Chapter Three
“Call it again,” I said.
Ben had already hit REDIAL. The notes sounded again and we both moved down the street a few steps, then paused over one of the large flowerpots that lined the edge of the sidewalk. “It’s louder here.” I pushed begonias aside.
“Here,” Ben said as he ended the call, simultaneously putting his phone in his pocket and picking up a small phone with rich, dark soil almost obscuring its shiny gold case. He activated the screen, and I grabbed his arm to lower it so that I could see. “Thirty-six missed calls? Fifty-two text messages?” I asked in astonishment.
“I think that’s normal for Angela.”
“But Cara said she had her phone with her when she left the store. She got all those calls and texts in a few hours?” My mind reeled. I was old, I realized. I couldn’t imagine having that many missed calls, much less texts, in a few hours. I doubted I’d have that many calls when we returned from our vacation.
Ben punched some buttons and scrolled through the incoming calls. “There’s mine,” I said. “At eight-twenty.”
“Lots of incoming calls after that. Several from you and me through this morning.” He switched over to the list of sent calls. “Nothing after eight-thirty last night.”
I studied the street, looking toward my hotel. It wasn’t in sight because the street curved gently back on itself and our hotel was hidden behind several other high-rise hotels. “How far do you think it is to the hotel?”
“Maybe a quarter mile.”
“What are the chances that she dropped her phone by accident?”
“And she didn’t realize it?” Ben asked. “Zero.” He shook his head. “If she’d dropped her phone or lost it, she’d go back and look for it. And if she couldn’t find it, the first thing she’d do is go buy a new one today, even if it was a cheap disposable one.” He punched some more buttons. “I’m calling her brother.”
“I think that’s a good idea.” I leaned against the flowerpot as Ben pulled up the number from Angela’s contact list. After a moment, he said, “Chase, this is Ben. We met in June when I came to pick up your sister.” He explained how Angela hadn’t arrived at the hotel last night, her no-show at work, and how we’d found her phone with no outgoing calls or texts since last night.
I examined the strap on the fake Leah Marshall purse as he talked. This morning, I’d switched to a Fossil crossbody wallet bag in light tan so I’d been able to take the Leah Marshall purse out of the box and carry it on my shoulder.
I listened to Ben’s one-sided conversation. “Right, but would she go off without her phone?” he asked. “Without calling in to work or telling you?”
His jaw tightened. “Was she home last night? Oh, well, don’t you think—”
He threw his head back, studied the sky, then paced away and back, murmuring, “Right. Okay, well, I don’t agree with you . . . but you’re her brother. Sure. You’re on your way there now? I’ll meet you.”
Ben turned to me and said, “He doesn’t get it. He says she’s checked out before—picked up and left without a word to anyone, so we should ‘chill.’ He thinks she’ll turn up in a day or two.”
“She didn’t go home last night?” I asked, fiddling with the zipper on the fake Leah Marshall purse, which was caught at the halfway point.
“Chase was out of town, so he doesn’t know if she was there or not, but apparently that’s nothing to worry about.”
I picked up on the edge of disdain in his words. “You don’t like him?”
Ben shook his head. “I only met him once, but he’s . . . slick.”
Interesting description. I processed that information silently, then said, “Well, like you said, he is her brother and if he thinks everything is fine, then . . .”
“I know,” Ben said shortly.
“I wonder where her car is.” I shaded my eyes to look up and down the street, which was filled on each side with cars parked in parallel slots.
“That’s a good question. I’ll check at the apartment. I know that sometimes she left her car there and walked to work. It’s not that far, and parking is a hassle on the beach road. Chase is on his way to the apartment he and Angela share. I told him I’d meet him there and give him Angela’s phone.”
“If her car isn’t at the apartment, it could be anywhere,” I said, gesturing to the beach road. “There’re several public lots all along the beach.” I glanced at my watch. “While you do that, I’ll pick up the kids from Summer. By the time I get there, it will be almost noon.”
We walked back to the hotel. Before I climbed in the van, I called, “See you in a little while.”
He waved, pulled out of the parking lot in his sporty blue Mazda, and turned into the traffic slowly creeping to the east, the direction we’d walked that morning. I turned the opposite way and inched along. It was late Saturday morning in a Florida beach town on the week of July Fourth. We weren’t going anywhere fast. After a few blocks, I took a road that cut north, away from the beach, and the congestion eased. My phone rang and I glanced at the screen—blocked number—before I answered the call with the speaker.
“Ellie? Is that you?”
I didn’t recognize the female voice, but I got calls at all times of the day and night for my organizing business. Being a professional organizer was a bit like being a realtor. I wasn’t ever really on vacation, even when I was out of town, and with the economic downturn, I couldn’t afford to miss any potential clients. “Speaking,” I said.
“Ellie. Thank God you answered.” A sound came over the line, a raspy gulp like the kids make when they are trying not to cry. My “mom sense” went on high alert, even though I knew it wasn’t one of my kids on the phone.
“Angela?” I asked.
“I need you to take the purse, the fake Leah Marshall—this is really important—take it to my apartment,” she said. Her breathing was rough and there was a tension in her words, an urgency that had me sitting up straighter.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
There was a slight hesitation, then she said quickly, “Yes, I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. Just take the purse, okay?”
“Sure,” I said. “I’m on my way to pick up my kids. I can drop it by later—”
“No!” she cut me off. “You’ve got to do it now.” Her breathing was ragged and her words vibrated with . . . fear, I realized. My heartbeat sped up. I pulled off the road into a Publix and stopped at the far end of the parking lot with the van slewed diagonally over the lines.
