“Very sure.”
“Who was the last?”
“Oh, no.”
“All right, all right. Just tell me if she was a celebrity. If it was secret.”
“You know I can’t do that.”
“Now think about this. Do I want to know this to hurt Sam or to get some much-needed insight?”
“Anna, you’re killing me.”
“I can just feel that it was a celebrity, but Sam has told himself that he has to have secrecy to the point where he may actually believe it.”
There was a long pause. Peter let out a breath. “Well, you’ve got it half figured out. I don’t know why you’re asking.”
“Thank you. You’re a sweetheart. But exactly how did it end? Did she give up or did Sam?”
“Maybe nobody had the opportunity to give up.”
“Nobody had… Wait. Did she die?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You’re a darling, Peter. Thank you. I have my answer. Suzanne King was beautiful. The right age. There was all that publicity about the stalkers. She died in a plane crash about a year ago.”
There was silence. She let him go.
Next she called her agent and her script reader in quick succession. For every screenplay idea they latched on to, they looked at hundreds. Nothing in the latest crop looked that great. She had a three-movie-deal commitment, so that had to be worked into the equation. Then she called Genevieve and asked that they tell Prada, Christian LaCroix, Missoni, and Vivienne which dresses she would keep. She reiterated that the dresses were to be purchased and not received with compliments. They had sent about six each, and she’d been sitting on them for three weeks and only planned to keep a few.
She hung up and called her publicist.
“Lane and I are breaking up. It’s the usual, we’ll always be friends. We both got all we could out of the relationship and came away better people. Mutual. No third parties. We still talk all the time. And one other thing. This is very sensitive. I don’t want too much volume on this, just a little. But I definitely want something.”
“Yes?” Now Sally sounded interested.
“Create a little buzz, a little mystery about who might escort me to the party at the studio.”
The publicist could do it all in her sleep.
Twenty-four
The Beaver seaplane landed on the small inlet that they called Lodge Bay and made it past the breakwater arriving at the dock on momentum alone. It was a slick, fast landing with the radial chugging and spluttering typical of these old twelve-cylinder workhorses. When Sam stepped off the pontoon onto the dock he noticed the clear water, the white sea anemones, maroon starfish, and the small minnows visible below.
It was a blustery day with mottled, battleship-gray clouds with folded, dark creases. Sam, Anna, and three armed-to-the teeth Canadians-two ex-Mounties and one ex-military and all licensed private investigators-walked up the dock and took in the wilderness: bald eagles teetering on the wind, the rush of blowing trees, and the grandeur of towering granite. Any more men and it would have looked like an invasion.
Of the three men that Sam brought along, T.J., one of the ex-Mountie officers, was the natural leader. He was a brown and silver-haired, mustached forty-five-year-old who looked sharp and acted tough. Sam knew he was both, but also knew that he had fallen on hard times. A painful divorce and kids in college had left him broke. Sam worried about such things affecting a man’s performance under fire, but in this case he seemed committed and it was obvious that he was totally impressed by Anna.
Duke, black-haired, squat, and broad, an amateur fighter with stone hands, seemingly more oak than man, walked second to last and carried his weapon as though he expected to use it.
“It doesn’t feel right,” Anna whispered to Sam. He nodded but didn’t reply, concentrating on detecting what might be hidden.
Bringing up the rear was Jeff, a tall and quiet man who lived like a coiled spring.
Sam kept his finger on the trigger of his assault rifle, an M7, and the others did the same. Only Anna was unarmed. At the head of the dock a broad plank walkway traversed the rock and boggy heather beyond. A small stream murmured but did not put them at ease. The slap of their feet on the wood diminished as they hushed their footsteps.
After walking inland a good three-quarters of a mile, they came to the side door of the lodgelike main house. Sam moved along the windows, ignoring the door for the moment. Someone was on the floor and judging from the alabaster-white skin of her legs, it was the housekeeper fitted with a gray bag over her torso and trussed up so that she couldn’t move. Beside her was a man in well-worn blue jeans-maybe the handyman-then next to him another groundsman and beyond him another woman-a cook or housekeeper.
“Someone’s been busy,” Sam said. In a couple of minutes they had broken the door and were inside untying people.
“Where is Jason?” Anna said.
“They didn’t come back from their walk. The men must have taken them,” the first housekeeper answered.
“How many were there?”
“We saw several,” the man spoke up. “Maybe six but there were no doubt more.”
“Weapons?”
“All kinda strange guns.”
“Where is Nutka?” Sam could see the worry in Anna’s eyes.
“Still with her family. Coming back this afternoon in time for the massage.”
“Let’s go.” Anna turned to run down the path Jason would have taken.
Sam grabbed her arm and spun her around. “Plan. Remember the plan.”
“The plan is we go look for him.”
“Whoever did this is dangerous,” Sam said.
“That’s why we’re in a hurry.”
“Just a minute.” Sam turned to the staff members. “I’d stay here if I were you.”
Sam started walking. “This trail here?” he asked Anna, pointing to a route just above the beach.
“If they were going to the point, that’s where they’d go,” Anna said.
Running down the path would be dangerous, but moving slowly off the path in the brush would be extremely time-consuming; he opted for speed over safety. They went quickly, guns drawn.
Sam slowed at every corner and peered around the nearest available tree, listening intently for any sound. Now they were strung out with at least thirty feet between them, winding along the base of the mountainside through the thick foliage and dense new-growth trees, over the small footbridges, through the mint-green clover, all the way feeling completely vulnerable to ambush. When they had covered about half the distance to the point, Sam thought he heard something. They were in an unusually dense thicket. He raised a hand for the others to stop and crept forward by himself. There was a muffled scream and he guessed what he would find.
Sam looked back at Anna and held up his hand, knowing her tendency to charge headlong. As quietly as possible he stepped off the trail to the right and began a slow circle. The others remained in place. Forcing himself to be patient, Sam listened and looked with every step. Whoever was doing the muffled yelling could be victim or bait or both.
After he had circled ahead of the sound he moved slowly toward it. He found the two bodies trussed on the ground-helpless. One of them was screaming, out of control and hyperventilating badly. Still, it could be a trap, so he retreated into the forest and came full circle.
“There are two men on the trail,” he told Anna. “From their builds neither is your brother.
“They sound in agony.”
