Sleep No More (30 page)

“Oh, my God,” she whispered.

“I told you that sometimes you have to look beyond hard-and-fast reality for answers.” Eve looked away from her and up at the stars. “So you’re not alone in this particular weirdness. Does that make you feel better?”

Beth didn’t speak for a moment. “It makes me feel … not alone. It’s strange and warm and sad.”

“Sad?”

“Maybe I should have said scared. Because it means that we’re together in a special way and that if I don’t do something wrong, you might … want to be with me sometimes.” She lifted her chin. “Providing I want to be with you. I might not, you know.”

“Beth, dammit, stop being so defensive.” Because Beth’s defiant, touching words were breaking her heart.

“I should be defensive,” she said fiercely. “I
want
this. I like it so much, and what if it goes away? What if someone takes it away?”

Eve felt her throat tighten with emotion. What, indeed? Beth had had her entire life before her, and all those years had been stolen, taken away from her. Why wouldn’t she doubt that it could happen again? She reached out and took Beth’s hand. “Why, then we’ll find a way to take it back. We’re a team. No one can do that to us.”

Beth looked down at their joined hands, and a brilliant smile suddenly lit her face. Her gaze lifted to Eve’s. “You’re right, no one can beat us, can they?” Her hand closed tightly on Eve’s. “I knew that. I just wanted to hear you say it.” She released her grasp and gave a sigh of relief as she leaned back in the lawn chair. “Do you ski, Eve?”

“What?” The abrupt change of subject took her off guard. “No, I tried once, but Joe had to pick me up out of a drift three times. I decided he was enjoying himself a little too much.”

“I’ll teach you. I’m very good. I have an entire wall of trophies.” She stopped. “At least, I did have trophies. I wonder what happened to them…” She shrugged. “Oh, well, we’d have a great time on the slopes. You’ll really like it once you learn how. And you can teach me to—” She frowned, lost for a moment.

Eve’s lips quirked. “If this is supposed to be a reciprocal arrangement, you may be getting the short end. I hardly think you’d enjoy my teaching you how to reconstruct a skull.”

“No, what else do you do?”

“Not much. I’m a workaholic. That eliminates a hell of a lot of potential hobbies.”

Her frown vanished. “Then you need me. I’ll save you from yourself.”

“Heaven help me.”

Beth threw back her head and laughed. “No, that’s the point.
I’ll
help you. We’ll have such fun.”

“If you say so,” Eve said warily. “I’m not sure about all that snow, Beth.”

“We could try swimming. I was thinking of trying out for the Olympic team. But it required taking time off from—”

Eve’s phone rang. “It’s Joe.”

“Sorry I didn’t call before. Gelber’s home security system is state of the art and I was looking for a way to circumvent that damn alarm.”

“Did you do it?”

“No way. We’ll have to corner him tomorrow after the autographing. I’m heading for Gelber’s office to see if Newell had any luck breaking in there. He called and told me the security system at the office is much less sophisticated, and we may have a chance. Everything okay there?”

“Fine. Except that I appear to be destined to spend a number of uncomfortable days fighting icy snow and my own lack of equilibrium.”

“What?”

“Never mind.” Her hand tightened on the phone. “Be careful, Joe.”

“Always.” He hung up.

“You lied to me.” Beth’s gaze was on Eve’s face. “You are worried.”

“I didn’t lie. I don’t have a bad feeling about this.” Her lips tightened. “But sometimes fate slips in a wild card. So distract me, Beth. Tell me about skiing and your competitions and all those trophies and your friends at school…”

*   *   *

“IT’S NOT BAD AT ALL,”
Joe murmured as he bent over the security alarm on the wall beside the door of Gelber’s office. “It’s clear he must have put more value on the things in his residence than here. Which doesn’t bode well for his clients’ confidentiality.”

“We’ve got to hope that he was equally careless with his computer records,” Newell said. “Hurry.”

“That does it. Try the door.”

Newell cautiously opened the door. “Jackpot. Are you this good at cracking safes?”

“I’m an amateur. But a good amateur.” Joe moved into the office. “And I’m not nearly as good at bypassing codes to get into computer files.” He jerked his head toward the paneled mahogany door beyond the reception area. “So get in there and see what you can find while I stay out here and act as lookout.”

