The Arrangement (8 page)

Marnie’s macabre looks had made her a target since earliest childhood, and when the town’s fear and loathing became unbearable, she’d taken to hiding. But Butch and his ilk had hunted her down for sport. He’d teased her so mercilessly many people believed she had reason to kill him, except that Butch was the most feared linebacker on the high school team. It took a pile-on to hold him down, and Marnie was no bigger than a mosquito.

She’d had a body, though. The article had quoted locals who’d sworn she’d had the breasts of a Botticelli
Venus,
lithe limbs and a firm bottom. Alison remembered the references word for word. The boys from town all knew about Marnie’s figure because she’d loved to soak in the tidal ponds on her gramma’s property—and she hadn’t worn much beyond what God gave her.

That’s what had started the other rumor—that Butch had seen her bathing and tried to force himself on her, and Marnie had stopped him with the pitchfork. Brutally, viciously stopped him.

And now, for some unknown reason, Tony Bogart thought Alison had something to do with that monstrous crime?

She angled a glare at him. “What is this lead you have? If you’re going to accuse me of something, you’d better be able to back it up.”

“I haven’t accused you of anything. I asked you a question that you haven’t answered. Where were you when my brother died?”

A door hinge creaked and Tony stopped talking. He looked beyond Alison, searching the foyer, where the sound had come from.

“Villard, is that you?” he said. “Come and join us. I haven’t had a chance to congratulate you on your marriage to our fair Alison.”

Andrew stepped out of the shadows. As he came over to the door, Alison watched the malevolence seep into Tony’s expression. He truly hated Andrew—and probably her, as well.

Andrew’s voice was cold. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”

“You should know,” Tony said. “You were listening to every word.”

Andrew strode over to the other man as if he were going to get physical. Alison almost wished he would. Someone needed to back Tony off. Andrew wasn’t trained in deadly force, as Tony must have been, but he was several inches taller.

“My wife is off-limits,” Andrew told him. “I don’t care what agency you’re with, if you have something to say to Alison, you go through me first.”

Nothing moved except Tony’s trigger finger. It twitched, as if he was firing a gun. His smile was as cold as his eyes.

“How did you get through the gate?” Andrew asked.

“Someone was kind enough to leave it open.”

“Then you won’t have any trouble getting out.”

“None whatsoever.” Still smiling, Tony excused himself with a tip of his head. As he strolled down the marble expanse of the grand portico, he called over his shoulder, “I hope this wasn’t inconvenient for either of you. Have a nice day.”

Andrew shut the door, and Alison sank onto the nearest settee. Her legs felt weak, but she shook her head, refusing his hand when he offered it.

“We should go down to breakfast before the rest of them come looking for us,” he said.

Alison couldn’t even think about food. The image of Butch’s mangled body kept coming back to her.

“There you are!” Julia came into the foyer, looking fresh and immaculate in a white crocheted slacks and top. “If you want something to eat, you’d better hurry. Bret has almost finished off the almond biscotti.”

She walked over to Alison and touched her cheek. “Are you all right, darling? Your face is red. Are you coming down with something?” As she talked, Julia glanced around the space. “Was someone just here? Bret thought he heard voices. This foyer is such an echo chamber.”

Alison pulled away from her mother’s touch. “It’s not a fever,” she said. “I have a skin condition, probably a reaction to all the surgery. I can get something for it at the drugstore.”

Julia seemed to approve of that idea. “Your little BMW convertible is still in the garage. It’s the only car Bret hasn’t wrecked,” she added dryly. “I’ll get the keys for you.”

Julia pressed the back of her hand against Alison’s forehead, apparently not convinced that she didn’t have a temperature. A moment later she was off in search of car keys.

Alison fanned herself with her hands to cool her skin—and looked up to find Andrew staring at her.

“What the hell was that about?” he asked, his voice harsh.

“You mean Julia?”

“No, Tony Bogart.”

She shook her head. She didn’t know. She truly didn’t know.

T
ony gave the key of his rental Corvette a gentle turn, and soft jazz music oozed from the speakers. Eyes closed, he rested his head against the seat back. Jazz had always reminded him of women. It was sensual and complicated in a way no other music was. Good jazz relaxed him and cleared his head. Bad jazz taunted and irritated. It confused. But it all reminded him of women.

He’d locked in his favorite FM stations when he picked up the car so he could have what he wanted at the touch of a finger. He’d also programmed a shock jock and a bellicose political commentator for entertainment value. For the amount of time he spent in a car, he wanted some perks. Corvettes were pricey, but the agency wasn’t paying for this trip, he was—and he’d coveted a Vette since high school, like every other speed-crazed teenage male of his generation.

Tony was still parked across the street from the gates of the Fairmont compound, within easy eyeshot of the grand portico and the front door. He needed to think, and this was the perfect place to do it. If it made the rich folk nervous to have him parked outside their front door, too fucking bad.

Alison looked good in bright red blotches, anyway. A couple more wouldn’t hurt her. Abruptly, he switched the music off and rolled his head, stretching his neck. He wouldn’t have thought it possible that she could look more beautiful—or that she would ever have turned her perfect golden locks into something dark and wild. Jesus, what a vixen. Her eyes were big and soulful, her mouth a work of pure, unadulterated sensuality. They’d called her the ice princess when she was a teen. He wondered what they would call her now.

