Bed of Bones (A Sloane Monroe Novel, Book Five) (8 page)

I nodded.

“I wasn’t going to his place that night to be with him,” she said. “I was going there to kill him. Turned out he was a lot stronger than I gave him credit for, so I ran. But I didn’t forget. And even after all this time, his father is still paying people to prove his son’s death wasn’t a suicide. He thinks somehow, someday, he’ll find proof of his son’s murder.” She leaned forward, curling her bottom lip into a provocative grin. “Do you want to know something? He never will.”

In my life, I chased after the truth with such delirious passion, thinking once I found it my mind would finally be at ease. That I could rest easy, satisfied with the knowledge placed before me. In reality, at times that very truth sliced through me like the edge of an executioner’s sword, hacking into my soul until, at last, it was extracted from my body and separated from me.

And to think, two years earlier I actually thought the Mafia no longer existed.

CHAPTER 15

Brynn Rowland had a gap between her two front teeth wide enough to slip a penny through the slot and eyes that reminded me of a mood ring. Depending on where I stood, the color was always changing. I guesstimated her age to be somewhere in the almost-thirty range. But one of the things I was known for was my grossly inaccurate perception of age. Her left arm was in a cast. The rest of her body, the parts I could see, appeared like they’d been spared from serious injury.

Even hunched over in the hospital bed, I could tell she was taller than the average woman. Stronger too. So when she squeaked a barely audible “hello,” when I entered the room, it caught me off guard.

“How long have you been Melody Sinclair’s assistant?” I asked.

She rested her uninjured arm on the blanket in front of her. “Three years.”

“What’s she like?”

She started to answer, then looked at the television overhead. The screen flaunted a bikini-clad picture of Melody along with the caption:

BOMBING SUSPECT STILL MISSING. INVESTIGATORS PROCESSING EVIDENCE FROM SUSPECT’S CAR FOR CLUES.

In the photo, Melody grasped the railing of a boat with both hands, a cruise ship from the looks of it. She stared straight at the camera, her eyes gleaming, full of life. A soft smile stretched across her face. She certainly didn’t look like a killer.

Brynn stared at the TV for a few seconds then shifted her gaze to an artificial plant in the corner. A single tear trickled out of the corner of her left eye, sliding down her cheek. She wiped it away. I grabbed the remote, switched the television off.

“Melody is a nice, caring person,” she began. “She didn’t
do
anything. Not what they’re suggesting. She’d never hurt anyone. She couldn’t.”

“I’m not saying she did.”

Brynn blinked away a few more tears. “Then why are you here?”

“Melody has some very powerful friends. One in particular wants to know what happened to her that night and why. I’m here on his behalf. I’m not with the police.”

“So…you’re trying to find her before they do?”

Nicely put.

For all the “innocent until proven guilty” talk touted by the law, putting Melody on blast across every major media channel in the nation didn’t make her the victim, it made her the villain. The public had already decided: guilty. Convincing them otherwise wouldn’t be easy.

Brynn reclined back onto the pillow behind her. She fisted a hand, rubbed her eyelid. “I want to help you, but I don’t know what happened.”

I tried a simpler approach.

“My grandfather once said most of the time the people closest to us hold the key that unravels the mystery. You might have valuable information and not even know it.”

“Such as?”

“Let’s talk about the night of the movie premiere. When was the last time you saw her?”

“Right after she introduced the film on stage, before the movie started.”

“What time did her speech end?” I asked.

“Maybe 11:15 or so. I met her in the hall at the front entrance of the theater.”

“What did she say?”

“She’d misplaced her glasses and wanted to see if she’d left them in the car. I offered to go so she wouldn’t miss anything. She said no, told me to go inside. I figured she’d run right out and return within a minute or two, so I did what she asked.”

“How long after she walked outside did the explosion happen?” I asked.

“Five or six minutes maybe? I heard the movie come on, but I wasn’t watching it. I was looking at the theater door, waiting for her to come in. I kept wondering what was keeping her and figured she hadn’t found the glasses yet.”