“Right.” Newell glided toward the door. “It may take a while. I’ve no idea what the password might be, so I’ll have to find a backdoor. And those records are old, and he may not have them in a current file.”

“You’re wasting time with all those explanations.” He moved over to look out the window at the parking lot. “Just get in there and get busy.”

The door closed behind Newell.

Forty minutes later, Newell still had not reappeared.

Another twenty minutes passed.

No Newell.

And he heard the faint sound of a siren in the distance.

“Shit!”

Joe strode toward the office and threw open the door. “I may not have been as good as I thought at disarming that alarm. I’m hearing sirens. We’ve got to get out of here.”

“Give me one minute.” Newell didn’t look up. “I’m copying this file to disc.”

“We don’t have a minute, dammit.” But Newell obviously wasn’t going to be budged. “Wipe the prints off everything you’ve touched and exit the file. I’ll do the same for the outer office.”

“Right,” he said absently.

Joe left the door open as he left the office and carefully wiped prints from the knob.

The siren was louder.

Joe wiped his prints off the windowsill and the door leading to the parking lot. “Newell! Now.”

“Coming.” Newell was running past Joe toward the car in the parking lot.

The siren was shrieking only blocks away.

Joe pulled out of the parking lot but didn’t go to the cross street. Instead, he went left and turned the corner and parked a block away. “We’ll wait until they pull into the parking lot, then we’ll go to the cross street. We don’t want to pass them on the—”

Two police cars, lights flashing, sirens blaring, had turned off the main street and were streaking toward the office building.

“What the hell?”

The police cars had gone past the entrance of the parking lot of the office and were driving straight down the street.

“What’s happening?” Newell asked.

Joe wasn’t sure but he had a good idea. “We’ll know in a minute.”

It was less than a minute when the sirens cut off abruptly.

“Gelber’s residence,” Joe said. “I didn’t trip any alarms here at the office. They got a call to come to Gelber’s residence.” He started the car. “Now why would Gelber call them?” He pressed the accelerator. “Let’s go see if we can find out.”

“Do you think that’s a good idea? I believe a low profile would be in order,” Newell said dryly. “After all, we just robbed his office.”

“We’ll park a block away, walk to the house, and stay in the trees until we can see what’s going on. Is that a low enough profile?”

“No, but I’m curious enough to go along with you.” The house had just come into view. “Look, the house and entire area are lit up like a movie set. It was dark when we came— What are you doing?”

Joe had abruptly pulled over to the curb and turned off the headlights. “The second team is right behind us.”

“Team?” Newell watched as two vans drove past them and parked in front of Gelber’s house. “Who are they?”

“The first van is forensics.” Joe’s mouth tightened grimly. Questions were being answered, but it was looking as if he might not be able to get Gelber to answer the most important one. “The second is the L.A. Medical Examiner.”

CHAPTER

14

“GELBER’S DEAD,” JOE SAID BALDLY
to Eve when he strode out onto the patio, where she and Beth were still sitting an hour later. “I don’t know all the details. It happened sometime between midnight and three this morning. Unknown perpetrator, stab wound to the heart, several other wounds on his body.”

“Drogan?” Eve crossed her arms across her chest as a chill went through her. “Knives. He used a knife on Newell.”

“That’s my bet,” Newell said as he came out on the patio. “Maybe he was trying to get the same information we were from Gelber.”

“He didn’t try too hard,” Joe said. “That wasn’t his main objective. I’d say it was only important to him to get rid of Gelber in the quickest manner possible. Otherwise, he would have spent more time on Gelber before he killed him. You said he enjoyed torturing you.”

“Oh, yes, he did that,” Newell said grimly. “Every little stinging wound. You’re probably right. Drogan was going to leave any cleanup retrieval from his office for later.”

“Dead,” Beth repeated dazedly. She couldn’t seem to take it in. “Gelber’s dead? But we were going to see him.” She shook her head as if to clear it. “Three people died yesterday. Now Gelber? Because of me?”

“No, because a son of a bitch is trying to cover his tracks,” Eve said bluntly. “And he doesn’t care whom he hurts to do it. Stop blaming yourself. All you’re doing is trying to survive.”

