Swimsuit - James Patterson [22]
Handsome people in fresh suntans and translucent clothing in snow-cone colors dropped into chairs at the railing while singles took the high-backed stools at the long bar. Laughter rose and fell like the warm breeze that gusted through the wide-open space, riffling hairlines and skirt hems as it passed.
The piano player uncovered the Steinway, then turned sideways on the piano seat and broke into an old Peter Allen standard, delighting the crowd as he sang “I Go to Rio.”
I noted the security cameras over the bar, dropped several bills on the table, and walked down the stairs and past the pool, lit now so that it looked like aqua-colored glass.
I continued past the cabanas, taking a walk that Kim might have taken two nights ago.
The beach was nearly empty of people, the sky still light enough to see the shoreline that ringed the whole of Maui like a halo around an eclipse of the moon.
I pictured walking behind Kim on Friday night. Her head might have been down, hair whipping around her face, the strong surf obliterating all other sound.
A man could have come up behind her with a rock, or a gun, or a simple choke hold.
I walked on the hard-packed sand, passing hotels on my right, empty chaises and cockeyed umbrellas as far as I could see.
After a quarter mile, I turned off the beach, walked up a path that skirted the Four Seasons, another five-star hotel where eight hundred bucks a night might buy a room with a view of the parking lot.
I continued on through the hotel’s dazzling marble lobby and out to the street. Fifteen minutes later I was back sitting in my rented Chevy, parked in the leafy shadows surrounding the Wailea Princess, listening to the rush of waterfalls.
If I’d been a killer, I could’ve dumped my victim into the surf or slung her over my shoulder and carried her out to my car. I could’ve left the scene without anyone noticing.
Easy breezy.
Chapter 27
I STARTED my engine and followed the moon to Stella Blues, a cheerful café in Kihei. It has high, peaked ceilings and a wraparound bar, now buzzing with a weekend crowd of locals and cruise ship tourists enjoying their first night in port. I ordered a Jack Daniel’s and mahimahi from the bar, took my drink outside to a table for two on the patio.
As the votive candle guttered in its glass, I called Amanda.
Amanda Diaz and I had been together for almost two years. She’s five years younger than me, a pastry chef and a self-described biker chick, which means she takes her antique Harley for a run on the Pacific Coast Highway some weekends to blow off the steam she can’t vent in the kitchen. Mandy is not only smart and gorgeous, but when I look at her, all those rock-and-roll songs about booming hearts and loving her till the day I die make total sense.
Right then I was aching to hear my sweetie’s voice, and she didn’t disappoint, answering the phone on the third ring. After some verbal high fives, and at my request, she told me about her day at Intermezzo.
“It was Groundhog Day, Benjy. Rémy fired Rocco, again,” Amanda said, going into a French accent now. ‘What I have to say to you to make you think like chef? This confit. It looks like pigeon poop.’ He put about twelve ooohs in poop.”
She laughed, said, “Hired him back ten minutes later. As usual. And then I scorched the crème brûlée. ‘Merde, Ahmandah, mon Dieu. You are making me craaaaa-zy.’ ” She laughed again. “And you, Benjy? Are you getting your story?”
“I met with the missing girl’s folks. They’re talking to me.”
“Oh, boy. How grim was that?”
I caught Mandy up on the interview with Barbara, told her how much I liked the McDanielses and that they had two other kids, both boys adopted from Russian orphanages.
“Their oldest son was almost catatonic from neglect when the police in Saint Petersburg found him. The younger boy has fetal alcohol syndrome. Kim decided to become a pediatrician because of her brothers.”
“Ben, honey?”
“ Uh-huh. Am I breaking up?”
“No, I can hear you. Can you hear me?”
“Totally.”
“Then listen. Be careful, will you?”
I felt a slight burr of irritation. Amanda