“Do you understand?” she asked, her voice tense. “You can’t wait a minute. Take it now.”
“Okay. I can do that. What’s your address?” I asked, opening the van’s console where I keep a pen and notepad.
“Thank you,” she said as she blew out a breath. “12989 Sea Water Lane, Apartment twenty-nine B.”
I jotted down the address. “I was worried about you when you didn’t show up last night and I didn’t hear from you this morning. Ben, too.”
“I’m sorry. I—,” she broke off. “I’m sorry. Tell Ben, I’m sorry . . . about everything,” she said, her last words caught up in a sob.
“Angela,” I said, using the same soothing voice that I spoke in when the kids were hurt or distraught, “where are you? I’m sure everything will be okay. Are you at home?”
“No. That’s not important. What’s important is you take the purse to my apartment and then leave. Do you understand?” Her voice trembled with intensity. “Don’t stay. Just leave it on the porch and get out of there.”
“Okay.” I tapped the address into the GPS, which was still mounted on the windshield from the drive down yesterday. I put the van in DRIVE. “I’m turning around right now.”
A dial tone sounded. I glanced at the purse, which I’d tossed on the passenger seat when I first got in the van. Why the panic, the fear? It was only a purse—and a fake one at that. It was worth probably about ten or twenty dollars total. I hit REDIAL on my phone, but got a message saying the call couldn’t be completed.
The GPS routed me inland along the highway and then south, back toward the gulf. I made a quick call to Summer to let her know I’d be a little late, then called Ben. He didn’t pick up. I was glad the route kept me off the busy beach road, and I made good time, pulling into the Sea Side Garden apartment complex a little after noon.
Located a few blocks inland from the busy beach road, the complex was misnamed, because there wasn’t a drop of seawater in sight, only a shopping complex and a few gated neighborhoods with patio homes. Several high-rise hotels towered over the patio homes, cutting off any view of the gulf. The complex was well kept, with spotless cream two-story stucco buildings topped with terra-cotta roofs. The “garden” part of the name was accurate. The grounds were lushly landscaped with fringy pindo palms shading the walks, which were lined with the low-growing, sturdier sago palms. Purple bougainvillea mixed with ivy trailed over the stucco walls, draping down to low-growing shrubs and flowering ground covers.
I couldn’t find a slot near Angela’s building and had to park on the far side of the complex near the pool. There were several parallel parking slots running along the tall stucco wall that enclosed the property. My parallel parking skills were a little rusty, but I managed to pull into a space on my first attempt. I picked up the purse and hopped out of the van, feeling accomplished as I walked by the vine-covered wall that enclosed the pool. Through the wrought iron gate, I could see a slice of blue water sparkling in the sun. It looked like the pool was only slightly larger than a hot tub, but I suppose if you were only a couple of steps from the beach, you wouldn’t need a big pool. I saw Ben under the residents’ carport near a silver convertible BWM. The convertible’s top was up and he was peering in the driver’s side window. I looked at the number painted on the ground: 29B. “Angela’s car?”
Ben straightened. “Hey, Ellie. What are you doing here?”
I held up the purse. “Angela called me and asked me to bring this by her apartment.”
Ben closed his eyes for a moment and breathed out. “She’s okay? What happened? Where is she?”
“I don’t know. She wouldn’t tell me anything. All she wanted to talk about was this purse. She said I had to get it here right away and leave it.”
“Is she here?” Ben asked, starting toward the apartment building.
“No. She said she wasn’t home.”
He took a step closer to me. It was already shady with all the palm trees and it was even dimmer under the carport. “She wouldn’t tell me where she was and she sounded . . .” I paused, trying to think how to sum up Angela’s state. “Distraught” and “afraid” came to mind, but I didn’t want to voice those words. “She was . . . upset,” I said, knowing it was a pretty mild description, but I couldn’t quite overcome those sheltering, big sister habits. Ben was already worried and I didn’t want to add to his concern.
“Upset, how? Crying? Angry?”
I sighed, realizing that he wasn’t going to let me gloss over her reaction. “I don’t know her that well. Today, she sounded . . . scared.” I watched his face and said, “You’re really worried about her . . . that she’s in trouble?”
He put his hands on his hips and stared down at the car as he said, “Angela’s kind of like this car—you can’t drive it slow, you know what I mean? She’s crazy and fun and wild . . . I’m worried she got herself into something . . . over her head.”
He nodded to the empty slot next to the car. “The neighbor just left, and she told me the car has been here all night—at least, it was here when she walked her dog late last night and early this morning.”
“It’s a nice car,” I said, taking in the leather trim and sleek lines. “Are you sure Angela had money problems?”
Ben shrugged. “I don’t think she’s making payments on this. It was a gift from her dad.”
“I guess she could always sell her car if things got really rough,” I said as we walked to the apartment. “Her brother isn’t here yet?”
“I don’t think so, but let’s check.” We walked up the curvy path and followed the little signs pointing us around the corner to Angela’s building. “How did you get here so fast?” he asked.
“I didn’t take the beach road.”
Angela’s apartment was a secluded ground-floor apartment on the end of the building, a prime spot. It shared a concrete patio with the opposite apartment, which had a pot of petunias beside its front door and a mat that read, WIPE YOUR PAWS. Angela’s door, with only a dry, crinkled palm frond caught under the threshold, looked bare in comparison.
Ben raised his hand to knock on the door, but paused and leaned closer. “That’s odd,” he said, pointing to several deep gouges between the doorframe and the handle of the door. He rapped on the door, and it swung open.