“No. The pot has been stirred and Oxlade is about to piss in it.”
“By leaving in the middle of the night?”
“It will be interesting to see how the Guilfoyles react tomorrow when they discover he’s gone.”
“They won’t be happy,” Maggie said. “But you and I are going to have another problem. Tomorrow is the last day of the conference. There’s a farewell cocktail party in the evening, and that’s the end. We won’t have any excuse for staying on to investigate.”
“I don’t think we’re going to need an excuse,” Sam said.
She shot him a quick, searching look. She still couldn’t make out his expression, but once again there was no mistaking the conviction in his words.
“What makes you so sure?” she asked.
“The Guilfoyles are trying to build an impressive business, but there are major cracks in the foundation. Lies. Murder. Blackmail. Drugs. Sooner or later it’s all going to fall apart. I’m betting on sooner.”
“Is that your intuition talking?”
“It is.”
Chapter 38
Oxlade checked the cap on the cologne bottle, making sure it was tightly fastened before he positioned it securely in the leather Dopp kit.
In a few more minutes he would be in the car and heading for L.A. Safe. That was all that mattered now, getting away from the Institute. The panic that Margaret Lodge had triggered was getting worse. His heart was racing and his hands were trembling so badly he could barely get the Dopp kit closed.
From the start he had been worried about the arrangement with the two con artists who called themselves Guilfoyles these days, but he had been desperate to continue his experiments. They had offered him what he needed to complete his research: an unlimited pool of test subjects. When he discovered Margaret Lodge on the opening night of the reception and realized he might be able to resume his experiments on her, he was certain the risks were worthwhile. It had all seemed too good to be true—and, of course, it was.
Like a gullible fool he had fallen for the Guilfoyles’ lures. He, of all people, should have known better than to get involved with them again.
He sensed a presence in the bathroom doorway behind him and stopped breathing. He looked up from the shaving kit. His shocked gaze locked with that of the figure reflected in the mirror over the sink.
“What are you doing here?” he squeaked.
The hammer slammed into the back of his skull. The pain exploded through him and then there was nothing. He never felt the next three entirely unnecessary blows.
* * *
The killer stared at the body on the floor, fascinated. So much blood. It was everywhere—the tiles, the sink, the mirror. The mess was . . . unexpected.
The killer stopped focusing on the bloody scene and started searching for the drug. Oxlade had almost finished with the packing. He would have made certain the enhancer was secured, most likely in one of the suitcases.
A few minutes later panic set in. Both suitcases had been dragged out of the car and were now open on the living room floor. There was no sign of the enhancer.
The killer returned to the bathroom and tried to think logically. Oxlade had been about to pack the Dopp kit. He had saved it for last. But the suitcases had already been closed and latched. That indicated Oxlade hadn’t planned to put the shaving kit in one of them. Why pack it separately?
The killer stepped over the body, opened the shaving kit, and examined the contents for a moment.
The cologne bottle.
The killer unscrewed the cap, sniffed cautiously, and smiled. No scent.
Cologne bottle safely tucked into a coat pocket, the killer turned to leave—and stopped. The partial imprint of a shoe was clearly etched into one crimson blob on the floor.
A towel took care of the problem. The last of the rain would muddy any prints left on the ground outside the villa.
The killer turned off all the lights on the way out. Oxlade would not be found until mid-morning, when someone at the Institute finally noticed he had not arrived to give the farewell lecture.
Chapter 39
I ’ve been thinking about what almost happened to you tonight,” Maggie said.
They were in her room. Sam lounged in a chair, legs outstretched, and watched her pace. They had been discussing how the Guilfoyles might deal with the bad publicity that would strike the Institute when they and everyone else discovered that Oxlade had vanished.
Without warning Maggie had abruptly reverted to the topic of the near miss in the parking lot. Sam reminded himself she had a tendency to take unpredictable turns at a high rate of speed.
“Look on the bright side,” he said. “If it wasn’t an accident—if someone really did try to take me out of the picture—we can eliminate several suspects.”
Maggie stopped and turned to face him. “You mean Dr. Oxlade and Guilfoyle?”
“Yes. You’re their alibi. You saw them onstage during the performance and again immediately afterward. Neither of them would have had time to jump into a car and race over to the hotel parking lot to wait for an opportunity to run me down.”
Maggie’s expressive face tightened. “What about Dolores Guilfoyle?”
“Wasn’t she at the demonstration?”
“She introduced the dream reading, but I didn’t see her again until Guilfoyle and I walked into the lobby. After she greeted the audience she could have driven over to the hotel parking lot and waited for you to come out to get the car.”
He thought about that. “She was in the lobby of the Institute after the demonstration.”
“Yes, but when did she show up there?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I wasted several minutes in the parking lot of the Institute trying to find a Ford with a hot engine.”
“And I was stuck in the theater with Arthur Guilfoyle.”
“The timing would have been tight, but it could have worked for her,” Sam agreed. “She would know where to conceal the car on the grounds of the Institute, and she would know all the back-door and side entrances of the main building.”
“What about the three dream guides?” Maggie asked. “One of them might be mixed up in this.”
“Did you see them during the demonstration?”
“I saw all three at the beginning when they seated us. I didn’t see any of them again until Guilfoyle and I returned to the lobby.”
“Larry and Jake were acting as valets for the guests when I arrived to pick you up, but they were coming and going very quickly,” Sam said. “One of them could have returned from the hotel parking lot and made it look as if he was fetching a car for a guest. But again, the timing would have been tight—a matter of planning and a bit of luck.”
Maggie squared her shoulders and got what he now recognized as her fiercely determined expression. Stubborn was another word for it. She was about to take another sharp turn.
“We need to talk,” she said.
“We are talking. I keep coming back to the fact that two of the people involved in this thing disappeared right at the beginning—even before the beginning in one case—and haven’t been seen since.”
That succeeded in distracting Maggie for a moment. “You mean Lillian Dewhurst and that actress who was playing the part of Aunt Cornelia?”
“Phyllis Gaines, right.”
“I know you’ve got questions about Lillian, but we saw Miss Gaines leave town the first night of the conference.”
“How do we know she left town? She’s an actress who wore a wig and some glamorous clothes for her performance. She looked like a very different person when we saw her packing up her Ford.”
Maggie’s eyes widened. “It was a Ford sedan, wasn’t it?”
“A lot of those around,” he said. “My point is that no one would recognize her if she drove across town and checked into a hotel or a bed-and-breakfast.”
“Hmm. I see what you mean. About the Ford—”
“It’s one of the most common cars on the road.”
“This may be even worse than I thought,” Maggie said. She straightened her shoulders again. “At first I believed it was a simple case of blackmail.”