Her Sister's Keeper. Julia Penney

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СКАЧАТЬ and civilians that shuffled past the row of seats outside of Captain Carolyn Murphy’s office. She’d never been so cold in all her life, though she knew the chill she felt had nothing to do with the ambient temperature of the station house.

      Stephanie was dead. She’d died at the Beverly, in the same top-floor two-bedroom suite Ariel had booked every time one of her movies was released. According to the investigators, Ariel had allegedly made the reservation over the phone, using her Harris surname instead of her stage name to maintain privacy, but according to the hotel clerk, Stephanie had checked into the room with a young infant. Baby things had been strewn throughout the suite, the baby was missing and nobody had seen any sign of Ariel…but she had been there.

      Nobody had seen her enter or leave the hotel, but the little beaded bag lying on the floor near Stephanie belonged to Ariel. Melanie had spent most of the past two hours telling investigators almost everything she knew about her best friend and the missing Ariel. But Melanie was exhausted and so emotionally drained that some of her memories felt almost dreamlike now. It was hard to recall that last distraught message from her sister, word for word, so she hadn’t volunteered any information about Mitch. When Captain Murphy had questioned her about who the father of Ariel’s baby was, Melanie had told her the father was dead—and repeated the fact that she and her sister hadn’t been on speaking terms for the past six months.

      Could Ariel have had something to do with Stephanie’s death? Was her sister somehow involved? Why had Stephanie been at the suite with Ariel’s baby? Where had Ariel been with her fancy beaded purse? She only carried that when she was going out someplace jazzy for the evening. It was one of her favorite little costume extras. The forgotten purse and baby things bespoke an ominous degree of haste and panic in Ariel’s departure from the room.

      “Melanie?”

      She heard Dr. Mattson’s rough, masculine voice and glanced up, feeling a welcome jolt at the sight of him.

      “Sorry this is taking so long,” he said. “I know how hard this must be for you, but we needed to compile your notes as soon as possible. The first twenty-four hours of an investigation like this is critical.”

      “I understand,” she said, clinging to his every word. “Have you located my sister?”

      “Not yet. She’s not at her apartment and hasn’t been seen there for some time. We’ve put out an all- points bulletin to locate her and the baby. I’m sure she’ll turn up soon. Look, you’ve had a bad shock, and you really shouldn’t be alone. Is there someone I can call for you who could come pick you up? A relative or friend?”

      “I’m fine, Dr. Mattson. Really.” To prove her point, Melanie tried to stand, but she sat back down abruptly as her knees betrayed her and a wave of dizziness darkened the edges of her vision. “I’ll be fine in a moment,” she amended, taking several deep, slow breaths.

      In point of fact, the last place Melanie wanted to go on this ghastly day was home. She wanted desperately to talk to someone about Stephanie, but Rachel, her coworker and a friend of Stephanie’s, wasn’t answering her cell phone, and neither was Victor. He might be able to shed some light on Ariel’s activities. According to Stephanie, he had very generously offered Ariel the caretaker’s cottage at Blackstone to use until she and Mitch sorted out their lives, but to Melanie’s knowledge Ariel had declined. Ariel, addicted to the nightlife, was too fond of her apartment in the city, which was conveniently close to all the clubs and bars she loved to frequent.

      Nonetheless, it had surprised Melanie that Victor had offered the cottage to Ariel. It had surprised her even more that Victor hadn’t mentioned this to her at all, that she’d had to learn about it from Stephanie. No doubt Victor had only been trying to help the struggling Ariel who, despite the high fees she’d commanded as a successful actress prior to her pregnancy, let money flow through her hands like water, saving little against just such a contingency as an unexpected maternal hiatus. And, of course, Mitch—damn the man, she still couldn’t think about him without feeling that sharp stab of pain— only made the big money when he was taking the big risks as a stuntman.

      It was probable that the couple had faced grim financial restrictions as Ariel’s pregnancy had progressed. For the life of her, Melanie couldn’t imagine the two of them trying to make a go of it. Ariel was so ethereal, her head lost in the clouds, drifting and dreaming her way through life. Mitch was so animal, so basic and so dangerously sexual. Maybe that was what drew the women to him.

      Melanie shivered and tightened her arms around herself, focusing on Dr. Mattson’s rugged face, the stubble darkening his jaw and making him look more masculine than ever. He was as weary as she, yet his eyes were clear and keen, and honest in a way that Mitch’s had never been. In spite of the horrors of the day, she felt drawn to him, safe in his presence, and she most definitely didn’t want to go home. Not yet, anyway.

      “You really shouldn’t drive,” Dr. Mattson was saying. “Look, I’d be happy to drop you off at a friend’s house….”

      Melanie was taken aback by his unexpected offer. “Thank you, Dr. Mattson. I’d appreciate that. And, if it’s not too much trouble…my car is still at the Beverly.”

      “Not to worry,” Kent said. “I’ll arrange for an officer to deliver it to your house, just give the desk sergeant over there the address and your car keys.” He held up his hand as she began thanking him again. “It’s the least I can do, after all you’ve been through today. I’ll go round up an unmarked car, and you just point me in the right direction.”

      BLACKSTONE WAS NEARLY an hour’s drive from the station house, not because it was all that far as the crow flies, but because the Santa Monica Freeway was choked with bumper-to-bumper traffic. Melanie was content to leave the driving to Dr. Mattson. Twenty minutes into the trip, as she gazed out the passenger window in a blank haze of exhaustion, he said, grinning, “Are we there yet?”

      She cast him an apologetic look. “It’s not much farther. I’m sorry, Dr. Mattson. I should have taken a cab. You’ve had a long day, too.”

      “I don’t mind.” He shrugged. “This is actually a pretty drive. Living so near the ocean you’d think I’d see it more often. Fact is, I hardly ever lay eyes on the Pacific, except when I’m flying to the ranch.”

      “You’re lucky to have a place where you can get away from it all.”

      “I couldn’t survive without it,” he said. “Especially with this job. There are days when it’s hard to find the good side of anything, kind of like today. But then I think about Chimeya at sunrise, when the sun rounds out of the east, the sky lights up from inside itself and the mountains glow like fire…. There’s nothing else like it, and no place better for centering the soul.”

      Melanie felt the tension in the pit of her stomach ease as she listened to Kent. “It sounds lovely,” she said. “Are you really going back there tonight, with all that’s gone on today?”

      “I do my best thinking there, and there’s no commuter traffic. Just a fast taxi and a straight one- hour shot to heaven.”

      Melanie studied his profile as he spoke. She wanted to ask him if he was married, but didn’t know how to phrase the question without sounding nosy. How could he not have a partner in his life? He was damn near perfect. In fact, she was still searching for some annoying fault, some irritating quality that would reaffirm her belief СКАЧАТЬ