vanity where she found clean towels and a large plastic container of multivitamins, the type you get at a warehouse club. She opened the cap and sniffed. Definitely that familiar vitamin smell, but she pocketed a tablet for possible testing.
Finding nothing else of interest or suspicious in the bathroom, Kelly moved back into the bedroom. A search of the closet, including the pockets of clothing, revealed nothing. The drawer in the nightstand contained magazines and books printed in Spanish.
She began a search of the six-drawer dresser. In the bottom drawer on the right, beneath a neatly folded stack of T-shirts, she discovered a plastic shopping bag from a well-known department store stuffed with orange prescription bottles. She removed one of the containers to read the label, and the pills rattled inside.
Oxycodone. One hell of a lot of oxycodone. Trey paid Maria a good wage, but perhaps not enough to keep up with her habit. Sorry that her suspicions had proved correct, Kelly shook her head and set an empty container aside.
So much for her perfect peaceful day.
Continuing to search beneath the clothing, she found a frame face down and flipped it over.
The face of Jason’s kidnapper sneered back at her. Adam looked younger, less gaunt, but no question she was staring at the man who had blown up her car.
* * *
TREY STARED AT the photograph Kelly placed on his desk. She’d discovered this frame hidden in Maria’s room and insisted this was one of the men who had kidnapped Jason.
“You’re certain?” he asked. But he knew. Kelly was too smart, too competent to make a mistake on something as important as this.
“Yes.”
He picked up a plastic bag she’d also found. “That’s a lot of pills.”
“The bottles are empty.”
Trey met Kelly’s gaze. “You were right.”
“Where is she?”
“In her room. I told Hans to keep an eye on her.”
“That’s one good thing about this island,” Kelly said. “She can’t run, at least not very fast.”
“How could she do this?” Trey demanded. A terrible rage ignited in his gut, pulling him out of the shock Kelly’s words and their meaning had created. A woman he had trusted to run his home and care for his son, a woman he’d treated like family, had betrayed him. Maria had caused Jason’s regression. Would his son ever be right again? He picked up the photograph again and stared at it.
“This man could have killed Jason.”
“She’s sick, Trey. Addiction is a disease.”
“I don’t care. I want her out of my home.”
She nodded. “Agent Ballard will be here in about two minutes. He’s flying in on a Bureau chopper.”
“You called the FBI?”
“I had no choice. I actually got worried he’d arrive before you two returned from the boat. I didn’t want him to show up without you knowing what was going down.”
“Will he arrest her?”
“He’ll read Maria her rights and question her first, but, yes. I have no doubt she’ll be cuffed and arrested. She’s just as guilty as the two men.”