Her eyes brimmed with tears, her words jagged, struggling to surface. She swept her uninjured hand beneath her nose, wiping the fluid away.

“Can I get you anything?” I asked.

“No. Thanks.”

I reached for a box of tissues on a shelf, plucked a few out, handed them to her. “Take your time.”

“It’s just…I should have been there, you know?” she stammered. “I should have gone to get those glasses for her, but she insisted.”

“It isn’t your fault.”

She nodded like she’d already been told that a dozen times today. I expect she had.

When her emotions settled, I continued. “You were staring at the door to the theater, waiting for her to come in. Then what happened?”

“I heard a loud “pop,” and felt a sharp pain. Blood was all over my shirt. I wasn’t sure if it was mine or someone else’s. I looked down, and that’s when I saw it.” She hoisted the blanket, revealing a bandage taped across her abdomen. “A piece of metal sliced through my shirt, pinning it to my skin. It was sticking right out of me. I tried to pull it out. It was too deep. I kept staring at the blood—there was so much blood—and, I must have passed out. When I woke up, I was here.”

I winced. She was lucky to be alive.

“Do you remember seeing anyone who looked out of place, anyone who may have seemed suspicious, or shouldn’t have been hanging around the theater?”

“I was so busy preparing for the movie to start, it’s all a blur. People were coming and going around me all day, but I couldn’t tell you what any of them looked like. It’s like I saw them but I didn’t really
see
them, you know?”

I shifted gears.

“Did Melody have any enemies? Any trouble in her personal life?”

Most of the time when I asked this question, I received a resounding “no,” so it was a revelation when she blurted, “She had a stalker.”

Bingo.

“When was this?” I asked.

“After we started filming.”

“Did she know him? Was he in her life in some way—an ex-boyfriend, maybe?”

“He was a stagehand. Most people didn’t pay him any attention because he was quiet, a loner. He never talked much to anyone, and when he did talk, he didn’t like looking people in the eye. He bugged me though, even from the beginning.”

“Why?”

“His eyes. You couldn’t ever see them. His bangs hung past his nose. He wore silver bracelets, long chains over his shirts, and his fingernails were polished a matte grey color. He wasn’t thin though. He looked like Severus Snape on steroids.”

“How did the stalking begin?” I asked.

“He left flowers in her trailer. There was never a card, so we didn’t know it was him at first. Then I caught him following her. We’d be at a restaurant, look out the window, and there he was. We started seeing him all the time. I’d show up at her house and find him parked across the street, staring through her front window like some kind of deranged psychopath.”

“What did Melody do?”

“At first she was polite. She thought he had formed some kind of innocent crush. She decided it was best to let him down easy, so she told him she wasn’t interested.”

“How did he react?” I asked.

“When we arrived on set the next day, he’d taken a two-by-four to some of the props, destroying them. He was fired. When he showed up at her house again a week later, she called the cops, filed a restraining order.”

“Did it help?” I asked.

“We didn’t
see
him again, but he let us know he was still around.”

“How?”

“He left typed notes on her car, in her trailer. Well, not notes, really. More of biblical threats, I guess.”

“What do you mean—scriptures?”

She nodded. “From the book of Proverbs.”

“Do you remember the exact chapter and verse?” I asked.

She nodded, again. “Proverbs 19:9: A false witness shall not be unpunished, and
he that
speaketh lies shall perish.”

“Lies? Did either of you have any idea what he meant?”

“I don’t know. She never talked to him. We just figured he was mentally unstable.”

If Melody was being looked at as a suspect, every bit of her life was being dissected. They’d know about her stalker.

“Do you know this kid’s name?”

“Shane Drexler.”

“Is it possible to get a list of the names of everyone who worked on the movie—cast, crew, anyone who came into contact with Melody over the last year?”

“You want to talk to Ronnie Chapman. He’s Terry’s assistant.”

“And Terry is…?”

“The assistant director. You can’t talk to him, though.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“He’s in critical.”

“What row was he in?”

“The first one.”

“And you?”

“Second. Melody would have been in the second too.”

Right next to Giovanni and Lucio.

I handed Brynn my card.

