“Margo, I need help. Stop talking for a minute and listen. My aunt’s missing.”

She filled her in on the information she had, then said, “There’s a man here waiting to talk to Carrie. He won’t tell me how he knows her or what he wants. He’s the strong, silent type. Run his name through the computer, will you? There’s something about him. His name is John Paul Renard.”

“What do you mean, ‘There’s something about him’?”

“He says he’s a carpenter, but he doesn’t look like one.”

“What’s a carpenter supposed to look like?”

“Come on, Margo. See if there’s anything in the system.”

“I’m typing in the name right now. Are you looking for parking tickets or something?”

“I don’t know what I’m looking for,” she admitted. “He’s got this air about him. When I first saw him across the lobby, I was sure he must be an actor, but later, I noticed the way he was watching the people coming and going. He might be . . . dangerous. I think he could be.” She sighed dismissively. “I’m probably overreacting because I’m so worried about Carrie. It isn’t like her to take off like this. Just look up the name, okay?”

“Jeez, Avery. You think he’s a criminal?”

“I don’t know . . .”

“Whoa.”

“What? You found something?”

“Oh, boy, did I. Your John Paul isn’t a criminal.”

“He’s not my John Paul.”

“He used to work for the government. Wait, I’m scrolling down. Whoa. Get this. His file is classified.”

“Classified?” She wasn’t prepared to hear that.

“I’m trying to access . . . ah, here we go. I could lose my job for this, and so could you.”

“I know. Just tell me what you see, okay?”

“Renard was in the Marines. Honorable discharge,” she added. “He was recruited while he was still a Marine according to the file.”

“Recruited for what?”

“I don’t know. It just says ‘special branch operations.’ There’s a bunch of numbers and initials, but I don’t know what any of it stands for.” She read the information to Avery as she scrolled down. She stopped suddenly, then said, “He’s taken a leave of absence.” Then, a few seconds later, she sighed loudly into the phone. “It won’t give me any more information. That’s all I can get because I don’t have the necessary clearance. Hold on. I’m pulling up an old photo ID. Ah, here we go.” She whistled.

“What?”

“I think I’m in love.”

“Get serious,” Avery said. She described John Paul to verify.

“I think it’s the same guy. He’s from Louisiana. He has family there. His brother-in-law is an attorney for the Justice Department.” She read a few more personal facts and then said, “It looks like he went on quite a few missions when he was a Marine. Wait a minute, here’s something interesting. It says one of the missions involved rescuing some hostages in the Middle East, but get this, Renard carried out the assignment despite the fact that he’d suffered a compound fracture of his left arm.” Margo was silent as she scrolled through the rest of his record; then she said, “Beyond the Marine duty, it won’t tell me anything. Do you want me to go to Carter? The man intimidates me, but I’ll do it if you want me to. I’m sure he could get into Renard’s file.”

“No, don’t ask him. At least, not until I think about it.”

“What’s going on?” Margo asked. “What does this Renard want with your aunt Carrie?”

“I don’t know. Listen, Margo, when Carrie called me from the Aspen airport, she said there was a driver there from the spa waiting to take her and two other women to a mountain retreat for the night. Carrie said the spa had trouble with a broken water pipe or something. The driver’s name was Monk Edwards . . . or Edward Monk. I’m not sure which. I know it’s not much, but it’s all I’ve got. I remember Carrie also said the driver had a British accent. Run the name through, and if you find anything, call me on my cell phone.”

“Do you have any idea how many Edwardses there are in the United States?”

“Monk isn’t such a common name, though . . . unless it’s just a nickname.”

“Okay,” Margo said. “Give me your room number at the spa in case I can’t reach you on your cell phone.”

“I’m not staying at Utopia because my reservation was canceled. I’m leaving anyway,” she added. “Carrie said she was staying in a house owned by the spa. I’m hoping she’s still there. If she’s not . . .”

“Don’t borrow trouble. Your aunt probably lucked into something much cooler than the spa. She’ll get in touch with you. You’ll see. And I’ll get right on that search for a Monk Edwards or an Edward Monk.”

