"Shit! She must have panicked and – " Hope shook her head. "No, not Robyn. She doesn't rattle that easily."
Karl said nothing, but his expression disagreed. The old Robyn would have seen blood and marched over to help. But she hadn't been herself since Damon's death. After witnessing two murders, had seeing Karl covered in blood been too much?
Or had something caught her attention? Lured her away?
Karl followed her trail. This time, it didn't cling to the shadows. She'd made a beeline for the road, crossed to a gas station and headed into a phone booth.
"It ends here," Karl said, crouched in the lot.
"She called a cab."
"That would be my guess."
"So she sees you bleeding, finds the nearest phone booth and calls a cab… Where? Back to the motel?"
Hope checked her cell. No missed calls. Maybe Robyn had run out of change and decided to call from the motel.
She hoped so. Otherwise, she had no idea where her friend had gone.
When they arrived at the motel, Hope leapt from the car while Karl was still parking it. A cleaning woman near their motel room shrank back behind her cart, then relaxed as Hope pulled out her key, as if the cleaner had thought she was racing over to demand extra towels.
Hope opened the door. Their room was empty.
She remembered the cleaning woman. Had she been in here? Hope had told her to come after three, so she could get Robyn out first.
"Excuse me!" she called as she hurried back outside.
The cleaning woman's shoulders tightened, but she didn't turn, as if praying Hope wasn't hailing her.
Hope jogged up beside her. "The room looks great. I just wanted to give you this."
Hope passed her a five. She looked at it, still in Hope's outstretched hand, her sunken eyes wary.
"Really, thanks," Hope said. "I appreciate you coming later for us."
The woman took the money.
"Oh, and before you go. Did you see another woman in my room? My friend was supposed to meet us there."
"Friend…?" She shook her head. "English no good."
Hope switched to Spanish and repeated the question as best she could, though her Spanish was probably worse than the woman's English. Karl came up behind and took over. His international jobs meant he had a working knowledge of about a half-dozen languages.
Karl translated on the fly. There had been someone in their room when the cleaner arrived. A young woman with shoulder-length blond hair, who'd left right after the cleaner arrived. She'd seen her get into a cab a few minutes later.
Hope thanked her. As the woman pushed her cart away, Hope checked her watch. It was 3:15. "Fifteen minutes to clean our room? I think I overtipped." They headed back toward their door. "But I guess that means I can relax. Wherever Rob went, she won't expect the cleaning to be done for a while, so I'll take advantage of the wait and make a few calls."
As Karl opened the door, Hope noticed the light on the bedside phone blinking. "Oh, we have a message. Let's hope it's Robyn."
It was. And she was calling to explain where she'd gone. But it wasn't "to the corner for a coffee."
ROBYN
Robyn's resolve took her within a hundred yards of the police station, then sputtered out. She'd spent the last twenty minutes in a coffee shop, steeling herself for the next step while savoring a vanilla latte like it was her last meal. Maybe, if she was feeling particularly adventurous, she'd follow it with that monstrous slice of Irish cream cheesecake taunting her from the display.
You're a wild woman, Bobby.
She smiled, felt the first prickle of tears and blinked them back. Damon wouldn't want her feeling sorry for herself. He'd expect her to have that cheesecake, fortify herself with sugar and caffeine, and march over to that police station. Well, minus the cheesecake part, but he'd get a kick out of that.
The bell over the café door tinkled and she glanced over. She had looked every time it rang, expecting to see Karl, mysteriously tracking her down again.
By now Hope would have listened to her message and, while Robyn hoped she'd accepted her decision, she knew better. Hope would try to find Robyn to change her mind. She'd expect her to go to the nearest police precinct, so Robyn had made sure not to choose that one or the one where Detective Findlay worked.
The two new arrivals walked in and her heart thudded as she saw their police uniforms. The fear only lasted a moment. Earlier a couple of officers had come in and looked right at her. They hadn't pulled their guns. Hadn't phoned for backup. Hadn't even given her a second glance. Just ordered their coffees and left.
When these two had their coffees, the younger one noticed her, then looked again, his pale brows knitting. His partner bumped into him, jostling his arm, coffee bubbling over the lid. The young officer cursed and grabbed a napkin, and they continued on their way, exchanging jibes.
The younger officer didn't look back, her face already forgotten. It would probably resurface later, when he saw her picture somewhere and the lightbulb went off. By then, she'd already be in custody.
She went up and ordered her cheesecake. While the server was getting it, Robyn pulled out what she thought was money, and it turned out to be the printout of the photo.
The cheesecake arrived and Robyn returned to her table, photo still between her fingers. She smoothed it, then stared at it as she ate.
The young woman behind Jasmine looked familiar. She hadn't noticed it when Hope first showed her the picture. In truth, she hadn't really looked at the girl at all. Hope thought the man was the important one, and the girl was just a poor kid seduced by some bigwig. Another victim in this ugly mess.
It didn't help that the girl wasn't exactly memorable. Average height. Thin, even skinny. Plain-faced. Straight, dishwater-blond hair. Robyn hated that term – dishwater blond. Even worse than dirty blond. She preferred dark blond. But for this girl, Robyn hated to admit, dishwater blond was most accurate. A dull, common color on a dull, common-looking girl.
And it was that description that jolted her memory so fast her fork fell, clattering against the plate, a chunk of cheesecake bouncing off. Robyn had seen this girl before.
When Robyn had started working for Portia, her first self-assigned task had been repairing her client's image problem with the media. She would start by identifying those members of the paparazzi who took the most damaging photos of Portia. Then she'd train Portia how to be on the lookout for them. Presumably, once they realized they weren't going to get a juicy photo, they'd go in search of less media-savvy targets, leaving only those paparazzi who didn't mind selling photos of Portia helping in soup kitchens or attending charity events.
A lofty goal. And it proved how little Robyn had understood her new job. While there were tabloid photos Portia would rather not see, soup kitchen photos didn't make tongues wag. As Oscar Wilde once said, the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about. For the celebutante on the rise, rumor and innuendo were the helium that kept her fragile balloon afloat.
Understanding none of this, Robyn had doggedly pursued her course. She'd scoured back issues of the tabloids, digging up the worst pictures and noting the photographer. One name topped the list. Adele Morrissey.
Adele seemed to be able to find Portia anywhere, in any disguise, snapping pictures of her cuddling with a male stripper while all the other paparazzi waited at the charity function Portia was scheduled to attend. Unable to find identifying information on Adele, Robyn had asked Portia to point out the woman. Portia had laughed. She could barely remember the names of her house staff. She certainly wasn't going to learn those of the paparazzi.