faces.
A very young twenty-something, I had thought earlier. Fresh off the farm. She was getting a hell of an education now, poor kid.
I thought about Molly Seabright, the twelve-year-old girl who had come to me a year before to find her missing sister. Molly had often seemed to me to be more of an adult than I was.
Life jades us all at different rates, in different ways.
I had been about Lisbeth’s age when my life truly turned itself on its head. The sadly funny thing was, at that time I had already believed I was cynical.
We were supposed to go out that night, Bennett and I. But I hadn’t been feeling well, and I begged off. He had been exceptionally sweet-brought me flowers, cheered me up, tucked me into bed. He had gone off to meet a couple of buddies for dinner and drinks. I had drifted off to sleep that night thinking how incredibly happy I was, how I was finally getting the one thing I had craved my whole life-someone who really loved me.
By the next day, everything had changed.
Fate delivers the ultimate sucker punch.
I took Irina’s digital camera, which I had lifted from her apartment, connected it to my computer with a USB cable, and downloaded everything on it-twenty-two images from her other life, including the snaps I had taken of the screen-saver photos on her computer monitor.
Parties, polo matches, gal pals at the beach. There were a couple of shots of hunky bartender Kayne Jackson shaking up martinis and libidos from behind the bar at Players.
Big Jim Brody in a straw hat and swim trunks, smoking a cigar as he stood on the deck of a swimming pool. I could have gone my whole life without seeing that.
Brody in the same getup with an arm around Lisbeth in a purple bikini, Lisbeth doing her best not to cringe away from him and his big hairy belly. She wore the kind of smile that could have as easily been from gas pains.
Someone had shot a photo of Irina and Lisbeth sitting together shoulder to shoulder, cheek to cheek on a poolside chaise, each with an umbrella drink in hand, toasting the photographer. They could have been sisters in their matching blond hair, matching dark glasses, matching medallion necklaces, matching smiles. So happy.
Barbaro and a couple of other players in full polo gear, joking around on the sidelines. Bennett Walker raising a glass of champagne. Bennett on a polo pony. Bennett at the swimming pool. One too many photos of Bennett, I thought.
Despite the years I had spent wishing physical deformities on him, he had aged well, I had to admit as I clicked back to the swimsuit photo. He had bulked up with maturity-with muscle, not fat. As a male animal, he had every right to be arrogant. What Female of the species wouldn’t have wanted that body in her bed?
And what husband-hunting temptress wouldn’t have added those looks to the money that backed them up and come up with a prime target? In the crowd that Bennett ran with, the fact that he was already married wouldn’t have necessarily deterred women from trying.
From what I had learned so far, from the profile of Irina that had begun to come together over the past two days, I had to think a wedding ring wouldn’t have bothered her in the least. The thing Irina wouldn’t have been able to compete with was the financial and social clout of Bennett Walker’s in-laws.
Bennett was a very wealthy man in his own right, but there is nothing wealthy men love more than more money. More money, more power. More power, more control of the world around them.
I got up from my chair and paced like a restless cat, stopping every so often to stretch out one knotted muscle and then another.
If Irina went to the after-party, she went fully aware of the nature of the party and the kinds of things that were likely to go on there. One would presume she had every intention of being a willing participant. So why did she end up dead? Was it a case of rough sex gone wrong? Or had one of those men killed her intentionally? Why? For the rush? Had she pissed one of them off? Had Jim Brody wanted to murder a girl for his birthday? Had Bennett Walker lost his temper, lost control?
I sat back down at my desk and made a note: Motive?
What had Bennett’s motive been when he beat and raped Maria Nevin? He didn’t have one. He’d never seen Maria Nevin before that night. He had no reason to attack her specifically.
The bartender at the last club Bennett and his pals had visited testified that Bennett had been drunk, loud, and obnoxious. In his statement to the police, the bartender said that Bennett’s buddies had been ribbing him about getting married, that his skirt-chasing days were over, to which Bennett had replied that he could have any woman he wanted, anytime he wanted.
The bartender had recanted that statement before trial and had watered down the rest of his testimony as badly as he watered down the overpriced drinks at the bar.
But even if the bartender had stuck to his story, nothing said that night could have provided a motive for what happened.
Maria Nevin had initially told the police-and had held to that version of events right up until the day before she was to take the stand-that Bennett had flirted with her. They had danced together, had a drink together. They had gone for a walk on the beach, had sat on the wet sand as the tide went out, had started making out.
A little too intoxicated, Bennett hadn’t been able to sustain an erection. He became angry. He slapped her hard several times. She struggled to get away from him, scratching him in the process. He pinned her down and choked her, achieved an erection, and raped her.
Was that what had happened to Irina?
I didn’t want any of those images in my head.
To distract my mind, I began to organize the paper strewn across my desk. Irina’s e-mails. Some notes I had made while in her apartment caught my eye. The name of a medical clinic. I typed the name of the clinic into Google. The search engine came back with a list of Web sites. I clicked on the first one, and the Web site opened on my screen:
The Lundeen Clinic:
Serving Women in the Palm Beaches Since 1987.
Obstetrics and Gynecology.
I made a note to myself: Motive.
Chapter 34
When she had come to Star Polo to interview for a groom’s position, Lisbeth had driven past the mansion Jim Brody lived in three or four months of the year (it was a second home then, a weekend place) and thought to herself that one day she would live in a house like that. An incredibly wealthy, incredibly handsome, incredibly sexy man would pluck her out of the stable yard and she would be just like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman-except that she wouldn’t have to be a prostitute first.
How wrong she had been.
She had gotten the job, been given an apartment over the stables, had her magical entree to the lifestyles of the rich and famous. All of that had happened.
The polo players had taken a shine to her because she was cute and had a great figure. Mr. Brody had taken a shine to her, and suddenly she was invited to parties and getting attention from the kind of men she had dreamed of sweeping her away. But none of them had fallen in love with her, and she had certainly been made to feel like she was a prostitute.
She sat on her bed with her knees drawn up, looking at the rack of expensive clothes she had purchased with the generosity of her wealthy gentleman friends. She enjoyed looking pretty. She enjoyed parties.
So had Irina.
Lisbeth wrapped her arms tightly around her legs and rocked herself as the tears came. Her eyes were already nearly swollen shut from crying. She couldn’t seem to stop.
It wasn’t like she didn’t have other friends, but Irina had been so strong, so sure of herself. She had walked into the world of the wealthy as if she had been born to it. Lisbeth felt lost in her sudden absence, cut loose from
