Blood Defense (33 page)

SIXTY

M
ichelle sighed and nodded.
“He
doesn’t look the type to just break in, so he must be a friend of the owners. What’d that mechanic say their names were?”

Alex stood up. “Cory and Sarah Larsen. Let me get my laptop and see what we can find on them.”

When he came back, I told him to check his phone for the photos I’d taken in the bedroom. “I got pictures of the photos on their dresser and the phone number that was on a pad next to the bed.”

Alex picked up his phone and scrolled through his photos. “Let’s check out that phone number first.”

I sat down on the couch next to Michelle. “You notice how the first image on that camera is the owner setting it up, testing it?” Michelle nodded. “And then the very next image is of Mr. Perfect with Paige and Marc. Looks to me like he set up that camera expecting to get some hot footage—”

Alex looked up. “Yeah. You know, I thought it was weird that he didn’t set up any surveillance cameras for the outside of the house. The one in his bedroom is the only one I saw. Now it makes sense.”

Michelle made a face. “He invited his buddy over to use his place and then put in the camera to spy on him?”

“Sure seems that way. It didn’t look like anyone knew it was there.” I thought about those disgusting printouts of women with animals. “But being the lovers of the animal kingdom that they are, it actually makes sense.”

Michelle rolled her eyes. “Don’t remind me.”

Alex sat back and read from the monitor. “Okay, that phone number on the notepad belongs to the Larsens. It’s a global plan, and they opened the account in January.”

Just before they left for Thailand. “Nice work.” I knew having a hacker on the team would come in handy. I started to pace again. I sifted through all the information we had, trying to figure out how we could use this. And got an idea.

“Alex, can you find out whether they’re on Snapchat or Instagram, anything like that?”

“For sending photos?” I nodded. “No. No way they’d use Snapchat or Instagram. Not for what they’re into.”

I stared at him. “Don’t Snapchat photos disappear after a few seconds?”

Alex snorted. “Only for the very few who don’t know how to get around their so-called security. Snapchat leaks like a rusty sieve. The only thing these guys would use is Wickr. It saves absolutely no data on a server, and everything’s encrypted so—”

I held up a hand. “TMI, Alex. I get it. Can you capture a still shot of Mr. Perfect off that video? Nothing too explicit, just something that looks like he took it during that threesome.” I wanted it to be believable that he’d send it. No matter how secure this Wickr app might be, no one with half a brain these days believes anything is foolproof.

Alex leaned back and blew out a breath. “Maybe. Assuming they’re on Wickr, I could set up a fake account for us and send it to them.”

I nodded. “Hopefully they’ll give us a name to work with. I assume you have a spare phone? One that’s not registered?” Alex smiled. It figured. He probably had a dozen of them. “Send a note with the photo saying he’s using someone else’s phone for cover.”

Alex reached out and turned on the television. Fifteen minutes later, he had a shot of our man with his robe half off. It was cropped to keep out Paige’s image. “Perfect,” I said. “Let’s send that with a message. Something like, ‘Thanks for the memories.’”

Alex winced. “Really?”

I put my hands on my hips. “Make up something better, then.”

Alex sent out the photo with the message,
Good times. Thanks! LOL.

I stared at him. “Yeah, like that’s so much better.”

Michelle shrugged. “Actually, it is.”

I shot her a look and went back to pacing. Alex asked if we wanted anything to eat, but my stomach was so tied up in knots I couldn’t think of food. Michelle asked if he had any soup.

Alex headed for the kitchen. “I think I’ve got something in a can that might not put you in a hospital.”

A few minutes later, he brought out two bowls of chicken noodle soup. While they ate, I stared out the living room window. It had a reflective covering that let you see out but prevented anyone from seeing in. Alex wasn’t kidding about his security. It was almost seven o’clock, and all that was left of daylight were the indigo blues on the horizon. As I watched the rising glow of city lights, I tried to come up with a Plan B if this one didn’t work.

Ten minutes later, Alex’s spare phone gave a beep. We all turned to look at it. I grabbed the phone and read the message aloud. “‘You’re most welcome, Aubrey. Keep sharing!’”

Aubrey. That was such a distinctive name. “I know I’ve heard that name before, I just can’t remember where or how. Sound familiar to you guys?”

They both shook their heads. I started pacing again as I tried to squeeze my brain for the memory.

Alex sat down at his computer. He started to read off the screen. “Aubrey, Aubrey . . . wow, lots of girls named Aubrey.”

Michelle watched me. “Was it during this case?” I nodded. “Maybe you heard it in court?”