I was almost to the door when I was sure my name was called. I turned. “Did you say something?”

She looked scared, like she was afraid she’d done something wrong.

“There’s…umm…one more thing. But if I tell you, are you gonna tell the cops?”

I shrugged. “Depends on whether it’s important or not. I can’t make any promises.”

She mulled it over.

“You know I can’t leave here now without you telling me what it is, right?” I said.

“I never planned on keeping quiet, but I didn’t expect people to come in here, talking about Melody like they know her. They don’t. I was just trying to protect her. I don’t want any trouble.”

“I understand,” I said.

“I have her bag.”

“Her purse?”

“Yeah. Maybe something in it will help you find her.”

I skimmed the room, expecting it to be in plain sight. It wasn’t.

“Where is it?” I asked.

“Not here.”

“How did you get it?”

“The day of the premiere, she was preoccupied. She kept leaving her bag everywhere. Finally, I convinced her to hand it over, and I chucked it inside my car. When I went to the hotel to change clothes, I left the car running. I was just going upstairs for a quick change and didn’t want to leave her bag on the seat. I took it to my room, but I was in such a hurry, I left it there on accident.”

“Where is it now?”

“Ronnie has it.”

“Why?”

“We share a room together.” She gave me a curious look. “Yes, we’re in a relationship if you’re wondering.”

“Where can I find him?”

She bit her lip. “It’s just…Ronnie—”

“Brynn, I appreciate you being honest with me. I need you to trust me. I’ll give it to someone who will get it into the right hands and not the wrong ones. Okay?”

I exited, my pace slowing as I noticed the bald men who had so vigilantly kept watch outside Giovanni’s room were gone. I peered inside. The room was empty.

“Can I help you, Miss?”

I spun around, facing the young, blond nurse behind me. “The man in this room. Did you move him?”

She blushed. Giovanni had that effect on women.

“He left,” she said matter-of-factly. “Mr. Luciana checked himself out yesterday. Had an older man with him claiming to be his family doctor.”

“The man—did you see him? Do you know what he looked like?”

“Well…I remember thinking he seemed a bit old to still be a doctor. But who am I to say?”

“What age would you say the older man was?”

“If I was guessing, maybe eighty or so.”

“Anything else?”

“He walked with a cane. Black, if I remember right. It had a silver handle.”

“Did they say where they were going?”

“Not to me. My superior said he’d be looked after at his own home.”

She pivoted and walked away.

I sagged against the wall, catching my breath. I’d been with Daniela only two hours before. Giovanni wasn’t there and I hadn’t heard from him. I wondered…had Carlo or Daniela? Was I the only one left in the dark?

CHAPTER 16

Ronnie unbolted the door to his fancy hotel room, cracked it open, and poked his head into the hallway, looking both ways before waving me in. Although it was evening, the sun had finally dodged the clouds long enough to brighten up the remainder of the day. Ronnie’s curtains, however, were drawn.

In a pair of khaki slacks and a tucked-in, blue-and-white striped Polo shirt, Ronnie easily had ten or more years on Brynn. His heavily hair-sprayed, brown hair looked like someone had placed a bowl on his head and cut all the way around the edges. Every strand was perfectly placed, making me wonder if it was actually a cheap rug he’d purchased from the five-and-dime. I resisted the urge to tug on it and find out.

“Is…everything okay?” I asked.

He leaned against the counter, tried to appear debonair.

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Are you nervous?”

He shoved his hands in his pockets. “I’m fine.”

“You’re shaking.”

“No, I’m not.”

I suppose watching his arms spasm right in front of me was an optical illusion. The heater kicked off with a bang. A startled Ronnie shot into the air.

I dismissed it, sat at the table, crossed one leg over the other. “You seem a little on edge. Want to tell me what’s going on?”

His nostrils expanded. “Nothing.”

“What row were you sitting in when the film started?”

“You’re here for a purse. Why do you want to know?”

“What row?” I repeated.

“The first. Right next to Terry.”

Interesting.

“I don’t see any injuries,” I said. “The people sitting in the first couple rows suffered the worst, and yet you don’t have a scratch on you. Why?”