Rick Riordan - The Devil went down to Austin

I decided against asking Dwight about this discrepancy. For one thing, I didn't want to admit having the datebook. For another, Pena might not have written down every meeting for his secretary to see.

Dwight apparently took my silence for disapproval.

"I wasn't implying anything," he assured me. "Miss McBride… I mean, I never saw them talking business. Matthew just got along well with her socially. She was a lot like Miss Selak-same personality, same interests. It probably just made Matthew feel better, being with her."

Dwight's assurances about Ruby left me ten times more unsettled than I'd already been, but I didn't tell him that.

"Last question," I said. "Did you tell Pena about Jimmy's call?"

Dwight nodded slowly. "I told him that if Jimmy was right about the sabotage, I would go to the SEC. Matthew just laughed, told me I was crazy and I should stick to what I do best-finding him fresh blood."

"And a week later, Jimmy was murdered."

Dwight's eyes were small brown points of pain. "Why do you think I'm talking to you?"

In daylight, Ruby's property looked much less romantic-a series of eroded limestone shelves, dotted with twisted live oaks, sloping down toward the shore.

I'd noticed the illuminated sign at the gates the night beforePOINT LONE STAR, docking services, day trips, eats. Back from the road was a much older sign-deep block letters burned into a weathered square of wood. It was barely readable now, but the underbrush and tree branches had been carefully trimmed away from it. MCBRIDE

FARMS-pecans, peaches, in season.

The giant padded forklift was bringing a yacht out of the warehouse. On the deck of the floating restaurant, couples were having lunch. Up the hill, construction workers were taking a soda break in the driveway of Ruby's tower.

I parked my truck in the marina lot, watched the boat jockeys, and pondered my next move.

I grabbed my backpack, got out of the truck, and took a stroll toward the pier.

It was easy enough to get past the boat jockeys. The security gate was open. When I asked one of the dockworkers where Ruby was, he told me she'd gone into town on business. I tried to look disappointed.

"Tell her Mr. White would like to see her on his yacht when she returns," I said. "Tell her it's about the purchase of the new sixty footer."

The dockworker let me pass.

I walked down the pier, scanning names of boats without slowing down. Fortunately, Ruby's was conveniently named the Ruby, Too-a white Sea Ray with bright red trim, docked in wet slip 12B.

I climbed aboard, dropped into a squat next to the main cabin door, out of sight unless another boat happened to come up from the stern. I put on surgical gloves and opened my backpack, spread out my leather roll of lockpicking implements. I chose the one for deadbolts-a thin metal rod curved like a W at the end.

In a few minutes, the lock clicked? the door slid open with a sigh.

At the bottom of the stairs was a large living room/workroom with a kitchenette in the back. One wall was devoted to computer equipment-two highend Dell workstations, a portable power generator, a wireless modem setup, a colour printer, and several backup tape units. The trash can was full of Pecan Street Ale bottles. An incense holder on top of one monitor was loaded with a halfburned stick of copal. Sticking out of a CD tray was Buffett's latest live recording. All the signs that Garrett and Jimmy Doebler had once worked here. This was the room where Techsan had been born.

I spent too much time booting up the computers, only to find I couldn't get past the first password.

I went down a narrow hall into the sleeping cabin. Open boxes were filled with winter clothes-sweaters, longsleeve shirts, things Ruby wouldn't need for months. The bed was made, though there was an impression like a snow angel in the centre, as if Ruby had lain there looking at the ceiling.

On the dresser were photographs. One showed a young Ruby in graduation robes, standing next to an older, rustyhaired man in a tuxedo-her father, I assumed. Ruby was smiling brilliantly, as if to make up for her father, who stared out at me with a slightly dazed expression. The next photo showed Ruby midair during a parachute jump. Another photo was Ruby in scuba gear, underwater, waving as she floated over a bank of coral. The final photo showed Ruby and Jimmy together, standing on a beach. I compared the photos, didn't like what I saw. In each, Ruby had the expression of a thrillseeker. Her excitement seemed forced, her eyes too wild, as if her desire to have fun was almost desperate-as if she'd never yet caught fire with anything, and was beginning to fear that she couldn't.

What I liked least was my own imagined addition to her photo collection-Ruby standing next to Matthew Pena, signing away her company. Garrett's company.

I checked the nightstand drawer. It was locked. I picked it open. I found a. 38 calibre automatic and a halffinished pint of Jack Daniel's.

I sat on the bed, deliberating whether to call Lopez about the gun. By breaking in, I'd rendered all potential evidence useless, of course. If it became known that I broke in. I wondered if Travis County would serve a search warrant based on an anonymous tip.

I doubted it.

I turned my attention to the moving boxes, found that a few of them contained archived paperwork-more than I could possibly read. There were orders for boat repairs, personnel files on boat jockeys, maintenance records for numerous yachts. Letters from an accountant documented financial troubles the marina had been suffering from in the early 1990s.

From a box marked 1990 AND PRIOR, I pulled a stack of yellowing brochures that announced the opening of the marina in 1975. POINT LONE STAR, Rouell McBride, Proprietor. Behind these was a whole folder full of photographs that Ruby's father had apparently considered using for promotional materials. Many of them were ancient black and white shots showing the family orchards before they'd been flooded. In one, a large family sat under a pecan tree, rows of other pecans stretching out behind them, a split rail fence running along one side. Afternoon sunlight filtered through the branches. The darksuited patriarch sat on a folding chair, his wife beside him in a white Edwardian dress. Children of various ages fanned out on either side, sitting crosslegged on quilts-the boys in coat and tie, the girls with bobbed hair and 1920s dresses. It was obvious they were all McBrides. I could imagine the photo in colour-so many green eyes, so much red hair.

A note paperclipped to the back of the photo was written in what I assumed was Ruby's father's handwriting: The McBride name has been an institution-Here a few words were scratched out-The McBrides have been landowners on Lake Travis-more scratch outs-No one knows the lake better than the McBrides. Trust us for all your boating needs.

I looked at the brochure. Mr. McBride hadn't used the old photo. He'd opted instead for glossy colour aerials of the marina.

A little more digging in the clothes boxes got me something I had not been anxious to find-a letter from Matthew Pena, folded into the pocket of Ruby's winter coat. It read: Next weekend, then. I'll see about the Farallons. Fondly, Matthew.

Hardly damning evidence of anything illegal, but it meant that sometime during the winter, very possibly before Matthew approached Techsan, he'd been corresponding with Ruby McBride. And while Ruby was still married to Jimmy, she'd been talking to Pena about a weekend trip to San Francisco-a boat ride out to the Farallon Islands.

I crumpled up the letter, made it into as small a ball as I could. I had an irrational impulse to overturn Ruby's nightstand, dump her boxes on the carpet.

The only thing that sobered me was thinking what Garrett would do if he'd found the letter instead of me. If he blamed Ruby for abandoning him, then watched her marry Jimmy Doebler, and then, on top of it all, suspected Ruby was spending time with Matthew Pena… betraying both of them. I thought about the night Jimmy had died-Garrett getting so angry upon hearing Ruby's name that he'd shot off the kiln goddess' arm.