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“I always knew you didn’t love him. But then he started that affair with that bitch and all of a sudden you did care. You cared a lot. I could feel it. I knew it was time to show you I loved you.”
“And Channing Renfro?”
“GoodGuy.” Nadia snorted in disbelief. “Karl had everything in our basement. If he’d only just let things be, I wouldn’t have had to . . .” She shook her head dolefully. “Everything would have been a lot simpler. But when he found out I loved you, when he saw the first notes . . .” She trailed off. “I used his Escape. Took one of the Molotov cocktails he’d made for me. Karl was really good at that stuff. And the gasoline can with the hose and nozzle. Threw the cocktail at GoodGuy’s convertible, then aimed the nozzle at the bastard and sprayed him down. Such a fireball. I damn near got caught! But I didn’t . . . because it’s all meant to be. All for you, Elizabeth . . . my love. . . .”
“Stay in the car,” Rex told Ravinia and she immediately started to protest. “You’re not coming in with me, you understand?”
A hesitation, then, “Yes.”
He checked his Glock. The safety was still on, and he intended to keep it that way unless he sensed trouble. Holding it down at his side, he moved to the Vandells’ front door. No one answered his knock. He didn’t wait, but walked around to the rear of the house and the back door. It was locked, but three good kicks and the wood splintered.
He didn’t give a damn that he was breaking and entering. If Elizabeth and Chloe were inside . . . held captive . . .
The Vandells’ house smelled of chemicals. Something sharp wafted through the air. He held the Glock in front of him and quickly recognized the smell was coming from an open door that led to a basement. He peered down into the gloom, then flipped on the light switch, waiting to see if something happened. No sound. Moving fast, he stepped lightly down the creaking wooden steps.
The smell of gas
oline was strong. He traced it to a portable can tucked onto a shelf at the end of the room, a hose and nozzle attached. There didn’t appear to be any gas leak or spill as he’d first feared. He saw two cans with wicks, and when he lifted one, it sloshed, heavy with fluid. Molotov cocktails?
Channing Renfro . . . GoodGuy, Elizabeth had called him.
Rex backed away, aware he’d left his own fingerprints on the can. No way to explain the B and E, but too damn bad. All he cared about was finding Elizabeth and Chloe.
“Rex?”
He whipped around, gun in hand, furious to find Ravinia at the top of the basement steps. “God damn it!”
“They’re at the ocean,” she said, talking fast. “Big house with lots of yard. Some kind of puppet scene in the yard. Short black fence and . . . a long way down.”
“What do you mean? Elizabeth and Chloe? How do you know?”
“Do you know a place like that?” she demanded.
“I . . . no . . .” He felt his heart begin a hard, long beat. Ravinia’s fear was infectious. “Puppet scene?” And then he knew which property. He’d seen it during his iPad search of the Ellises. “Corona del Mar,” he said, scrambling through his brain for the address. “Get the iPad. It’s in the car. Find Elizabeth’s listings.”
Ravinia was gone in a heartbeat as he stumbled for the stairs. He didn’t know where she was getting her information and he damn well didn’t care. ESP, alien transmissions, gifts from a divine source . . . she believed. And so he believed.
And he also believed Nadia Vandell was the danger.
He was halfway up the stairs, his gaze through the open stairway steps to the basement below when he saw the low freezer tucked in the corner. He almost left it, though it seemed to loom in front of his face like a beacon. Something about it.
Running on instinct, he jumped back down to the basement floor and in three steps was around the stairs, his hands on the freezer latch. Throwing the lid upward, he gazed down into the interior. A scattered array of Sara Lee pastry boxes, Texas Toast, and frozen steaks filled the space. He shoved them around. And four fingers suddenly jutted up, one with a wedding ring.
Furiously, he tossed the frozen goods out of the ice box and onto the basement floor, his breath coming fast.
Beneath was a gray face. Brown eyes open. Crystals on the lashes and across the forehead and receding hairline.
Karl Vandell, he guessed, and then he was running up the steps, two at a time.
“And Detective Thronson?” Elizabeth asked. “What about her?”
“I heard you on the porch with her. I heard you tell her all the people you wished dead. She wasn’t going to give up. She thought I was you.”
“She had a picture of me . . . and she showed it to the staff at Tres Brisas. They said it was me.”
“That was a mistake,” Nadia said. “I wasn’t trying to get you in trouble.”
The gun had slipped a little and was aimed toward Chloe’s shoulder. Elizabeth swallowed against a dry throat. “Yeah? Well, you wore your hair like me. Must’ve been a reason.”