I shook my head. “No, I know I didn’t hear it in court.” I might not remember my own phone number, but I never forgot what anyone said in court.

“Did it have something to do with this case?” Michelle asked.

I stopped and stared at the floor. “No, I don’t think so.”

Alex read from the screen again. “Aubrey Plaza, Allison Aubrey, there’s a town in France.”

I stared at him. “You’re not helping, you know.”

He glanced up. “Sorry.” But he kept scanning the monitor.

“What about outside court?” Michelle asked. “I mean, when you were talking to reporters?”

Something tickled the back of my brain. I had that frustrating feeling that it was hovering just out of reach. I tried to grasp it. And failed. “Damn it!”

“Okay, let it go,” Michelle said. “You can’t force it. Talk about something else.”

But I couldn’t. I kept pacing.

Alex picked up their empty bowls. “That guy Marc was a lot smaller than this Aubrey dude. I thought models were supposed to be buff.”

I’d noticed that, too. “At least more buff than Marc was. But as I recall, Golden said the agency was trying to get him to buff up.”

Alex nodded. “Yeah, I can see why.” He shook his head. “And I can also see why Marc had no chance against him.”

Aubrey probably outweighed Marc by a good thirty pounds—and all of it looked like solid muscle.

Michelle stood up. “Here, let me help you, Alex. You don’t have to wait on us.” She took the bowls from him. “I was wondering if Marc shaved his body. I’ve never seen a guy that hairless. He reminded me of a Ken doll. Except you know, he wasn’t all smooth down there.”

Something she’d said clicked in my brain. “Say that again!”

Michelle stopped. “Say what? Smooth down there?” I shook my head. “What? Ken doll?”

Ken doll. Ken doll. “Kendall, that reporter! He said Edie’s husband’s name was Aubrey!” I was about to tell Alex to look it up, but he was already back at his laptop and typing.

Michelle’s eyes widened. “Holy shit, Sam. Mr. Perfect’s married to Edie Anderson?”

“That’s what I—”

“Got it!” Alex read from the screen. “Aubrey Miles, state senator. And yep, he’s married to Edie Anderson, correspondent for local news channel KCAL 9.”

I mentally replayed the surveillance camera footage. “Can you figure out who he called after Paige left?”

Alex was energized. “I’m on it.”

It was a little alarming how fast Alex managed to hack into Aubrey Miles’s cell phone account. It couldn’t have been more than ten minutes before he looked up and turned the laptop toward me. “Done. These records won’t tell us where the calls were made—”

“So you can’t get the cell-tower records?” Cell-phone calls ping the nearest towers. The location of those towers gives you the general area where the calls were placed or received.

“I can; it’ll just take a little longer.”

“Okay, we can wait on that. What do you have for the night Paige got killed?”

“The first call went to a number with a Beverly Hills prefix at eleven thirty-two p.m. The second was made to a number with a West Hollywood prefix right after that. Both numbers are registered to a Brent Farmington—”

Michelle picked up Alex’s phone. “Spell that for me.” She typed it in as he gave her the spelling.

I remembered the coroner’s estimated time of death. “So those were all made before Paige died.” Alex nodded. “How long were the calls?”

“Those first two calls were too short to be actual conversations—”

I pictured the footage of Aubrey on his cell phone. “He didn’t seem to be talking to anyone. Looked like he just left a message. So there was no answer.”

Alex studied the monitor. “Right. And it was late. So maybe the first call was to a landline, and the next one was to a cell phone. Then right after that there was a third call. That one went to Aubrey’s own home in West Hollywood. It lasted for almost a minute, so I’d guess someone answered—”

“Edie, probably,” I said. “They don’t have kids.”

Alex continued. “The last call I have on Miles’s cell for that night was an incoming. It was right after the call to Edie ended. From one of Brent Farmington’s numbers.”

“And I got him.” Michelle held up Alex’s phone. “Brent Farmington is Aubrey’s aide.”

“Sounds like that’s who Aubrey was looking for,” I said.

Michelle passed me Alex’s phone. “He looks like the serious type.”

A LinkedIn photo showed a sharp-featured man in his thirties with slicked-back hair and wire-framed glasses. I thought about the timing of those phone calls—and the order. Aubrey to Brent. Aubrey to Edie. Brent to Aubrey. I gave the phone back to Michelle and looked at the monitor over Alex’s shoulder. “Seems like Aubrey actually talked to Edie, and right after that, Brent called him.”

