He set the binder down, his eyes sweeping across the bookshelves. What he needed to find was a reason worth killing for. Some verification that Fontaine deserved the title as the world’s next dead man. He could feel it. Every instinct told him that Fontaine deserved his fate. But this time he needed to see it with his own eyes and not rely on the tainted words of others. He needed to find it. A tried and true reason good enough to stand the test of time, not something that would fall apart in a few days and become a guilt engine, following him to that beach in Coronaville where he knew Jennifer McBride’s ghost was already waiting for him on the next chaise longue. Batting her pretty brown eyes and haunting him for the rest of his days.
He slid open the top desk drawer, spotting Fontaine’s checkbook beside a stack of unpaid bills, and another, thicker pile that looked like receipts. He thumbed through the bills first. When he flipped to an invoice from Hollywood Shadows, Inc., he pulled the slip of paper out and grinned. It was an estimate from the security firm Fontaine had hired to protect his life. And just as Cava had guessed, Hollywood Shadows hadn’t been smart enough to ask for their money up front. According to the estimate, all they wanted was a two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar deposit. A down payment made in good faith that occurred last Saturday-the notation written by hand and initialed by one of the losers following Fontaine around.
But even better, it looked like Fontaine had signed up for the economy plan on the nowhere network. The two guys in the Explorer were part-timers. Fontaine feared for his life, yet was too cheap to buy the whole day.
The thought lingered. It all felt good. Reaching for the checkbook, he paged through the register, found a pad and pen, and started to write things down. The only deposits came from Fontaine’s practice and were made every other week. By all appearances he was doing better than well with an annual salary just over a million dollars. After taxes the doctor probably cleared six or seven hundred thousand. More than enough money to pay for his toys and impress his friends, or even buy a decent set of knives, upgrade the windows in the house, and hire a pair of real bodyguards.
But as Cava began to focus on the money going out, he sensed that maybe a million in gross pay wasn’t enough to cover the man’s heavy duty lifestyle. It looked like Fontaine was taking a lot of vacation time. That he was spending everything he made with little or no margin for error. Even worse, it looked like Fontaine was spending everything he made on himself.
The revelation smelled like pay dirt. His first impression of the man had been the right one.
He pulled out the stack of receipts as if they were a set of X-rays and tilted them into the window light. He was seeing it now. Everything was beginning to jell. Fontaine was paying for too many things with cash. That eight-burner stove with the built-in grill in the kitchen. A new treadmill for his gym. Two paintings from a gallery in West Hollywood. When Cava checked the dates on the receipts against the check register, there was no record of any withdrawals from his account.
Pay dirt.
If the purchases had been legit, Fontaine would have used a credit card or written a check. Instead, every single invoice in the stack was marked
PAID IN CASH.
Fontaine was supplementing his bullshit world with free money. He wasn’t a nickel and dimer. It was all about greed and living in the material world. And all of a sudden part two of Cava’s three-part Hollywood deal was righteous.
He looked at his hands. The tremors had vanished. He looked at them for a long time, turning them in the window light. Everything rock steady, everything kill steady-in spite of the cold air.
He turned back to the room, chewing it over. The doctor was living a secret life and obviously on the take. It occurred to him that he might just be stupid enough to keep his cash in the house rather than a safety deposit box at a bank. Everything that Cava had seen so far pointed to him being a certifiable idiot. An amateur. Based on the man’s spending habits, the pile of cash had to be substantial.
But where would he hide it?
Cava began searching the room, certain that if the money was in the house it could only be in two places. The two most private places. Here in the study or down the hall in the master bedroom. He found a pair of filing cabinets in the closet. After locating the keys in the desk drawer, he opened them up and had a look. He checked behind the paintings for a wall safe. Unzipped the cushions in the couch and chairs. Looked behind every book.
And then his eyes came to rest on the fireplace.
There was something wrong with it. Something odd about the way the firebox was cut into the wall. It almost looked as if the house had settled into the ground at an angle and thrown the level of the room off.
Cava felt a tinge in that space between his shoulder blades. He found the switch on the wall below the mantel and pressed it, then looked down at the fake logs. When nothing happened, he hit the switch a second time and watched the ignition spark. In spite of the season, in spite of the draft from the casement windows, Fontaine hadn’t bothered to turn the gas on.
Why? Particularly when it was so obvious that he spent a lot of time in the room.
He took a step back, eyeing the firebox and following the gas line into the floor. The level was definitely off, but he suddenly realized that it had nothing to do with the fireplace. Instead, it was the small sheet of marble laid to the side of the hearth. The stone wasn’t seated into the floor properly.
He checked his watch again. It was only eight-thirty Less than an hour had passed and the Fates had left him alone.
Sinking his fingers into the seams, he pried the stone up and lifted it away. As he peered into the darkness, he felt that rush again. That anxious feeling in his chest. The gas pipes were here and so was the shutoff valve. But nestled between the floor joists was Fontaine’s secret. Counted and wrapped in one-inch packets of hundred-dollar bills.
Cava dug the money out of the floor and counted it, wondering what the doctor had done to earn one point three million dollars in cash. He shook his head, staring at the pile. Knew it would go a long way in Coronaville, and wished that he could see the doctor’s face when he realized that his stash was gone.
He took a deep breath and exhaled, the scent of all that money filling his lungs. Then he pinched himself hoping that he wouldn’t wake up in his car at the airport with an empty box of Lucky Charms. When the cash was still there, when his world didn’t turn to shit, he felt his heart slow down. The muse dancing with his soul.
He still had a seat on the guilt train. All this money wouldn’t change that. But dealing with Jennifer McBride’s ghost would be easier now.
He spotted a gym bag slung over a chair and got to his feet. Ripping it open, he dumped Fontaine’s workout clothes on the couch and scooped up the money. Then he reset the piece of marble, double-checked the floor, and hurried out.
He could smell the cash riding his wake. He could feel the dollar signs buzzing around his head even though he thought that he was immune. But as he reached the landing, he stopped. There was something else in the air. Another fragrance just as fresh and strong.
Perfume. .
Cava spun around. He could hear something.
Tightening his grip on his bounty, he eased down the hall to the next set of double doors. As his view cleared, he took a step back and realized why the alarm hadn’t been armed.
Fontaine’s girlfriend from the office was still in the house. She was standing before him in her underwear. A black bra and panties. The kind Cava liked to look at because he could see through them. He heard the TV going in the room. Some guy from one of those early morning news shows was doing the weather and laughing like a fool at his own joke. She seemed to like it, though, and kept turning back to watch as she made the bed.