“If there’s an emergency, we make exceptions. But no one knew Mr. Rhoads was going to die that day.”
Lana looked around the empty hallway. The fluorescent lights gave the beige walls a bluish cast. “There were so many people at his wake. What a shame to have so few visitors in the final weeks of his life.”
Beth looked at Lana. “He was a proud man, Ma. He might not have told many people where he was or what was going on.”
Lana felt a brief flash of guilt for not responding to André’s last three texts, let alone Gloria’s calls.
“Gotta go,” Lana said, shaking it off. “See you tonight?”
“I have to cover the first part of Rosa’s shift,” Beth said. “I’ll be home around eleven.”
“I’m glad I brought two sandwiches. Have a good day, Beth.” Lana put a hand on her daughter’s arm. “And thank you.”
Lana turned and marched back the way she’d come in, her hips swinging, high heels tapping out precise parallel lines all the way to the double doors.
Once she escaped the building, she reparked under the grove of pines behind Bayshore Oaks and dialed the number she’d copied from Jack’s phone. It went straight to voicemail. But at least this time she knew it would reach her intended recipient.
“Detective Ramirez, it’s Lana Rubicon. I wanted to tell you right away. I’ve confirmed that Ricardo Cruz did not make it to Bayshore Oaks on the day he died.”
Lana realized it wasn’t nearly as impressive a message as she’d imagined.
“I hope your investigation is going well,” she improvised. “Okay. Bye.”
Lana hung up, feeling deflated and oddly sheepish. She looked down at her lap, at the note Beth had scrawled about Mr. Rhoads’s final week of visitors.
Tues Jan 31—DRW morn, VM aft
Fri Feb 3—DRW
Sat Feb 4—MR
DRW. DR. That was it!
Ricardo’s standing appointment wasn’t with DR, a doctor. It was with Diana Rhoads Whitacre, née Diana Rhoads.
Lana remembered what Diana had said, that she’d first met Ricardo as a toddler, when she came home from England. Before her marriage, when she was still Diana Rhoads. Which would make her DR in Ricardo’s book.
The tape ran backward in Lana’s head, reviewing everything she knew about Diana Rhoads Whitacre. Her dissatisfying marriage. The children who’d moved on. The spa she wanted to build. At lunch Diana had called Ricardo a beautiful man. And that beautiful man had a standing appointment on Wednesdays, one of the days Diana stayed over at the ranch each week. All by herself in that big old house.
Lana knew enough rich, underappreciated women to know exactly what someone like Diana did with beautiful young men, and why she kept it a secret. Even if her husband was flaunting his own dalliances, a woman like Lady Di would rather be caught dead than be seen as anything less than the perfect Carmel wife.
Lana stared at the slip of paper in her lap, her lips pursing in anger. Diana had been sleeping with Ricardo. Hiding it. Lying about it. Was she lying about other things too? Perhaps Diana’s interest in spending time with Lana had less to do with the wellness spa than keeping tabs on Lana’s inquiries. Lana felt furious with herself and, more so, at Diana Rhoads Whitacre, for thinking she could pull one over on her.
She pulled out her phone and scrolled through her pictures from the land trust, landing on the photo she’d taken of Ricardo’s calendar. As suspected, there was a DR penciled in on February 1, two days before he died. Had something happened at the ranch that night that put him in danger? Or perhaps the following morning? She needed to get more information on Ricardo’s final movements from someone who might have talked to him. Someone who wanted to be helpful, who didn’t have a reason to lie to her. For that, she knew exactly where to go.
Chapter Forty-Three
Lana drove north, to Santa Cruz. She parked a few spots upwind of the charred land trust building and cautiously opened her door. Men in canvas jackets were carrying in furniture from a panel truck double-parked in front.
Gaby spotted her first. “Ms. Rubicon!”
“Gaby.” The girl was standing outside the front door, wearing skintight jeans and a frilly, low-cut coral sweater. She had a dust mask dangling from her neck, grazing the swell of her breasts.
“How are you?” The girl clasped both of Lana’s arms. “When I heard what happened to you that day, I just couldn’t believe it. And now here you are. You look amazing.”
Gaby looked around and dropped her voice. “I’ve told Victor that library door gets stuck. He always just laughed and said I had to put my back into it. It took this horrible . . . incident for him to order a replacement.”
Lana regarded the young woman. Gaby was suggesting the door to the library hadn’t been locked at all. Could that be true? Lana tried to remember whether she had heard a click when Victor left the room, if she could feel the difference between a thrown bolt and stuck wood. But all she could recall was the siren splitting her ears open. The jagged edges of the window. And the people like Victor and Gaby who left her to burn.
Lana extricated herself from Gaby’s embrace. Two well-muscled men gripping a brand-new leather couch moved past them. “I’m glad to see you, Gaby. How’s everything here?”
“They finally got the smoke cleared out of the building. Most of our paperwork is destroyed, and it’s going to take ages to replace the exterior wall with something permanent. But our donors are helping us refurnish the office. And these restoration guys have been great.” Gaby beamed at a man carrying a lamp, causing a near fumble.
“And the police?”
“Detective Choi, he’s come a couple times. He said the fire must have been started close to the building. I think they’re still trying to track down a couple of the cars parked on the street that day.”
Lana wondered what kind of car Diana drove. But she also found herself reconsidering her earlier certainty about Diana’s guilt. It was possible Diana knew about the day planner Lana had seen, and she set a fire to try to remove evidence of her meetings with Ricardo. But it didn’t seem like her style. It was easier to believe that someone else, someone angrier, someone with more knowledge of the land trust building, might have done it.
“Everyone on staff is okay?” Lana asked.
Gaby nodded. “Did you really break through that window by yourself? I’m just, like . . . wow.”
Lana smiled.
“Victor feels terrible about what happened. I’m sure he’d love to see you, but he’s out all day at meetings—”
“I know. He’s been leaving me messages. But I actually came here to talk with you.”
The girl looked confused. “Did you want to make an insurance claim? We found your wig, but it wasn’t—”
“It’s not about the fire.”
“Oh.”
“It’s about Ricardo Cruz.”
“Oh?” Gaby was starting to resemble a very pretty parrot.
“I’m wondering if you can check something for me. Do you know when Ricardo was last here at the office?”
Gaby’s eyes went wide. “I’m really not sure I can—”
Lana put her hand on the young woman’s forearm. “Please. Victor told me about it when we met, but in all the hubbub, I misplaced my notes. Can you . . . ?”
Gaby pulled her phone out of the embroidered back pocket of her jeans. Her French tips scrolled down the glass surface, her nose scrunched up as she scanned the office calendar for the past month. When she found what she was looking for, Gaby did a tiny hop in place.
“Wednesday, February first,” the girl said. “Ricardo was scheduled to go monitor one of our properties that day. But first we had a staff training about condor breeding on Fremont Peak.” She gave Lana a tiny grin. “I remember. We had vegan doughnuts.”
“And then he went to monitor a property? What does that entail?”
“When someone donates development rights, we have to check on the land from time to time. We don’t own it, but we’re responsible for making sure no one’s running a business or dumping there. Most properties, we do it once a quarter.”
“Could it have been the slough property Ricardo was monitoring that Wednesday?”