Jasmine Cresswell - Missing

“Detective?” Avery Raven’s voice was low and musical with a charming hint of a Southern accent. Everything about her appearance and manner breathed aristocrat. She paused a few feet away from him, outwardly composed. If he hadn’t been a cop for so many years, Frank would never have caught on to the fact that she was clasping her hands to prevent them from shaking.

“I’m Avery Raven,” she said. “My daughter indicated you need to speak with me, Mr. Chomsky.”

Frank wasn’t surprised that she had remembered his name. In the movies and on TV, the rich rarely noticed the little people. But in his experience, the classier and more educated a person was, the more likely that they had the ability to file away personal details with a precision that rivaled his computer on one of its good days.

“I’m real sorry to intrude, but I’m afraid I have bad news to report.” No point in beating about the bush.

Avery’s cheeks lost a little color but she exhibited no other sign of alarm. “Kate said you have information about…my husband.”

“It’s about Ronald Howatch Raven,” he agreed. “Mr. Raven’s Illinois driver’s license showed this as his home address.” His Wyoming license, of course, told a different story, but Avery wouldn’t pick up on the subtle distinction. Not unless she knew the truth about Ron Raven, which seemed unlikely. Frank was keeping in mind his captain’s warning that this woman had motives to kill Ron Raven, but if she was the murderer, he’d eat his best uniform hat.

“Yes, this is Ron’s home,” Avery said, betraying a first hint of impatience. “What’s happened? Why are you here?”

“I’m sorry to tell you, ma’am, that the police in Miami believe Mr. Raven may have come to harm. He’s missing from his hotel room, and the indications are that he has met with foul play.”

“Foul play?” It was Kate who asked the question. “Do you mean—he’s dead?”

“It’s a possibility, miss. I’m sorry.”

“Oh my God, no! Dad can’t be dead! Mom, didn’t you speak to him last night?”

“No, not last night.” Avery stared straight ahead as she answered her daughter’s question. “We spoke on Sunday. Ron called as soon as he arrived in Miami because he knew I was meeting friends for dinner.” Avery relapsed into silence. She fixed her gaze on Lake Michigan, her classically faultless profile containing no hint of what she was feeling.

Frank addressed himself to Kate. “According to the police in Miami, your father hasn’t been heard from since eight-thirty on Sunday night.”

Avery said nothing in response to this information and her face remained a blank mask. Kate, on the other hand, didn’t seem to have perfected the upper-class skill of hiding her emotions. Her cheeks paled before heating to a fiery red and her eyes filled with tears.

“My father was supposed to fly into Mexico City yesterday morning and there haven’t been any reports of a plane crash. He’s probably in Mexico—”

“I don’t believe so.” Frank spoke quietly but firmly. It was best not to leave these women with false hopes. “The police in Miami are quite sure Mr. Raven didn’t catch his flight. Whatever happened to your father seems to have happened here in the United States.”

Avery Raven brought her gaze back from the lake. “How can you be so sure he didn’t catch his scheduled flight, Officer?”

“The police in Miami have liaised with Homeland Security, ma’am. Controls are tight these days, and the authorities are confident that Mr. Raven didn’t board a flight out of the Miami airport anytime in the past forty-eight hours.”

Kate started to protest again, so Frank quickly provided them with details of the wrecked hotel room, the search of local hospitals and the ominous trails of blood, indicating that at least three people had lost traces of blood in Ron Raven’s hotel room. He ended up telling them about the rental car that had been found abandoned in a restaurant parking lot close to a busy marina, the Blue Lagoon, in Coral Gables.

“What’s the significance of that?” Kate demanded. She sounded hostile, which Frank understood. She was keeping her fear and grief at bay by refusing to accept the official explanation for her father’s disappearance.

“The police in Miami believe that whoever attacked your father may have disposed of his body in the ocean, miss, which would be a very convenient way to insure that we never find it. There are forty-eight boats docked at the marina, and several of them were taken out either late last night or early this morning. It seems likely that somebody at the marina will have seen something.”

“Only if my father really was taken out to sea,” Kate pointed out. “What if he never went anywhere near the marina? What if the rental car location is just a red herring?”

“Then we’ll find that out, too, eventually. Right now, the investigative team is checking on any preexisting links between your father and the people who dock boats at the marina. They also need to check whether any of the boats were taken out last night without the owner’s permission—”

“If the owner didn’t give permission, then there’s no way to find out who actually did take the boat out to sea and we’ll be no further forward,” Kate interjected.

Frank was impressed with her logic. Apparently she was one of those rare people able to reason through a problem even when she was stressed. “You’d be surprised at what trained investigators can discover once they generate a few initial leads. For example, there are security cameras at the marina and in the parking lot where the rental car was abandoned, and the tapes from those cameras are already in police custody. That should help a lot. Unfortunately, there’s no magic shortcut for any of us. The detectives in Miami have to follow each line of inquiry until it runs out. It’s going to take a while for them to have an accurate picture of what really happened but we’ll get there in the end.”

Or not. No point in mentioning the percentage of homicides and missing persons cases that went unsolved despite the best efforts of law enforcement.

“Perhaps my father’s been kidnapped,” Kate suggested. Anything, it seemed, was preferable to believing that her father was already dead.

“It’s possible, miss. But kidnappers usually make a ransom demand soon after the abduction. I assume you haven’t received any such demand?”

Reluctantly, Kate shook her head. “No. Nobody’s called. We had no idea my father was…missing.”

Avery drew in an audible breath and swallowed a sob, her first overt sign of distress. “Excuse me. I have to leave you for a minute.” She turned and walked blindly in the direction from which she’d appeared earlier.

Kate followed her mother, turning to speak to Frank over her shoulder. “I can’t leave her alone right now, but please don’t go. I have so many questions for you still.”

“I’ll wait, miss.” You don’t know the half of it yet.

“Thank you.” Tears poured down Kate’s cheeks. Fighting a losing battle to stanch her crying, she gestured toward the hallway where her mother had just been. “Oh God, I don’t know how she’s going to bear it if he’s really dead. Dad is her whole life.” She turned abruptly and hurried after her mother.

Just what he hadn’t wanted to hear, Frank thought grimly, pacing the luxurious living room. He suspected that accepting Ron Raven was dead would prove easier for Avery and Kate than hearing the truth about how the bastard had screwed them over. Now that he’d actually met the two women, his sympathies were engaged. He definitely wasn’t looking forward to the next fifteen minutes or so. If only Avery Raven had turned out to be the bitch he’d hoped for. Instead, she seemed like a real classy woman who deserved something better than the piece of crap she’d married. The daughter seemed nice, too. Smart as well as beautiful, which made for a hell of a combination, especially when you considered that the enticing package came wrapped in a comfortable supply of money.