Michelle raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t it kind of late to be looking for his aide?”

I flopped down on the couch. “Definitely. But you saw him on that video. He was in a panic. If we’re right, if he did kill Marc, he needed help with . . . something ASAP, and he couldn’t exactly ask Edie. ‘Hi, honey, I was having a threesome and got into it with the other guy and killed him. Can you give me a hand?’”

Alex stared at the monitor. “The timing of the calls is awfully tight. Brent called Aubrey almost immediately after Aubrey spoke to Edie.”

“You think Brent and Edie were together?” Michelle asked.

I shrugged. “Not necessarily. Brent might’ve just happened to notice his missed calls right after Aubrey talked to Edie. Or maybe Edie called Brent right after she spoke to Aubrey, and Brent finally picked up.”

Michelle looked skeptical. “Heck of a coincidence.”

Alex shook his head. “According to the book, there’s no such thing as coincidence.”

I shot him a dagger. “Really? The book? Now?”

Alex held up his hands. “You say it, too.”

That was true. Irritating, but true. “Whatever. But if they were together, that’s an interesting wrinkle.” It was pretty late for Edie to be hanging with her husband’s aide.

Michelle nodded. “They could just be friends. Maybe went to a late movie or something.”

“I suppose.” Stranger things have happened—like meeting your father for the first time when he’s charged with a double homicide. In any case, that was a dead end for now. We had no way to find out tonight if or why Edie had been with Brent. “However it happened, Aubrey connected with Brent.”

Michelle looked down at the photo of Brent on Alex’s phone. “So Brent’s in the middle of this.”

I nodded and went back to pacing. I’d been thinking about why Aubrey would need to call him. If my theory was right—that he’d killed Marc during the fight in the living room and dragged his body into the ocean—then there was only one reason I could think of for him to call someone. And it fit with what was on the camera footage. “We saw Paige follow them out of the bedroom, and when she came back, she was freaked. She grabbed her purse and ran. She had to have seen the murder. My guess is, Aubrey was worried she’d call the cops—”

Michelle frowned. “So he told Brent to go kill her? I don’t know—”

“Not necessarily kill her.” I paused at the window and looked out at the night sky. “I’d guess he just asked Brent to go talk her down and keep her off the phone until he could get there.”

Alex shrugged. “Then really, either of them could’ve killed Paige . . . and Chloe.”

Michelle gave me a stern look. “And I’m sure the police will be glad to take it from here, so—”

I shook my head. “Michy, these guys aren’t street-corner dealers. They’re smart. They’ve probably already put some kind of story together. Hell, I can think of one right now: Brent never got to Paige’s place—or he got there and no one was home. And Aubrey’s going to say he only called Brent to go calm Paige down and that Marc and Paige took off together after the fight.”

Alex gave Michelle an apologetic look. “She’s right.” He sighed. “But we’re not going to get anything out of Aubrey.”

I had to agree. “No, that’s probably hopeless. But Brent . . .”

Michelle looked from Alex to me. “If you’re thinking you’re going to confront either of those guys, you’re out of your friggin’—”

I waved her off. “Of course not.”

Not yet, anyway.

SIXTY-ONE

A
lex had gone to clean up
in the kitchen. When he came back to the living room, he had his cell phone to his ear. “Just thought I’d check in with the answering service.”

We hadn’t picked up our messages since the fire. “Anything
exciting?”

“Just the usual bazillion messages from the press. Some nice personal condolences from Brittany and Edie about the fire. And of course, they wanted your reaction to Storm’s death.”

Edie. That was interesting. “Can you give me Edie’s number?” He read it off to me as I tapped it into my phone.

Michelle’s brow furrowed. “You’re not going to ask her if she was with Brent that night, are you? Because I don’t think—”

“Yeah, right. ‘Hey, Edie, what’s new? By any chance, are you banging your husband’s aide?’” I rolled my eyes. “But she might have some inside information on Storm’s death.”

Alex held up a hand. “Maybe it’s not so smart to make contact. What if she knows about the murders?”

I shook my head. “I can’t see Aubrey telling her anything.” He’d have to trust Edie not to turn him in—or at the very least, not go for a divorce that could get very nasty. I hit the last number and listened to the phone ring. Just when I thought it was going to go to voice mail, Edie answered. She sounded hurried and irritable. “Yes?”

“Hey, it’s Samantha . . .”

There was a long pause. When she spoke, her voice sounded brittle and a little high-pitched. “Samantha! Hey! I was just thinking about you. You okay?” I told her I was. “Such bad news about Storm.”

