said.
“She is lovely,” Chloe said, and offered nothing more.
At the far end of the pool, they found Victoria standing with two men, both of them late twenties or early thirties, dressed in the appropriate Miami-chic attire, handsome jacket, open-neck shirt, no tie, creased slacks, everything with a designer label. One was a sandy-haired man with a short, spiked-and-gelled cut, and the other was darker, his hair a thick fall that slashed across his forehead. They might have been a pair of rockers on their way up.
“Mr. Smith, you’ve met Victoria, and I’d like you to meet Jared Walker and Brad Angsley. Brad is Victoria’s cousin,” she added, nodding toward the dark-haired man.
“Nice to meet you,” Luke said. “Call me Jack, please,” he added.
“Jack’s one of the up-and-coming designers here tonight,” Chloe explained. “He wants to do a catalogue shoot for his new line while we’re shooting the swimsuit calendar down in the Keys. And I’ve told him that it’s simply no fun being out on an island if you don’t have a boat. A nice little cabin cruiser. And who but you to hook him up?” she asked Brad.
“It’s what I do,” Brad told him, smiling with boyish charm.
Luke was startled when Victoria shivered. “That island—we shouldn’t be going back out to that island.”
Jared slipped an arm around her shoulders. There was sincere affection in both his eyes and his tone as he said, “Victoria, there’s nothing evil about the island.”
“It’s where Colleen disappeared,” Chloe said flatly. She was addressing Jared, but she nodded toward Luke. “Mr. Smith—Jack—is a new client for the agency. We should be hyping the shoot, not scaring him off.”
Brad smiled at Luke. “She’s right. And you’ll love the place. It’s the agency’s own little piece of pristine heaven. Not to mention that it’s three miles from Islamorada, which you must have heard of. It’s the sportfishing capital of the Keys, for sure, maybe the world.”
“Still, it’s true. It is where Colleen suddenly went missing,” Chloe said. Push-pull. She had said they shouldn’t frighten him, yet here she was focusing on the other woman’s disappearance. Clearly she didn’t want to let the conversation drop, and she kept glancing at him, which definitely struck him as strange.
“I did hear about that,” Luke said. “Are they sure nothing happened to her? I mean, why would she just disappear?”
Jared shook his head. “Who knows? Models tend to be emotional and just plain crazy.”
“Hey!” Victoria elbowed him.
“Most models. Some models,” Jared said. “Not you, Vickie. You’re totally sane.”
“But, honestly,” Brad said, lowering his voice, though with the conversations going on around them and the pulsing music playing in the background, it was unlikely anyone could hear them. “Tell me that Jeanne LaRue isn’t a bit on the wacko side.”
“She’s … blunt, that’s all,” Victoria said.
Jared snorted. “She’d walk over her own mother in spike heels if it would get her where she wants to go.”
“But she’s honest about it,” Chloe said. “I like that. What’s that saying? Something about the enemy I can see being less dangerous than the friend I trust?”
“Yeah, something like that,” Brad agreed. He slipped a hand into his jacket pocket and produced a card for Luke. “While I’m thinking about it. We’ll get you set up for the shoot. Lots of people fly in, but you’re not even talking fifty miles, and a boat gives you a lot more control over your schedule. You know anything about boats?”
“Actually, I do,” Luke assured him.
Brad nodded. “Then it will be up to you whether you want a captain to come along or not. Depends what you’ll find more relaxing.”
“Are you associated with the agency?” Luke asked him.
Brad laughed. “No, not really. But I’m Vick’s cousin, kind of like her big brother, so I watch out for her.”
“And Chloe,” Victoria said.
Brad blinked. “And Chloe. Of course.”
“We’ve all known each other a long time,” Jared said.
“So you’re all from the area?” Luke asked.
“Born and bred,” Jared assured him, and grinned. “I have no association with the agency at all, though. I just tag along because we’re all friends, and the girls set me up now and then. I wouldn’t mind doing some modeling, though.” He lowered his voice. “This is actually a big night for me. First time I’ve actually met Myra Allen.”
“Myra likes working from the mansion or, if she even goes along to a shoot, her hotel room. She’s not into the great outdoors,” Brad said.
“She’s a legend, though, and it’s really cool to finally meet her,” Jared said.
“Sounds like somebody’s got a crush,” Victoria teased.
“My only crush is on you. Myra Allen is on a pedestal, to be—worshipped from afar,” Jared assured her.
He was speaking casually, but Luke had seen the way he looked at Victoria, how his eyes softened when he spoke to her, even jokingly. He was in love. Maybe he’d been pining away for years. Victoria might set him up on dates with some of the other models, and he might go, but it meant nothing. He was in love with her.
“Besides,” Jared said, his eyes steely as he spoke, “I don’t buy it that Colleen Rodriguez just up and left. I think something happened to her, so if you girls are going out there, then I’m going, too.”
From the corner of his eye, Luke saw through to the living room and got a fleeting glimpse of someone slipping through on their way to the stairs.
“What do you think—Jack?” Victoria asked.
“Pardon?” he said, distracted. He needed to get away, get upstairs and see what was going on.
He turned to make his excuses and noticed that Chloe wasn’t standing there any longer.
Luke excused himself quickly, saying he was on a search for the loo—a term that made them all smile—and quickly headed inside. He moved carefully through the crowd and up the stairs.
The place was huge—he wasn’t sure how many rooms were up here, but he had a sudden and inexplicable feeling that Rene Gonzalez was in one of them.
He opened the door to a large master suite. No one, though it looked as if someone was living there. He saw pictures on the dresser, and chanced a quick look. The images were of Myra—when she had been young and incredibly perfect.
He left that room and tried the next. There was a bag at the foot of the bed, and the luggage tag said Jeanne LaRue. So she was making the mansion home, too, at least for now.
A
