CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

A thought comes to me as I ruminate on what I’ve found. My immediate reaction to the thought is to dismiss it out of hand, but it refuses to depart.

The thought is that I might find more information at Lisa’s apartment. When Sean and I investigate, we look for blood or footprints or scraps of clothing that might lead us to our pursuers. I open the desk and look for paperwork in there, but I don’t thoroughly examine the apartment. There may be answers hidden there that I haven’t found yet.

The reason to dismiss this thought is obvious. Sean and I are already suspected of being involved in these crimes. If I’m caught snooping at that apartment again, it will be the final nail in our coffins.

I’m not sure what I expect to find either. I don’t know if I suspect Lisa of some nefarious plan to kill Victor and run away with… with what? What would she gain from that other than the certainty that she will never have his money again?

Or do I suspect the two of them are working together? I guess that’s possible, but I can’t believe that Victor would be so callous as to leave his daughter behind.

Then again, Celeste told me that he had been neglectful of her. She didn’t use the word, but her meaning was clear. Perhaps it’s time I stop looking at Victor through rose-colored glasses.

I sigh and lean back in the chair. The fact is that I still don’t know enough to be sure of what’s happened. That’s why I want to go to Lisa’s apartment. It’s the only place I haven’t scoured from top to bottom.

And that’s why, even though it’s an enormous risk, I stand and head to my room for my car keys. Reason screams at me to stop, but I have long since accepted that I’m not capable of sitting around and twiddling my thumbs when I have the ability to do something to help innocent people. I don’t know if Victor and Lisa are innocent anymore, but I am certain that Celeste is. For her sake, I must find the answer to this mystery.

I check for police cars when I leave the house. I don’t see any. I get in the car and drive toward the apartment. I remember the way from when Sean drives the other day.

My heart pounds as I navigate the nearly empty roadways. I don’t see any police officers, but it’s possible that they’re hidden from view. It’s also possible that there is a car assigned to watch Lisa’s apartment, to say nothing of what will happen if the neighbors catch me breaking in.

But I have to try. I have to do something.

I park the car across the street from the building and look around. Once more, I don’t see any police officers. Once more, I remind myself that just because I don’t see them doesn’t mean they aren’t there.

I check my phone. Four o’clock. The sun will rise at six, and more importantly, Evelyn will arrive at Victor’s house by then. I must leave the apartment no later than five-thirty to ensure I’m home before she arrives. That gives me very little time to find anything. I’ll have to hurry.

I leave the car and walk into the building. No one pokes their head out to wonder why a stranger has turned up in the wee hours of the morning. I'll have to hope that, like most Americans, the residents here care little about the comings and goings of their neighbors.

I reach Lisa’s apartment. There is no police tape on the door, probably because leaving it there would alert potential thieves that the owner isn’t home. I test the handle and find it locked.

This is when things become really dangerous. I need to pick the lock. If I’m discovered before I finish, I will be in serious trouble.

I look around. There’s no one in sight, but all of the doors face the same hallway. It would be as simple as stepping outside for someone to discover me.

“Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” I whisper.

I quickly retrieve a bobby pin and a small jeweler’s screwdriver from my purse. I buy the screwdriver after working for the Carlton family and breaking into a doctor’s office to look for evidence of a missing young woman who I later find out was murdered by that same doctor.

I kneel in front of the door and get to work. Fortunately for me, the lock is simple and cheaply made. It’s the work of only a couple of minutes to pick the lock and enter the apartment. I close and lock the door behind me, then debate whether I should turn the lights on or use my cell phone’s flashlight. In the end, I decide to use the flashlight. I’ll just have to be careful to keep the beam from shining on the windows.

Since I have limited time, I start in the bedroom. The room looks as it does when Sean and I first investigate. If the police looked through here, they were careful not to disturb the scene.

I check the desk again just in case I missed something. It’s still empty. I move on to the drawers, digging through the clothing Lisa left behind. I feel odd digging through these very personal belongings to look for evidence, but I must uncover the answers to this mystery, and I’m running out of time. Celeste is running out of time.

Celeste! I’ve completely forgotten that she might come home and find the house empty! What will she do if she returns to find herself alone?

That thought stills me for a minute, but I shake it off. I’m already here. I’ll be back soon enough, and I really do need to see if there’s anything helpful here. Still, I am left with a great deal of anxiety as I continue to search Lisa’s apartment. I can only hope that my time will yield something worthwhile.

