Клео Коул - Murder Most Frothy

“That’s Graydon.”

Jim nodded. “Gangly kid in his mid-twenties, right? I can see him getting out of the car…the kid’s not alone—”

“What? Who’s with him?”

“A pretty girl is also getting out. Dark brown hair, shoulder length, kind of like yours. Curvy like you—”

“Let me see,” I cried, snatching the binoculars. I peered through the lenses, focused, and my breath caught. “Oh god. Oh no. That’s my daughter!”

Jim Rand took the binoculars from me, gazed through them, at Bom’s living room. “Felloes is getting up to answer the door himself, which means no servants are around. And that means he wants this meeting to be private.”

Jim faced me. “Call your daughter. Right now. She has a cell doesn’t she?”

I nodded, fumbled for my phone, flipped it open. I didn’t need to toggle to her listing in my speed dial menu. She was the very first number. “What do I say?”

“Jesus, Clare. You’re her mother. If you don’t know how to rattle her cage I can’t tell you.”

Of course ! I pressed send and the call went through. The cell rang once, twice, three times—I held my breath, fearing Joy had turned her own cell off against my express wishes. Just when I gave up hope, I heard my daughter’s voice.

“What is it, Mom?” she answered, clearly annoyed.

“I’ll tell you what it is, young lady,” I replied, my anger countering her irritation. “You’re at Bom Felloes’s house with Graydon. You’re there to pick up a bag of cocaine, which you and your surfer dude boyfriend will then consume!”

“Mom…I…I…”

“Don’t speak because it will only be lies. I know where you are right now, young lady. You just drove up to The Sandcastle in Graydon’s Mini Cooper, and I know what you’re doing—”

“Ohmigod, Mom, how do you—”

“Listen to me. You leave that house and go to David’s at once or I will call the police. I’d rather bail my daughter out of jail than let her destroy her life with the very drug that ruined her father!”

Jim was watching me, clearly impressed. In the shifting light, I saw him nod and give me the thumbs up. But I wasn’t finished yet. It was time for me to deliver the coup de grace. “Joy…You know I have Detective O’Rourke of the Suffolk County Police on my speed dial now. Don’t make me use it!”

Before Joy could stammer a reply, I hung up. For all she knew I was dialing the detective right now.

“What next?” I asked Jim, my blood pumping with adrenaline.

He observed the mansion. “I’d say your daughter will be leaving in about…” He grinned. “Yep, there they go.”

With my naked eyes I saw the Mini Cooper’s headlights spring to life. Jim shoved the binoculars at me, started the boat’s engine. A moment later, we were cutting through the surf on the way down the coast to David Mintzer’s section of beach.

“Look over there!” I cried.

Jim followed my finger, saw the power boat bobbing on the waves in front of David’s mansion. No running lights were visible, it was not even a smudge on the water. I only spied the boat because it was silhouetted against the pool lights on David’s patio, which were shining brightly. Usually the house was dark by this hour of the night.

“Whoever it is on that boat, they don’t want to be seen,” Jim said.

“I know, and that’s usually your MO, isn’t it?”

Jim’s eyes narrowed. He glanced in my direction. “Yeah, Clare. I’d call that suspicious.”

He cut the engine and swerved our boat. Its momentum pushed us silently to shore. “Hold on,” he quietly warned, and we ran aground with a lurch. Then Jim went below and I heard him fumbling around. He emerged chambering a bullet into his handgun.

“My god, Jim—”

“Clare, get below deck and stay there.” His voice was quiet, but its tone had gone hard, sharp.

“But—”

“Now!”

I went down the short stairs, waited until I heard Jim leap off the deck and splash into the shallow water. Then I crept back up to the deck again. I moved into a crouch, my head low. I could see Jim on the shore, playing his flashlight in the sand. Then he extinguished the lamp and vanished into the shadows.

Fearful I’d lose sight of him, I crawled down the side of the boat and slipped into the water, my sneakers sinking into the cold, shallow tide.

I moved across the sand, to the place where Jim had vanished. Despite the pool lights in the distance, I couldn’t see a thing. I wished I had a flashlight, too, then I remembered the tiny blue glow of the cell phone screen. I whipped it out and flipped it open.

With the faint illumination I saw tracks in the sand. Webbed tracks. Flipper prints. As far as I could tell in the gloom, they led up to the rolling dunes fronting David’s mansion. I followed, stumbling along in what I hoped was the same direction Jim took.

Among the dunes, I glanced toward the pool and saw the reason the lights were on. David was lounging in the bubbling hot tub, a drink in his hand. I thought about calling a warning, but David was too far away to hear me—the rhythmic tumbling of the surf would surely swallow my voice. All I would accomplish was to warn the stalker that he was being stalked.

I crossed an empty stretch of sand, then entered another row of dunes and stopped abruptly. Silhouetted against the glare of the deck lights, I saw a figure rise up, rifle with a scope clearly visible. I watched in horror as the figure aimed the weapon at David.

“No!” I shouted at the top of my lungs.

The gunman turned to face me, bringing the rifle around too. But before he could aim, Jim dived over the dune and slammed against the stranger. A loud crack split the silence as the rifle fired into the air, its flash bright among the mounds of sand.

Jim knocked the rifle to the ground, grabbed the intruder by his shoulders and turned him around. When Jim saw the man’s face, he cried out, “Kenny, what the hell are you doing!?”

Kenny? Kenny Darnell? Jim’s paparazzi partner threw a punch at Jim, and the two began to fight.

I cried out for help, but a uniformed security guard had heard the shot and was already cresting the dune, flashlight beam pinning the struggling men.

“Freeze!” cried the guard, pulling his gun.

Kenny panicked. He broke away from Jim and stumbled across the sand.

“Freeze or I will shoot you!” the guard shouted.

“For chrissakes, Kenny!” Jim shouted, “Stop! It’s over! This guard will shoot you in the back. Give it up!”

But Kenny kept running toward the water. I saw the guard drop into a firing crouch and take aim.

“No!” Jim cried, throwing himself in the path of the bullet.

Cursing, the guard lifted his weapon and Jim took off. He caught his partner halfway across the beach, tackling him.

The guard ran across the sand, yelling, “Stay down, stay down or I’ll have to fire.”

A moment later, the guard dropped to his knees in the sand next to Jim and cuffed Kenny. I arrived a moment later. Jim was breathing hard. He tossed me an unhappy, borderline pissed-off look.

I folded my arms and raised an eyebrow. This is the thanks I get?

He shook his head. “I told you to stay on the boat.”

“You also told me I was a thrill junkie. How could I miss my fix?”

“Up and at ’em,” said the guard, hauling Kenny off the sand. I blinked in surprise, finally recognizing the baby-faced guard. “Thomas Gurt? Is that you?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, his pale smooth skin gleaming with sweat. “My aunt asked me to take this shift. She thought something funny was going on. She told me she thought David was being menaced.”

“Alberta said that?”