“The first part was easy,” Shawn said. “He’s wearing a watch that looks like it costs more than your car.” Shawn glanced down at the Timex on his wrist. “Of course, so am I. But his looks like it costs more than a good car-until you notice that the leather strap is actually plastic. It’s a cheap knockoff. His tan is sprayed on. There was a dried water spot on his silk tie where he tried to wash off a stain instead of spending a few dollars on dry cleaning, and his manicure is weeks old. He’s not used to getting them, or he’d never have let it get chipped like that.”
“That’s how you knew he was a recent transplant,” Gus said. “But what makes you think he’s the killer?”
“It was the way he reacted when he thought I was reading his mind,” Shawn said. “He panicked. But there was nothing I was saying that everyone in the room didn’t already know. They’d all been here when he arrived at the firm; it wasn’t a secret he was from out of town. And the fact that he hasn’t won a big case since he got here is the kind of statistic that every lawyer in a firm like this knows. He was afraid I was going to reveal something they didn’t know. Which means he’s got a secret.”
“Maybe he watches Supernanny, ” Gus said.
“Yes, that’s it,” Shawn said. “He’s got bad taste in reality television. Or he’s a killer with recent blood on his poorly manicured hands. Either way, we’re going to be right by his side until we know for sure.”
At first this sounded reassuring-at least until Gus thought it through. “We’re going to be right by his side in a tiny cabin hundreds of feet in the air.”
Shawn ignored the obvious implications. “And then we’re going to be with him at some fabulous resort,” Shawn said. “And we’ll have to stick with him wherever he goes. To the pool, to the spa, to the five-star restaurant. We’ll make the sacrifice.”
“What makes you think we’re going to some fabulous resort?” Gus said.
“It’s a corporate retreat,” Shawn said. “Remember the one you went on?”
Several years ago Gus’ pharmaceuticals company had hosted a retreat for its entire sales force at the Four Seasons in Santa Barbara. Gus had spent three of the most glorious days of his life sipping fruity concoctions by the pool while flotillas of waiters came by to offer gleaming silver trays piled high with the best finger food he’d ever tasted. It wasn’t until the end of the weekend that he realized he’d been supposed to sit through a series of seminars and training sessions, and that his failure to do so meant he’d never be invited back for another retreat.
“That was completely different,” Gus said.
“Sure, a pharmaceuticals company has to spend some of its money actually making products, so they can’t blow it all on their retreat,” Shawn said. “What kind of expenses does a law firm have besides legal pads? Because if you buy them by the ten-pack, you’d be surprised how cheap they are. Which means they can put on one hell of a weekend.”
Gus was sure there was something wrong in Shawn’s reasoning. It all sounded so perfect, so appealing that there had to be a catch. But as he worked it over in his mind, there was nothing that stuck out. Maybe they had finally found something too good to be true that wasn’t.
“Let’s go catch a killer,” Gus said.
“Right after we catch some shrimp.”
Shawn tossed the manila envelope back on the table. Files scattered its length.
“Don’t you think we might need those?” Gus said.
“For what?” Shawn said. “We already know who our killer is. What else could possibly be in that envelope that we’d need?”
“Maybe there’s a second killer,” Gus said.
Shawn glared at him as if he’d just handed him a surgeon general’s warning that cocktail sauce causes cancer. Then he let out an exaggerated sigh, marched back to the table, and scooped all the files together, shoving them back in the manila envelope.
“Happy now?” he said. “You can read these when I’m checking out the previews on Spectravision.”
Gus was happy. As they left the conference room, he was filled with a feeling of great contentment. This case had started out as a chore, turned into a nightmare, and now was looking like it was going to be the best job they’d ever tackled. To go on a luxury retreat and reveal a killer while they were there; people shelled out small fortunes for murder mystery weekends like that. Only this one was real-and they’d be getting paid. Gus couldn’t imagine anything better.
He might have, though, if he’d noticed the other paper that had fallen out of the envelope when Shawn tossed it on the table. Unfortunately, the glossy brochure had slid along the polished surface and fallen to the floor, where neither of them saw it.
So Gus never saw the photos of the barren mountaintop, or the tiny raft swamped by enormous waves, or the string of climbers hanging from a line pitoned into a sheer cliff face. He never read the slogan “A bond that will never break.” And he never saw the name of the company that had put the brochure together:
High Mountain Wilderness Retreats.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Gus had always wanted to ride in a helicopter. If he had ever put together a list of things he wanted to do before he died, the chopper flight would probably come in no lower than number seven, right below “Win the Tour de France” and just above “Make up a list of things to do before you die.”
But no helicopter ride he had ever imagined came close to this one. Because all the helicopters he’d ever imagined were drawn from some kind of objective reality. And Gus’ reality never included the kind of fantasies that only the truly rich indulge in.
From the outside it looked like any large chopper. But once the passenger door slid open, Gus and Shawn were staring into the most opulent living room they had ever seen. The walls and deep armchairs were covered in a fabric woven by the only company in the world so exclusive that it became famous for keeping Oprah out. A giant flat-screen dominated the front of the passenger compartment; a Sub-Zero Wine Captain filled with every conceivable beverage nestled below it, alongside a cabinet of stemware Gus suspected was Baccarat.
What was most remarkable about the helicopter didn’t become apparent until the doors had closed and they started to lift off the ground. Gus was expecting the ride to be so deafeningly loud that conversation would be impossible except for a few shouted exchanges. But the chopper’s cabin was no louder than that of his Echo.
Not that the silence made conversation any more appealing to the passengers. As soon as the lawyers belted themselves into their armchairs, each pulled out an iPhone or a BlackBerry and started typing as if they were afraid their thumbs were going to be amputated as soon as they landed. If they were excited to be going on this retreat, they certainly didn’t show it. None of them had even changed out of office attire, or in the case of Jade Greenway, her enveloping green aura. You’d think at least one guy would have slipped into his Tommy Bahamas to be ready to relax on arrival. But they might as well have been flying off to take the world’s longest series of depositions.
Gus was content to ride in luxurious quiet all the way to wherever they were going. He could use this time to study the files Rushton had given them. At first he was concerned that the lawyers would notice he was reading up on them and demand to know why. But ten minutes into the flight not one of them had even glanced up from their devices long enough to acknowledge that he was in the cabin. Gus flipped open the tray table from his armrest and started to page through the file.
It was every bit as exciting as he would have expected a law firm personnel file to be: a collection of CVs, each with a picture stapled to it. Gus was hoping that Rushton might have included a little note here and there to give them some inside information, but there was nothing.