“In case you haven’t noticed, this vandalism has gotten more than a little personal,” Donovan pointed out. “So let’s try it again. What did you two talk about?”
“Just the usual things men and women talk about when the man is trying to pick the woman up and the woman’s trying to decide whether she’s going to let him. Surely you’ve got a few tried-and-true lines of your own, Donovan.”
She paused for a moment, waiting for a response that didn’t come. Lani suspected that the long, drawn-out silence would work well during interrogations. It was certainly beginning to get on her nerves. And apparently Taylor’s, as well, because her friend caved. As Donovan had obviously expected her to.
“After a while, he asked me if I wanted to have a drink with him,” Taylor finally said. “Since I wasn’t doing any business anyway, I agreed and closed the store early. Of course that was my big mistake.”
“Why?” Lani asked.
“Because I was attracted to him, that’s why. Despite the fact that he was all wrong for me. For heaven’s sake, Lani, haven’t you ever been irresistibly drawn to a man against your better judgment?”
As Lani felt Donovan’s gaze shift to her, she refused to look at him. “Of course I have,” she mumbled. “Are you telling me that things went beyond a drink?”
Taylor tugged her hand loose and began twisting it with the other in her lap. “Oh, I knew it was foolish. He told me up front he was married. And, of course, I was engaged to Ford. But after my third Painkiller—”
“That’s not drugs,” Lani jumped in to assure Donovan. “It’s a drink. A very good one, actually, with dark rum, coconut, fruit juice with nutmeg on top. But it’s lethal.”
“Apparently.” Donovan looked right into Taylor’s eyes in a way Lani recognized. He had a way of doing that which she’d decided also was a result of his police work. “Go on.”
“We went to his boat, which was docked at the marina, and had sex.”
“Do you think perhaps Ford found out about it?” Lani asked. “And perhaps that’s why he left the island?” And you? she thought but didn’t want to say.
“I don’t know,” Taylor admitted. “We went to Da Conch bar instead of The Blue Parrot, where Ford always goes, which I thought would be safer, but it’s possible someone saw us and told him.”
“There’s also a chance the guy who came into your store wasn’t an agent at all,” Donovan said. “Did you ask for identification?”
“No. But I didn’t have to, because he flashed a badge.”
“But you have a name.”
“Bob.”
“How about a last name?”
“I’m afraid not. He probably said it, but either I didn’t catch it in the beginning or forgot after the Painkillers.”
“I told you they were lethal,” Lani said.
“Seems so.”
Taylor Young’s expression was miserable. And looked real enough. But then again, the Cascades Killer had looked as harmless as a choir boy. Which was how he’d avoided setting off internal alarms when he’d shown up at his victims’ campsites claiming to be lost. And Ted Bundy hadn’t coaxed all those girls into his VW by acting like the stone-cold serial killer he’d turned out to be.
“Well, with any luck, the police will have some ideas when they go over this place,” he said.
Taylor paled visibly at his words. “Police?”
“You are going to call them, aren’t you? They’re bound to take the case more seriously now.”
She paused for the space of a heartbeat. It was a struggle, but she managed to regain her composure. “Of course I’ll call.”
Hell. Donovan nodded brusquely. “Of course,” he agreed, taking Lani’s elbow and leading her out of the shop. “We’ll check back later.”
Once outside, Donovan pulled his shades from where he’d hooked them on the neck of his shirt and shoved them onto his face with more force than necessary. “For a woman supposedly unaccustomed to lying, your friend sure tells some whoppers,” he muttered, the bridge of his nose aching as they returned to the Jeep.
“What does that mean?”
“It means that she no more hooked up with some special agent than I did.”
Lani’s eyes narrowed as she looked up at him. His gaze was frustratingly enigmatic behind the lenses of the dark glasses. “How on earth did you come to that conclusion? It was obvious that Taylor was horribly upset about what she’d done. For good reason.”
“I’ll give you that she’s upset. And that she’s got a good reason. But I’m not buying that story. It’s nothing but a smoke screen to keep us from finding out the real reason for the vandalism.”
“You can’t know that for certain,” Lani argued.
“Believe me, after a while you get a gut feeling that tells you when a person’s being evasive, something your friend has been doing from the beginning.”