“I’m not blaming—” Beth lifted her shoulders as if to ease the tension. “Well, maybe I was, but it’s difficult—” She took a deep breath. “So we won’t be able to find out what Gelber knew about my accident and the therapy that—”

“I didn’t say that,” Joe said. “We managed to get into Gelber’s office, and Newell was able to access the records and make a disc. That should tell us a lot. But it seems you had over six months of in-depth sessions with him. Newell has to go through it and try to organize the information and eliminate repetitions. Evidently Gelber drummed several points over and over into your mind.” He paused. “One of them concerned Cara Sandler, Beth’s friend who was with her at the ski lodge.”

“Cara? Why?”

Newell raised his hand. “Don’t ask me anything yet. I just noticed the repetition of the name when I located the records. I didn’t have time to do anything but copy the record before we had to bolt out of there.”

“We haven’t had time to make any inquiries about Cara Sandler since you told us about her,” Eve said. “I believe we’d better get moving on it.” She turned to Joe. “I’ll do that if you want to concentrate on the disc.”

“Newell will be doing most of it, but I’d like to be available to help.” He glanced at his watch. “But we’d better get a little sleep before we go into high gear. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” Eve said as she turned to Beth. “I think we all need to stop and get our breath, don’t you?”

She smiled crookedly. “If that’s possible. I feel like curling up in bed and pulling the covers over my head. I guess I shouldn’t admit that. You all seem to be so cool and calm.”

“You’re doing fine, Beth,” Newell said gently. “No one expects you to accept murder without flinching.”

“I can’t help what you expect of me.” She turned and moved heavily toward the glass doors leading to the house. “I’m just trying to work my way through this. I know Hans Gelber was probably a scumbag and that he might have done terrible things to me, but it’s too remote to me right now. It’s not real. All that’s clear is that he’s dead. I’m going to bed. I’ll see you all in the morning.”

Eve frowned as she watched her go into the house. “We’re throwing too much at her at once. I keep forgetting that she just woke up into a world that she can’t possibly understand. Hell, even if she hadn’t had that kind of experience, she might still be responding in the same way. Murder isn’t exactly common.”

“Understatement.” Newell’s gaze was on the glass doors. “But she’s making a good adjustment. I admire her resilience. You can see how torn and confused she is about believing that any of this is real.”

Eve nodded. “And we were just talking earlier about how you sometimes have to look beyond reality.” She grimaced. “She can’t quite understand ‘spooky’ stuff, but she’s trying to be open to it.”

Joe’s brows rose. “Now I wonder how that subject came up.”

“Not the way you’d assume. I didn’t mention Bonnie.” She picked up her empty cup to take into the kitchen. “I figured that would be too much of a test as to how open she could be.”

“Bonnie?” Newell asked.

“My daughter, who died when she was seven.” She left it at that as she moved toward the doors. “I’m going to hit the shower and go to bed. Do you suppose there’s anything on TV about Gelber’s murder yet?”

“I doubt it. I think they were caught flat-footed. There were no media trucks at the scene when we left,” Joe said.

“Too bad. I’d like to know more.”

“Me, too,” Joe said thoughtfully. “There are a couple things I’m curious about.”

Eve’s gaze narrowed on his face. “Such as?”

“How did Drogan get in? I examined that alarm system, and it was state of the art. I’m not bad, and there was no way I could bypass it. He’s either a positive Houdini with locks and alarms or there’s something … funny.”

“What do you mean? How else could he get in the house?”

Joe shrugged. “Maybe bribery to get the code from the alarm company? It’s a possibility, but it would require either time or extensive funds to do it. I’m thinking it over…”

“Pierce has money, and he’d hired Drogan before.”

“Yeah, like I said, I’m thinking about it.”

“Anything else bothering you?”

“I overheard talk from two of the forensics guys about a note.”

“What?” She frowned. “A suicide note? With all those stab wounds. That doesn’t make sense.”

“No, it doesn’t. That’s why I want to see if the media was able to get a statement from the police about the note.”

“Don’t stay up all night waiting for the media to catch up. It’s almost four, and you didn’t get much sleep last night.”

He nodded. “I’ll only check one time before I turn in. You go on.”

She hesitated, her gaze on his face. His tea-colored eyes were glittering, and there was the tension she knew well. He was wired. Even if he came to bed right now, he’d lie there, his brain moving at hyperspeed, going over possibilities. “Okay.” She slid the glass doors open. “Let me know if you hear anything interesting.”