Sounds of traffic and loud voices filled the background. “Yeah. Are you covering the story?”

She spoke in a breathless rush. “I am now. They pulled me off a car chase in Pasadena. I had to slog through rush-hour traffic. Took me two hours to get here. Anyway, you want to give me a comment?”

“On what?”

“Anything. On your situation, on Storm. I could send a crew out if you want to get on camera?”

“No crew, but thanks. No comment on the fire. They have no leads. As for Storm, how about, ‘This is a terrible tragedy, and my sincere condolences go out to all his friends and family.’”

“What about the case? Doesn’t this put a big dent in your defense?”

“No comment on the case. Sorry.”

“Okay, off the record, then. What did he tell you? It sounded like he was going to be your ace in the hole.”

I couldn’t see any reason not to tell her. The video was what mattered, and I wouldn’t tell anyone about that until we called the cops. “Actually, he just said that he saw Paige and a young guy heading to Malibu on the night she died.”

“But wait . . . didn’t he say his testimony would prove Paige was the target? How does that prove anything? She might’ve just been giving him a ride.”

“Yeah. He got a little carried away. Wanted to make his fifteen minutes last.” I took a beat. This had to sound casual. “What are you hearing about the accident? Are they sure that’s what it was?”

Edie paused, and I heard police in the background shouting for people to get back. “Seems so. One of the first officers said they were looking for signs that he’d been pushed off the road, but so far no one’s saying they’ve found anything.”

“Okay, thanks. Well, if you hear any—”

She broke in, her voice rushed. “I’ll keep you posted. Studio’s calling. I’ve gotta go.”

“No worries. See you in court.”

I told Alex and Michelle what Edie had said.

Michelle got up and stretched. “So, now what?”

I thought about what we had and what the cops would do with it all. We’d grabbed the video after breaking and entering, but since we weren’t the police, it’d still be admissible in court. The phone records . . . we didn’t have to tell the cops we had them. They’d know to check phone calls on their own once they saw the tape.

But I didn’t know how fast they’d move, and it was clear that either Brent or Aubrey—or both—were panicking. They’d tried to destroy evidence—and me—and they’d probably killed Storm. The only reason I had the surveillance-camera footage was because they didn’t know it existed. And if I’d gotten it just one day sooner, it would’ve been destroyed in the fire. And then I’d have been left with nothing. The cops would never have taken my word for what I’d seen on that tape.

It was a chilling thought. And that thought raised the next one: Even with this footage, what would the cops do, and how fast would they do it? The video recording had some damning implications, but it didn’t necessarily clear Dale. I’d already figured out a way for Aubrey and Brent to talk their way around it. I had to find a way to nail them, and I had to do it now. “Alex, you said your uncle has muscle. What kind of muscle?”

“Four guys, two of them used to be boxers. They all carry. What’re you thinking?”

Primarily I was thinking that Aubrey had the motive to kill Paige, but he’d been stuck out in Malibu—about forty-five minutes away from Laurel Canyon. That’s why he’d needed Brent. Brent was close. But that didn’t necessarily mean Brent had killed Paige and Chloe. “If we tell Brent about the video footage and the phone calls, show him how bad it looks, maybe he’d dump Aubrey out.”

Alex leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his head. “If you’re going to brace anyone up, Brent’s definitely a better choice than Aubrey. And I can promise you we’ll have great backup. Tomas and his guys know what they’re doing.” He looked at Michelle, who was shaking her head. “Really, don’t worry, Michelle. This pasty little
huero
Brent won’t be a problem for Tomas. It’s not like we’re dealing with the Mafia here.”

Michelle pressed her lips together. “That ‘pasty little
huero
’ might’ve killed two women.
And
tried to burn us up.
And
killed Storm.”

“And broke into my place,” I said. “But—”

Michelle was angry. “But nothing. Let the cops take it from here. They can handle it.”

I put my hands on my hips and drilled her with a look. “Really? You trust that slug, Wayne Little, to see past their bullshit? Or move fast enough to put it all together before they do more damage? Or before they run?”

“But if they ran, wouldn’t that look bad?” Michelle asked. “Bad enough to get the case thrown out for Dale?”

I shook my head. “Not necessarily.”

Michelle sighed. “I don’t like it.”

I didn’t blame her, but I couldn’t trust anyone else to put the case together. “It’s not ideal. But Alex’s right: Brent’s no match for Tomas and his guys. We should be okay.”

Alex was keyed up and ready for action. “So how do you want to handle this?”

I told him.