Margo had just hung up the phone when it rang again. The call was from the department head reminding her that she still hadn’t turned in her vacation forms. She spent ten minutes finding and then filling out the forms between interoffice business calls, then had to hand deliver the papers to Human Resources. She didn’t get a chance to run the search for Avery until midafternoon.

After she typed the first name Avery had given her and hit the search key, she called out to Lou and Mel as they were heading to lunch and told them about Carrie. Each man had a theory as to what had happened to Avery’s aunt. Lou was sure she went back to L.A.—they all knew the woman was a workaholic and obsessive to boot—but Mel thought she had probably hooked up with a business associate out in Colorado and called the hotel and left a message for Avery, but the spa had misplaced or erased the call.

“I never get my messages when I stay in a big hotel,” he said.

“She probably found something better to do than sit in a mud bath all day and forgot about Avery,” Lou suggested.

“Carrie wouldn’t be so thoughtless,” Margo argued. “She and Avery are really close.” She happened to turn back to her computer screen and noticed the alert flashing. “What the . . .” Scrolling down, she saw in big, bold letters, the priority code. She shouted to Mel and Lou again as she frantically read the information.

“Oh, my God.”

Margo jumped up and started running to Carter’s office.

Chapter 9

MR. TIMOTHY CANNON, DRESSED FOR THE TROPICS IN A white Palm Beach business suit, stepped into the office and introduced himself. He was a dapper gentleman with a soft, prissy voice.

“Have you been able to locate your aunt yet?”

Just then John Paul walked inside. Avery watched him shut the door and then lean against it. When he folded his arms, she noticed the faint scar, about two inches long, on his left forearm. How could she have thought he was an actor? How could her instincts be that off base?

She forced herself to focus on the manager. “No, not yet,” she said. “May I ask you a few questions?”

“Yes, of course.”

Cannon sat down in the chair facing his desk, crossed one leg over the other, and began to straighten the crease in his pants with his thumb and forefinger.

“Do you always send a staff member to the airport to pick up your guests?”

“Yes, we certainly do. We don’t want our guests to be inconvenienced by having to find transportation on their own or carry their luggage.”

“Did you send a staff member to the airport yesterday?”

Cannon smiled. “I see where you’re heading. You’re wondering about the rash of cancellations, aren’t you? It’s so unusual, you see, to have a last-minute cancellation at Utopia. The rooms are booked months in advance, but some of our more prominent guests do have last-minute schedule conflicts, and we try to be accommodating.”

“What do you mean by a ‘rash of cancellations’?”

He looked surprised by the question. He obviously thought she already knew about them. “I had scheduled three separate pickups at the airport yesterday afternoon,” he said. The guests were all ladies,” he thought to add. “One flight, as I recall, arrived at three-fifty. Another came in at four-twenty, and the last was coming in at five-fifteen. I could check and tell you which time your aunt was scheduled to arrive.”

“I’d like the flight information, credit card numbers, and anything else you’ve got on all three women.”

“I couldn’t give you that information.”

Oh, yes, he could. And would, she thought. She didn’t want to put the manager on the defensive yet. She had too many other questions she needed answered first, and Cannon was doing his best to be cooperative.

“If all three women were coming in within an hour or so of one another, why would you send three separate cars?”

“Because this is Utopia,” he answered. “We pride ourselves on excellent service. None of our guests should be expected to wait for another. That would be an inconvenience. So, you see, I was going to send three separate cars, but when all three guests canceled at the last minute, I notified the staff members not to make the trip. As it turned out, we had unexpected guests arrive at our desk last night, and they were thrilled that we had openings for them.”

She filed the information away and immediately asked another question. “Did you have a problem with a water main yesterday? Or a broken pipe?”

“Water pipe problems? At Utopia?” He scoffed at the notion. “There weren’t any problems. We have an excellent maintenance crew here, and they anticipate problems before they arise.”

“You have to get your water from outside the spa. Did one of those pipes break?”