When I finish in the bedroom, I head to the kitchen next. For some reason, people tend to keep important paperwork in a kitchen drawer when they don’t keep it filed somewhere in their bedroom. I hope Lisa is one of those people.

I find the famous paperwork drawer, and my heart leaps when I see papers left there. The first few papers are receipts for household goods: a hair dryer, a laptop, groceries from the previous summer. How strange the bits of detritus that collect in people’s lives.

I dig deeper and find a sheaf of bills and advertisements. Many of the bills have bright red PAST DUE notices stamped to them. I can well understand the stress Lisa must experience.

The final item is a brochure for real estate in Costa Rica. Or perhaps a resort vacation? It’s written in Spanish, and I don’t read the language, so I can’t tell. Something in the back of my mind makes me feel that this is important, though, so I pull it out of the drawer for a closer look.

When I turn it over, I see handwritten notes on the back. One reads Stop by dealer first. Meet in a public place. The others are six-digit numbers that don’t make sense to me. Each number ends with the same two digits, though. I read them again, and I gasp when I realize that the two final digits represent the year. This year. From there, it’s easy to see that the other numbers are the day and month. There are four dates in total, and they all occur between a month ago and tomorrow.

Lisa was planning something. But what? Who is the dealer? Marcus? And why does she want to meet him in a public place?

Could she have feared for her safety? Maybe Marcus is more dangerous than he seems. He could employ people who might have harmed Lisa and Victor. Maybe Lisa was trying to find a way to pay him off before he came for both of them. Maybe Marcus decided it would be more lucrative to just get both of them out of the way.

And what? What else could he be planning? Or am I completely mistaken?

I hear a noise and freeze. It’s people talking. Have I been found out?

I quickly put the paperwork back in the drawer and look for a place to hide. The voices are growing louder. One male and one female. I overhear the male ask, “Do you have the key?” and the female reply, “Of course I have the key, dipshit.”

I recognize the voices. The man is Marcus, and the woman is Lisa. I rush from the kitchen and into the bathroom, then close and lock the door. I can't think of anywhere else to hide.

A moment later, I hear the front door open. Marcus and Lisa continue to argue.

“We should have just waited for him to turn the paintings over to you,” Marcus says. “His new series wasn’t bad. He’d find buyers for them.”

“His new series was crap, and I didn’t want to wait ten months struggling to find the right medium-sized business who needed some post-modern schlock to decorate their leased offices.”

“And you think Pacific landscapes are going to sell better?”

“I think they’ll sell faster. That’s more important right now.”

“Not if we can’t pay Rizzo.”

I stifle a gasp. So Lisa is trying to pay a loan shark. She must have ransacked her own apartment after all, and she is almost certainly behind Victor’s disappearance.

She confirms that a moment later when she says, “We will pay Rizzo. We’ll meet Jesus in San Diego, unload the paintings, then wire Rizzo some money right before we board the train to Mexico. We’ll keep the rest of the money and use that to buy a plot in Costa Rica where we can live like royalty for the rest of our lives.”

I hear them rifling through the kitchen, possibly looking for the same brochure I was looking at a moment ago.

Marcos laughs. “Royalty? We’ll be lucky to buy a hut and a couple of fishing poles.”

“You want to go there or prison?” she asks drily. “Or maybe Skid Row.”

“I’m just saying. I think we should manage our expectations for once.”

“Good idea. Keep that in mind when you get stupid enough to try to make a pass at me again.”

He scoffed. “A pass? At you? Look, I’m a depressed slob, but I have some self-respect.”

“Go to hell. All right, here’s the brochure.”

“Why do you need that anyway?”

“So I know where to go in Costa Rica. Unless you think we can just guess.”

“Okay, there’s no need to get pissy,” Marcus replies, injured. “I just hate being here. The cops could be looking at us.”

“The cops are looking for me. They think I was kidnapped. They’re not going to look for us in the place I was kidnapped from. They’re not going to look for you at all.”

“Unless they see me here. Then they’ll be very interested in finding me.”

“So maybe shut up. That’s all we need. Now we need to go to Victor’s place and get the paintings. Then it’s off to Mexico, my darling love.”

She says the last part sarcastically, and Marcus replies with equal sarcasm. “Oh, what a joy to run away with such a beautiful and kindhearted woman.”

The front door closes, and I hear their footsteps retreating. My heart pounds as the truth settles in my mind. Lisa staged her own kidnapping and is now planning to steal Victor's life's work to pay her and Marcus's debts. They must be behind Victor's disappearance as well.

And now they’re going to his house to finish the job and then flee the country. I can’t allow them to do that.