Her Sister's Keeper

Kent followed Melanie up the narrow stairs, where four doors opened onto the landing. The first room Melanie looked in was big, with a queen-size antique sleigh bed and two dormer windows framing an ocean view over the treetops. “This used to be my room,” she said. “At night, with the windows open, I could hear the waves pounding against the Blackstone ledges.”

The bedroom was simply furnished and uncluttered. There was one framed picture atop the bureau, which Melanie studied for a few silent moments before turning away abruptly. Kent glanced at the photograph, a high quality black and white of a lean, athletic man on a Harley wearing an arrogant grin, leather pants and a dark T-shirt. Arms like Sylvester Stallone’s and features reminiscent of a young and virile Marlon Brando.

Melanie drifted out of the room and into the corridor. Kent followed as she passed a second door that opened onto a tiny bath. He glanced inside. Old-fashioned porcelain sink with brass bistro fixtures, small claw-foot tub, vintage pull-chain toilet. Everything clean and neat as a pin. A third door opened onto a smaller bedroom. “This was Ariel’s room,” Melanie said, stepping inside and looking around. “The wisteria vine growing against the cottage was so thick and strong that she’d climb down it like a monkey and spend the night raising hell with her friends. Ariel hated school, and couldn’t have cared less about her grades. It’s a wonder they graduated her.”

Melanie paused outside the fourth door off the landing. “This used to be what we called the study, but Ariel never used it for studying.” She was still smiling as she swung the door inward. She gasped and froze, hand still on the doorknob. Kent glanced over her shoulder and saw a charming nursery, painted in pale pastels, complete with a crib, baby toys and a changing table. A tiny writing desk set beneath the window and a day bed completed the furnishings. “Stephanie must have been wrong. Ariel did come back,” she said, gazing around the small space. “I knew she’d been trying to work things out with Mitch before he was killed. She must have hoped he’d move in with her here and help raise the baby.”

“What?” Kent burst out. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t you tell Captain Murphy that your sister lived in Beverly Hills?”

“Yes. That’s true. She has an apartment there which she loves, but according to Stephanie, Victor offered the guest cottage to Ariel a few months before the baby was born. Stephanie told me she didn’t take him up on his offer, but she was obviously wrong.”

Kent stared, first at Melanie, then back at the baby things. He had to restrain himself from cursing aloud. “So you’re telling me your missing sister might have been living here?”

Melanie shook her head, puzzled. “It doesn’t really look like they were living here. I mean, there are no personal belongings, just that damn picture of Mitch and a nursery that looks as if it’s never been used. I’m sure Victor would have told me if Ariel had moved in.”

Kent stood beside her, analyzing every detail of the small room. The entire cottage had an empty feel to it, and this room was no exception. Even the desktop was bare, although… Kent spotted the small, cream-colored envelope propped against the base of the table lamp at the same time as Melanie did and they crossed the room together. On the face of the envelope, in a childlike scrawl, a name had been written and underlined twice.

Mel

Kent heard Melanie’s sharp intake of breath. “Oh, Ari,” she said as she reached to retrieve the message.

“Wait,” he said, staying her hand with his own. “You shouldn’t touch it. It’s evidence….” Her hand was ice-cold in his, and as she lifted her pleading eyes, he felt his resolve begin to crumble. After a few moments he sighed and reached into his jeans pocket for the fresh pair of latex gloves he’d grabbed earlier at the Beverly Hills Regency. “All right,” he said. “I’ll open the letter and lay it on the desk for you to read, but you can’t touch it. Understand?”

She nodded.

The envelope wasn’t sealed, which made things easier for Kent. He withdrew the folded sheet of matching stationery, acutely aware that Melanie was clinging to the edge of the desk and her face was even paler than it had been before. He hesitated, caught between knowing what was right and what his heart was telling him to do. Not only did he stand to lose his badge twice over for doing this, but Melanie was probably going to faint on him again.

And yet, she deserved to read the note. Hell, if it was his sister that was missing under suspicious circumstances and his best friend that T. Ray was examining probably at this very moment in the hospital morgue, wouldn’t he want to study the note before the investigators arrived and took it to the crime lab? Damn straight he would, no matter what it said, good or bad. And so Kent carefully unfolded the piece of stationery and laid it flat on the desktop.

Dear Mel, I’ve messed up everything so bad…

The words seemed to float up from the pages to her eyes. As she read, the unmistakable delicate scent of CK One, Ariel’s favorite perfume, wafted up from the paper. Melanie swallowed hard, blinked a tear from her eye and prayed that the letter would hint at Ariel’s whereabouts, and reassure her in some way that her sister was all right.