“No.”

“What about a mountain house . . . a retreat?” she asked. “Does Utopia own such a place in the mountains for guests to use when there is a problem?”

His jaw clenched. “We don’t have problems at Utopia,” he insisted. “And the owners of Utopia don’t have a mountain retreat. Clients who come to us stay with us. We don’t parcel them out to other locations.”

After he finished his explanation, he made a point of letting her see that he was checking his watch, then said, “If you don’t have any other questions, I really must get back to work. Most of our clients who come for a week’s stay are checking in today. It’s going to become hectic. I wouldn’t worry about your aunt,” he added as he stood. “I’m certain she’ll turn up soon.”

He was blowing her off. Avery didn’t budge from her chair. “May I have a list of your employees? All of your employees?”

“What do you want with it?”

“I’m looking for a specific name.”

“I pride myself on knowing every one of my employees. Give me the name and I’ll tell you if he or she works for Utopia.”

“Edwards,” she said. “The name is either Monk Edwards or Edward Monk.”

Cannon didn’t show any reaction to the name. He simply shook his head. John Paul, however, reacted as though she’d just thrown a fiery torch at him. He jerked away from the door and moved to the desk with the speed of light. Planting his hands on the blotter, he leaned toward her and demanded, “How do you know that name?”

The look on his face gave her goose bumps. They weren’t the good kind.

A chill of dread settled around her heart. “How do you know the name?” she countered.

“Answer me.”

“My aunt called me from the Aspen airport. She left the message that she and two other women were being driven to a mountain house by a staff member from Utopia. She said his name was Monk Edwards. She also said the man had a British accent.” Turning to Cannon, she asked, “Are there any employees—”

“With a British accent? No, I’m afraid not. Someone is playing a cruel trick,” he said. “I did not dispatch a driver to the airport yesterday. Perhaps your aunt was . . . misinformed.”

John Paul picked up the phone on Cannon’s desk and began dialing. He turned away from Avery and spoke in a low voice, but she still heard every word.

“Noah, it’s John Paul. Yeah, well, what can I tell you. Stop trying to interrupt and listen. I’m at a spa called Utopia just outside of Aspen. Monk’s back. Looks like he’s taken on three this time. Must be going for some kind of a record.”

Avery pushed the chair back and stood. She was reaching into her backpack when John Paul said, “You better call in the troops. We both know they won’t find anything, but you should probably go through the routine anyway. It’s too late,” he added, his tone antagonistic now. “He’s already got them.”

He hung up and started for the door but stopped when she called out, “Where are you going?”

He kept walking. “I’ve called in some people who will help you.”

“What people? The police?”

“No, the FBI.” He paused at the door. “Noah’s a friend of my brother-in-law’s. He knows Monk real well. I’ll let him explain it to you when he gets here.”

“Do you think the FBI will be able to locate my aunt?”

He didn’t tell her that he thought her aunt was already dead and that the agents would eventually, with luck, be able to find the body . . . unless Monk had left her for the wild animals to dine on.

“Yeah, sure.”

“Tell me the truth.”

“Okay,” he said. “I think they’ll mess it up.”

She was taken aback by the venom in his voice. “Why?”

“’Cause they’re FBI.”

She left it alone. “Where are you going?” she repeated.

“I’ll check out a couple of possibilities, but I doubt I’ll find anything.”

“And then?”

“Home. I’m going home.”

If she had a gun, she would have considered shooting him in the foot. He was such a jerk. “You aren’t leaving until you tell me what you know about Monk.”

“Look, lady. There isn’t anything I can do to help you now. I thought I had a head start, but I was still too late. I’ve called in help for you, so just hold tight and let them try to do their job.”

As he left the office, Avery turned to Cannon. “I want the names, addresses, phone numbers, and any other pertinent information you have on those two other women traveling with my aunt . . . the two who canceled. If I don’t get this information in the next two minutes, I swear to heaven I’ll tear this place apart, and I’ll make sure you’re arrested for obstruction. Now get me that information.”