I was back to thinking about Qwendar, John, and David. “So if Qwendar was using the meeting with John to set up the cause for my suicide, that means he’d been planning this for a while. Maybe he was controlling John and that’s why he said all those terrible things to me,” I added with a flare of hope.
“I wouldn’t pin too much hope on that,” came the depressing answer. “The Álfar are notoriously inconstant.”
“Look, I’m not in love with John or anything like that. I just feel responsible because he gave up his freedom for me and Destiny and Chastity…” I realized I was sounding defensive and I shut up and returned to a more pressing issue. “But how did you know something was wrong and how did you know to come here?”
“One of your clients called me. Jolyon Bryce.”
It was as if a line of ice water had run down my spine. I slowly turned my head and studied the horse that stood with his head hanging over the stall door. “He owns Vento,” I said softly.
“He said his phone rang. It was your cell number and he could hear voices but couldn’t make out the words. There was something about the tone of the voices that alarmed him, and he heard horses in the background. He called the firm’s answering service, they called me, and I called him back. He caught me just as I was getting back to the hotel. Which put me close to the freeway, and at this time of night…” He checked his watch. “Morning. It didn’t take long to get here.”
I stood up, went over to my purse, took out my phone, and studied it. “That doesn’t make any sense.” I checked the called numbers. The last call it registered was the one I’d made to David back in New York. “The phone doesn’t show a call to Jolyon.”
“So maybe if it’s an accidental thing it doesn’t register it?”
I shook my head. “They don’t work that way. If it had purse-dialed Jolyon it would have registered.”
“I would say that’s the smallest mystery we have to solve tonight. However it happened it got me here,” David said.
“I know, and I’m glad you came. I just don’t understand.” Vento nickered softly to me. I walked over and stroked his muzzle, and he pressed his head against my chest.
Then the police arrived and things got interesting.
Detective Turnbow of the Burbank Police was not as sympathetic as Detective Rodriquez had been. He was a sallow-faced, narrow-chested man who moved like he was on stilts. He listened to my story with a sour expression, and when I finished he said, “So you were rescued by your horsey?”
At this point it was five thirty in the morning. Adrenaline had given way to bone-crushing exhaustion, and diplomacy was just right out. David stirred in his chair, but I got there first.
“Look, I’ve been kidnapped, nearly killed, and before all that I flew across the whole damn country. I’m the victim here. Yeah, and my horse saved me. He’s at least as smart as you and maybe even—”
David laid a hand on my arm as Turnbow’s chest started to puff out and his face turned a blotchy red. “Are you trying to imply that Ms. Ellery was somehow complicit in this man’s death? There is blood on the horse’s hooves; it’s clear what happened.”
“Well, let’s talk about this mysterious second kidnapper, this Álfar guy.”
“Yes, he was the mastermind. He hired the driver,” I said.
“Yeah, and he was at a pre-Oscar party in Bel Air. Which is miles away from the Equestrian Center. People saw him there.”
“How many people were attending?” David asked.
“Hundreds.”
David’s lip curled with derision. “So, a mill-and-swill. People moving from room to room, even outside. Easy enough to establish you were there and then slip away.”
“The people on the door checking invites said he never left, and the valet guys say he asked for his car at two thirty a.m.,” Turnbow said triumphantly.
I jumped back in. “Are you just being deliberately obtuse or are you really this stupid?” I practically snarled. “Everyone knows that Álfar can move through Fey. In that crowd no one would have noticed him leave, and Fey doesn’t have traffic jams, and he probably had someone waiting to take him to the airport. He went back to the party the same way.” Putting it into words answered another question that had been nagging me about Jondin, but for once I didn’t confuse the issue by blurting out what I was thinking.
“And your proof?”
“I saw him appear out of Fey, and he said to the driver he had been establishing his alibi,” I said.
“And the only person who could corroborate that is dead,” Turnbow said.
David stood up. “We’re done here. Unless you are charging Ms. Ellery with something, I am going to take her home.”
“I guess you can take her. But don’t leave the state.”
David took my arm and swept me out of the interrogation room. I stumbled and he transferred his grip to my waist. The pressure hurt and I sucked in a breath.
“What?”
“I think I cracked a rib.” He removed his hand. I also felt that burning, hollow feeling that absolute terror bestows on your gut. “Is he going to charge me with killing that guy?” I asked.
“No!” A single word and quite explosive. “No matter how improbable, it’s clear what happened, and I’m confident that Charles will be found to have a rap sheet as long as my leg.”
“What about Qwendar?” I asked as we stepped outside. It was a relief to escape the odor of stale coffee, microwave burritos, and the inchoate smell of sweat and desperation. In the east a pale line of gray and pink road appeared, outriders for the coming sun.
“You know the answer to that,” David said.
“They can’t touch him,” I said leadenly. “But he can still reach out and touch me.”
“I don’t think he’ll dare. If something untoward happened to you now, people would remember your accusations. And he would have me to contend with.” I looked up. There was something grim in his brown eyes, and his jaw was set in a tight line. “Let’s get in the car before the sun comes up. I forgot my umbrella,” he snapped.
I scrambled into the car. It was a short drive to the Oakwood. As we headed down Riverside David suddenly said, “Are you hungry? You always seem to get hungry after one of these episodes.”
“I could eat, but I don’t want to sit in a restaurant. I can’t face noise or people right now. There’s a donut shop on Pass Avenue,” I offered.
David turned left at Pass and pulled into the parking lot of a strip mall that contained a bank, a grocery store, a tiny Japanese restaurant, a French bakery, and the donut shop. He parked in front of the donut shop, which was doing a rousing business. He nosed the Sebring in between a pickup truck festooned with a ladder and paint cans and a truck sporting lawn mowers, rakes, and leaf blowers.
“What do you want?”
“Why don’t you let me go in? The sun’s almost up.”
“If you hurry and tell me I can make it.”
“Glazed raised, chocolate raised.”
“Ah, comfort food,” he said, and throwing open the door he sprinted into the shop.
He came back out a few minutes later clutching a paper sack that was already starting to show grease stains from the decadent, sinful goodness inside. By the time we reached the Oakwood the sun was up.
“Wait here. I have an umbrella in the apartment,” I ordered.
I took the donuts with me and trudged up the stairs and through the door into the hall, then unlocked the door of my apartment. I then headed back down with the large umbrella. Climbing hurt my ribs, and I noticed that my legs felt rubbery by the time I reached the parking lot. I opened the umbrella and held it for David as he got out of the car. It seemed that California was, at last, going to live up to its reputation as sunny.