He still couldn’t think of her as Alison Villard. But at least he’d stopped seeing her face on the targets in the firing range. He was no longer obsessed with the trust-fund babe, his pet name for Alison in the old days, but the thought of her with Andrew still rankled. The smug bastard probably thought he’d just faced Tony Bogart down.

Make that
stupid
bastard, Tony amended. He’d been keeping tabs on Villard for a while now, which was how he’d learned about their trip to Mirage Bay. He’d called Villard’s assistant, pretending to be a rep with a Fortune 500 company that wanted to sponsor a charity concert. She’d volunteered that Andrew and his wife were taking a trip to southern California on personal business. The local newspaper item had confirmed their destination as Mirage Bay.

He glanced over at the house. He had a reasonable view of the grounds through the iron bars of the fence. Alison’s bedroom window was around the other side. He could remember climbing the trellis and scrambling inside to be greeted by her wearing nothing but a sexy smile. She was hot, and she knew it. What had pissed him off was the way she’d amused herself with him until someone better came along, and then dismissed him like he was a joke.

He’d known he was losing her when she started making excuses not to see him, and then when she turned eighteen she’d begun to travel on her own, making trips to the Fairmont’s apartment in New York. Tony had seen her hanging around with Villard in Mirage Bay, but she’d sworn he was just a sailing friend, and Tony had believed her. He’d figured the problem was that he, Tony, had nothing to offer. Desperate, he’d convinced her to meet him at a local restaurant, and he’d poured out his heart. He would go to college, make something of himself. He wanted to marry her.

She’d thought he was joking, and her laughter had cut him apart. Worse, there’d been no chance to explain himself. Villard had walked in and Alison had called the man’s name with an excitement she couldn’t conceal. Tony had seen it instantly. They were in love, or at least she was.

The bitch had cheated on him.
She’d laughed at him for his feelings and his dreams. She was probably still laughing. He’d sworn to get her for that.

Was she sleeping in that bedroom with her husband? The man everyone thought had killed her? Tony was still suspicious about her miraculous return from the dead. Fucking convenient that was, especially for Villard. He might be on death row now if Alison hadn’t come floating to the surface.

Men like Villard lived a charmed life.

And so did she. Or had. Once upon a time.

All that was going to change.

Tony pulled his cell from the belt clip and dialed his voice mail. He’d already listened repeatedly to the anonymous snitch’s messages, but there was always the chance he’d hear something he hadn’t heard before. A clue to the snitch’s identity. A hint at the motive for the calls.

The first tip had come in as a voice mail message, which Tony had saved. After that, he’d inserted a modified subscriber identity module, otherwise known as a SIM chip, in the Global System for Mobile Communications slot on his cell. The spy-tech gadget, which he’d learned about during his FBI training, had allowed him to record conversations and permanently save each call. But right now he was only interested in the last message.

He touched a key to play it back.

“The police got everything wrong,”
the whispering voice said.
“Two people died on February second. Marnie Hazelton didn’t kill Butch. She was murdered, too, and then framed for killing him.”

The caller went silent, and Tony remembered thinking the call was over. But the real motive had been to create anticipation, he’d realized.

“Mirage Bay’s real monster is an old friend of yours,”
the voice said.
“Alison Fairmont Villard is the double murderer. She did them both.”

Tony clicked off the phone. He didn’t smile, but he wanted to. He had a very personal stake in this case, and he hadn’t told anyone yet, including local law enforcement. Considering how they’d handled the investigation so far, he didn’t trust them with information this vital. He had more work to do first. With the tipster’s help, he hoped to break this case before he told the cops anything.

Unfortunately, the tipster had never once mentioned motive. No one would be able to make a case against Alison without that, and Tony had no idea what her motive might be. No idea in hell. That’s why he was here.

He closed his eyes, imagining the face of the woman he’d just confronted. The accident hadn’t made her less beautiful, but it had changed her. He’d watched her throat blotch and her hands shake like anyone else’s. That could not have happened to the preaccident Alison. She’d been above it all, supernatural. Now she knew what it was like to be human, and breakable.

She hadn’t walked the same earth as everyone else. She’d floated on a cloud of perfection. Her whole family had. And if Tony couldn’t have been the one to bring her down, he was glad something had. Maybe there was some justice for those born less fortunate than Alison Fairmont, which was almost everybody.

By southern California standards, Mirage Bay was neither an upscale beach town like La Jolla or a funky art enclave like Laguna Beach. There were no brick streets lined with fashionable boutiques, no monogrammed awnings or oceanfront hotels with five-star restaurants and expensive art in the lobbies.

Despite the skyrocketing value of California coastal property, the town had managed to stay small, dusty and decidedly unglamorous. Kids drove from all over to surf the mostly gentle waves, and on weekends, small gangs of rough-and-ready marines from Camp Pendleton took over the main beer joint and pool hall.

