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She breathed in the smells of fresh timber and ran her hand over the smooth, burnished edges of the buffet. “This looks like a nineteenth-century antique instead of something you created out of your head last spring, doesn’t it?”
“That was the goal. You think Gilly will like it?”
“Are you kidding? She’ll love it. I wish I could be there to see the look on her face when you deliver it.”
“There’s always room in the delivery truck. Although in this case, timing is everything. Simon wants it delivered while Gilly’s at the hospital and the kids are at daycare. He wants to be there waiting when they get their first look at it next Friday.”
“Birthday surprises are the best,” Brogan purred. “Simon may show off his tough exterior to the tourists, but something tells me he’s pure marshmallow, a true romantic, on the inside. Who else would stage such an elaborate surprise? Drea tells me Simon ordered three dozen balloons. I swear that woman knows everything about everybody before it happens.”
“The town florist holds a wealth of information about everybody—much more than births, deaths, and anniversaries—Drea probably knows who’s cheating on whom and who sends flowers because of it.”
“Good point. But I came out here to tell you that your mother’s at it again. She said she left you eight text messages this morning. None of which you returned. That’s why she called me. Shows how desperate she was. I’m not sure your mother likes me very much. Anyway, Kate has a case for us. I’m afraid she won’t take no for an answer.”
He put down the drill to scoop up his phone from the worktable and scrolled through the texts. “She left more like ten. She’s not exactly in the habit of taking no for an answer, is she? Nobody tells Kate Ashcroft what to do. Nobody. What’s the case?”
“All I know is that it has something to do with a charity event she attended in Los Angeles over the weekend. I tried to keep up, but you know Kate.”
“She does like to ramble on about the details of the parties she attends.”
“Exactly. Once we got past the name-dropping and who’s who list, your mom finally got to the interesting part. The short version is that she bumped into an old acquaintance there who heard that her son was now a sometimes private detective.”
“Didn’t mention you, huh?”
Brogan shrugged off the diss. “That’s fine by me. I don’t think I’m refined enough for Kate Ashcroft to mention in passing at one of her charity balls. Even when I was in college, your mother used to look at me like I’d leave the bathtub with a dirty ring in it.”
Lucien let out a laugh. “You know not to take it personally. I doubt she thinks I’m refined enough for her to mention anywhere, anytime. Most days, she conveniently forgets I exist. Who is this acquaintance she mentioned?”
“You’re not going to like it. A record producer named Chad Pollock.” Brogan eyed Lucien for a reaction. “Yeah. That Chad Pollock.”
“Small world. I don’t suppose Pollock remembers how as a young upstart, he advocated dropping Indigo when their fifteenth album didn’t make it to platinum back in the ’90s?”
“My guess is he’s not the type to dwell on his mistakes. Besides, that’s ancient history to a man like Pollock. He’s not even with that company anymore. Chad heads up his own record label. But you can bring up all that dirt yourself when you see him. Chad’s personal driver is bringing him up here tonight. He’ll be here at six sharp.”
“Wait a sec. Did you already commit us to this case? What are we talking about?”
“As I said before, I didn’t commit to anything. But your mother did. I didn’t get the chance to object. On the other hand, your mother went all in as soon as Pollock dished out enough compliments. He wants you to look into a double murder, a very personal double murder. It seems his sister was one of the victims. Not only that, but there are also a couple of missing kids involved.”
Lucien stuck his phone in his back pocket and picked up his drill again to finish installing the doors but frowned. “I didn’t hear anything about kids going missing recently.”
“That’s because the double homicide and the suspected kidnapping occurred twenty years ago. I looked it up after I got Kate off the phone. I hate to say it, but it’s a fascinating case. A family by the name of Dolworth—Anna and Mack Dolworth—rented a summer house along the coast, not far from here, north of Santa Cruz. Here’s a little perspective. That would’ve been the summerbefore9/11. Anyway, Anna and Mack booked this vacation house for the entire month of June with an option to stay over until the Fourth of July. About seven days into their escape from the Valley, the caretaker discovered Chad’s sister and brother-in-law inside the house. Dead. They’d been murdered, each shot twice in the head. There was no sign of their three-year-old son, Elliott. Whoever killed the parents obviously took the boy. Not even the police know what happened to the toddler.”
“Jeez. How sad is that? If the kid’s alive, he’d be twenty-four years old now. I thought you said a couple of kids went missing?”
“Here’s where it gets weird. The second kid was a fourteen-year-old paperboy who disappeared around the same time as little Elliott. His name’s Trey Rescher. According to his parents, Trey left the house on the morning of June 7th on his bike, like he did every day since he was ten, to deliver the Santa Cruz Journal. His usual morning route would’ve taken him right past the rented Dolworth house at around five-thirty a.m. Remember, this is pre-9/11 when papers were actually thrown against a front door or shoved into one of those mailbox thingies found at the end of a long driveway. The Dolworth’s summer house had a metal receptacle to hold the newspaper. Did Trey Rescher stop to slide in a paper that morning? Was he at the wrong place at the wrong time? No one seems to know. But after a short investigation, the cops determined that the fourteen-year-old might’ve been the shooter and took off with Elliott.”
A look of disbelief crossed Lucien’s face. “Gimme a break. That crap’s out there on the Internet?”
“Not kidding. And yeah, that’s the prevailing theory of law enforcement. Online websleuths have another take entirely. They think Trey was abducted along with Elliott or disposed of by the real killer.”
“What does the Rescher family have to say about all this?”
“They believe in their son. I read a post that says the Rescher family didn’t even own a firearm. They think their boy was in the wrong place and saw something, maybe the killer. They believe that got him killed or taken along with Elliott.”
“What a nightmare. Are you sure we should get in the middle of this?”
Brogan tilted her head. “Maybe keep an open mind until Chad Pollock arrives. He told Kate that he would share all the information he had on hand. Somehow the police files came into his possession. Don’t ask me how. I say we do as much online research as possible and get up to speed before the guy gets here.”
“I know that look,” Lucien asserted.
