“He escaped?” she asked, her voice a high shriek. This was much more fun than I’d expected it would be. And her surprise was genuine. She had no idea where Reyes had absconded with his body. I was torn between relishing that fact and despising it. We were no closer to finding him than we were before. I’d turned back to look at his writings again as Elaine sought a chair, her legs apparently weak.
The drawing, the one that looked like art but still said my name, was actually a sketch of a building. I stepped closer and breathed in softly.
“Oh, that’s an old building,” Elaine said from behind me. “We don’t know where it is, but we think it’s somewhere in Europe.”
I turned back to Cookie, gestured her my direction with the hint of a nod. Her brows slid together and she inched closer, casting cautious glances over her shoulder. When she stood beside me, she studied the drawing and gasped softly as well.
“I’ll bet you’re right,” I said. “It looks European.” Except it was in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and both Cook and I lived in it.
My gaze traveled back to the postcards. “Can I see where those postcards are from?” I asked.
Elaine was busy fanning herself. She forced her body out of the chair and went around to the other side of the display case to open it. “Do you think he’ll come after me?” she asked as she handed them over.
“Why would he do that?” I asked, only slightly interested. Both postcards were from Mexico. They had Reyes’s prison address, but no return address and no message whatsoever. Which was way more interesting than Elaine’s sudden need to jump into panic mode.
“H-he knows who I am,” she said. “He knows I’ve paid money to get information on him. What if he comes after me?”
“Can I keep these?”
“No!” She snatched them back.
Okay. Possessive much? “Look, here’s my card,” I said, handing it to her. “If he comes after you, call me. I really need to take him in.” Cookie and I turned to leave.
“Wait, no, that’s not what I meant.” She followed us, her heels clicking along the Spanish tile. “What if he comes here to kill me?”
I stopped and eyed her suspiciously. “Is there a reason he would want you dead, Ms. Oake?”
“What? No.” She was lying again. I wondered what she’d done, besides paid people to spy on him for years.
“Then I really don’t see a problem.” I turned again to leave.
She rushed around us and blocked our paths. “It’s just, I … everyone…”
“Really, Ms. Oake, I have a case to solve.”
“Here,” she said, handing over the postcards. “I’ll give you these. I have them scanned into my computer anyway. I just need you to call me the minute he’s found.”
I glanced at Cookie, my face the epitome of reluctance. “I don’t know. That would be kind of like your breach of confidentiality.”
“Not if my life is in danger,” she squeaked. “I’ll hire you.”
My earlier conclusions were wrong. This was totally interesting. “First, I already have a client. I could hardly take on another concerning this case. That would be a conflict of interest. And second, why would your life be in danger? Are you afraid of Reyes Farrow?”
“No,” she said with a nervous grin. “It’s just that, well, we’re married.”
Cookie dropped her purse and tried to catch it midair. In the process, she knocked over a vase. When she lunged for the vase, she slipped on the tile and overturned an entire table. A lovely handblown piece of glass flew in my direction, and all I could think as I caught it was, Really? Again? We were going to have to practice muscle control.
“Married?” I asked after the table crashed to the ground. Cookie righted it and replaced the glass orb, a sheepish expression on her face. “You’re going to have to be completely honest with me, Ms. Oake. I happen to know Reyes is not married.”
Elaine eyed Cookie a long moment before answering. “It was a silly argument,” she said, refocusing on me, “and, well, I sort of let people believe that we were married. One of the other site owners said she and Reyes were writing each other, which was a lie and I knew it, then another said they were dating—dating!—so, I upped the ante, so to speak. They think we’ve been married for six months.”
After a melodramatic rolling of my eyes, I refocused on her. “Why would they even believe you?”
“Because, I … well, I sort of forged a wedding license. It’s all on the Web site. Well, not the fact that I forged it.”
Now that I had a bargaining tool—namely, her desire to live—I turned back to the display cases. “Just what are you offering in exchange for my services?”
* * *
“John Hostettler,” I said into the phone as Cookie and I drove into Santa Fe to grab a bite to eat.
Neil Gossett was on the other end. “He’s one of my guards.”
“And he’s one of Elaine Oake’s informants.”
“No shit?”
“No shit.” He would, of course, need some kind of proof, but that wasn’t my problem. “And I forgot to bring up something else odd.”
“Besides you?”
“You’re funny. I ran into Owen Vaughn the other day. He’s a city cop now. What the hell did I do to him?”
He sighed. “You mean when he tried to maim you with his dad’s SUV?”