“Beach shabby chic” was how one L.A. restaurant critic had described the local ambience. Alison wouldn’t have used the word
chic
in any context, although the weekend flea market did boast fresh-grown organic produce, a variety of handmade items—and Gramma Jo, who was something of a legendary local fortune-teller.

And Mother Nature had been good to Mirage Bay. Cliffs and tidal pools abounded. The towering palms were said to be over a century old and planted by the Franciscan missionaries. And of course, Sea Clouds, the Fairmont compound, was considered one of the most beautiful pieces of real estate in the area.

For serious shopping, you drove to La Jolla’s famous Prospect Street or farther south to San Diego, which was rich with malls. It was her mother’s favorite way to while away an afternoon, but Alison had never been a power shopper. She’d had another preoccupation back in the days when her family had come to Mirage Bay each winter. Alison had had a secret yearning for fame and fortune, for love and attention. She’d desperately wanted to be a rock star, to put it mildly.

Thank God her needs were much more basic today. All she wanted to do was get to the drugstore, which sat between the supermarket and the dry cleaners in a busy strip mall that was the town’s main hub. She’d had to wait for Tony Bogart to drive away before she could leave. He’d sat in that ridiculous Corvette, parked outside the gates, for nearly two hours. It was an obvious attempt at intimidation, but rather than have him following her around, she’d decided to outwait him.

She’d also been debating whether to make a side trip, but had talked herself out of it. The risk of being seen was too great, especially with Bogart skulking around. She’d taken Andrew into her confidence, and he’d promised to help her find out why her phone calls weren’t being answered. For now, she would have to trust him.

Alison was relieved not to find the store crowded as she slipped inside and walked straight back to the aisle where the topical cortisone cream was shelved. In most drugstores, the shelves were periodically rearranged, supposedly to confuse the customers and keep them in the store longer, but not in Mirage Bay. Nothing ever changed here.

Until six months ago, when everything had changed.

Alison had claimed her skin condition was surgery-related, but she’d actually been using the cream for years. The rash had nothing to do with her many operations, but that wasn’t something she could easily explain, so she’d used a convenient excuse. Near fatal accidents, multiple surgeries and transient amnesia were all very handy for explaining away just about anything.

She picked up one of the tubes and read the ingredients. Not the brand she normally used, but close enough, as long as it was effective. This was the worst reaction she’d ever had, probably because her nerves were shot. The encounter with Tony this morning had left her shaken, even though she’d been trying to convince herself that he was only baiting her, payback for the past. It was still hard to believe that he actually worked for the FBI.

“Oh, sorry, I thought you were someone else.”

Alison felt a hand on her bare arm and veered away. She hadn’t realized the comment was meant for her—or worse, that the young woman gaping at her was LaDonna Jeffries. If the town had a gossip, it was LaDonna. She was the last person Alison wanted to see right now.

“Oh, did I frighten you?” LaDonna said. “It’s just that, except for your hair, you look a lot like someone who used to live around here. Alison Fairmont? Anyone else ever tell you that? We called her the ice princess. Funny, huh?”

Not to Alison. LaDonna must not have read the newspaper, which meant Alsion could probably get away with denying everything.

LaDonna peered at Alison, narrowing her eyes and shaking her head. “Wow, you really do look like her. It’s almost
creepy.
Sorry, I’m losing it here. Is there something I can help you with?”

“You work here?” Alison could hear her voice giving out. The intense scrutiny made her feel almost ill, especially since she knew this was only the beginning. Once LaDonna spread the word, everybody would be whispering and staring at Alison as if she were some kind of sideshow freak.

“Is something wrong?” LaDonna asked.

“Yes.” She began to laugh softly. This was all so absurd, trying to pretend everything was fine, that she and Andrew were fine when they were anything but. Trying to remember—and to forget—and holding so much inside. Sometimes it felt as if she were going to crack like a piñata.

“What is it? Are you all right?”

Hysteria bubbled in Alison’s throat. The laughter turned into a coughing spasm when she tried to quell it. “You were right,” she gasped at last. “I am Alison, but it’s Villard now. I got married.”

LaDonna nodded, apparently absorbing the news. “I knew it,” she whispered. “The darker hair threw me off, but I knew I was right.”

Nowhere to hide, Alison realized. Open season.

“And you got married,” LaDonna said, nodding. Tendrils bounced free of the claw clip that held her curly auburn hair. “I heard about that. You married that hot French guy, huh? Congratulations.”

Alison nodded, fighting against her body’s need to erupt in some terribly messy way, laughing or coughing. “Thank you, but we were married four years ago.”

“Are you sure you’re all right?” LaDonna said. “Your voice sounds strange.”

Alison cleared her throat. “It’s the surgery. It affected my vocal chords.”

“Oh, yeah, the accident. You look great, though. No one would know you lost most of your face—or anyway, that’s what I heard. Sorry, that must have sounded gross.”

Alison just stared at her, helpless. She wasn’t about to discuss the devastation to her face. She still felt like a complete freak no matter how good people said she looked. And this one seemed willing to go where angels feared to tread. No sense of boundaries at all.

“Are you sure I can’t help you find something?” LaDonna offered. “Please? I can’t just stand here and yack, they’ll fire me.”