I’ve ruined my life and, worst of all, I’ve de¬ stroyed the lives of the people I love most. I don’t blame you for not wanting to talk to me. I don’t even blame you for hating me. After what happened with Mitch, I guess it’s what I deserve. But, I have to tell you—beg you to understand— I never, ever meant to hurt you. What I did was selfish and stupid, I know, but when I first met Mitch it was love at first sight, or at least that’s what I thought. You must be able to understand that.

Melanie certainly could. It was the same effect Mitch had had on her when Victor had introduced them on the location of Hammerhead Row. The movie was full of explosions, fights, high-speed car chases and numerous other risky stunts, and Mitch had been the body double for the lead actor.

Melanie remembered the almost electrical charge she had felt when she and Mitch met. Hammerhead Row had been shot almost entirely on location in San Francisco, and that required Melanie’s constant presence. The initial mutual attraction between them had led to lunches, which soon evolved into dinner dates at various city hot spots. By the time the movie was into its third week of production they were sleeping together. In fact, Melanie could still blush recalling those first passionate encounters in Mitch’s trailer. By the time the film wrapped they were living together and by the premiere, they were engaged. And all that time, Mitch was playing both Melanie and Ariel.

Melanie forced the memories out of her mind and turned her attention back to the letter.

I don’t expect your forgiveness, but maybe one day you will want to meet your new niece. She’s so beautiful, and I hope she takes after you. Strong, smart, brave and dependable. All the things I’m not. All the things I admired so much about you. All the things I lost. And please try to forgive Mitch. I think, no, I believe, he realized how much he had hurt both of us. He wasn’t a bad man. He was just caught up in the Hollywood scene and he let it go to his head. He really wanted it to work between us and to support this baby. I regret she will never know her father.

Mel, I love you. If nothing else, please believe that. I would like to tell you that in person, and maybe someday in the future I can. We’re going away for a few weeks but maybe when I get back we can come visit you. Motherhood is going to be the toughest part I’ve ever played. It’s going to be hard and it’s going to be lonely, but I can do it. I have you for a role model, after all. You’re so strong, and I’ve been so weak, but that’s going to change, I promise you that. And I ask you to promise me one thing. No matter how you feel about me, if anything ever happens to me, please, I beg you, take care of my little girl.

So, for now this is goodbye. When we get back, I’ll call you. I can only hope it is a call you will take.

All my love,

Ari.

These were the most honest, self-aware and heartfelt words she had heard from her sister in years. And, thanks to Melanie’s obstinate refusal to talk to her sister, this last communiqué was one- sided. “What a fool I’ve been,” she whispered.

“Are you all right?” Kent asked.

He was standing very close. Probably ready to catch me again.

“Just give me a minute,” she said, not turning. Instead, she looked up from the letter and out the window. The sun was over the Pacific and the waters gleamed with a thousand jewels on the waves. It had been their favorite time of day. In happier times, it was the kind of late afternoon when she would have come home from a long day on set with a huge bag of Chinese takeout and a wealth of Hollywood gossip to share with her little sister. The two would take the food and a blanket down to the private beach below the estate and have a feast, staying until the last golden rays fell below the waves.

“We never did see it,” she said out loud.

“Excuse me?” Kent said.

“The green flash, we never saw it in all the time we were here.”

Kent was looking at her oddly. Perhaps he was thinking the letter was the final straw needed that day to break the back of her sanity.

Without turning from the window, she said, “You mean to say that you live and work on the California coast and you’ve never heard of the green flash?”

“Hey, I just work on the coast. I’m a mountain man, born and bred.”

She finally turned toward him. “Few people have seen it and lots of folks don’t even believe it ever happens. But the story goes, on evenings when the conditions are right, as the sun sets behind the ocean its last rays, just for an instant, shine through the waves far out to sea. In that instant the sunlight flashes green across the sky. Ari and I spent a lot of nights down on the beach waiting to see it.”

In the ensuing silence, Melanie was able to collect herself and, for the first time in those awful months since the aborted wedding, think clearly. It was as if a fog was lifting and she could look inside with brutal objectivity. She had spent the last six months foolishly blaming everyone but herself for her misery. She had blamed Mitch for his philandering, she had blamed Victor for introducing her to Mitch and most of all she had blamed Ari for ruining her life. Now she realized the only blame belonged on her shoulders. She had been faced with a choice: deal with what had happened and move on, or wallow in self-pity and melancholy, thereby punishing everyone around her.

Her choice had cost her dearly. One by one her friends, all but Stephanie, had given up on her, leaving her to her own state of misery. Her work had suffered to the point that even Victor had warned her that her career was in real jeopardy. And the heaviest toll of all had been the erosion of her relationship with Ariel. Well, no more. The dreadful, endless day that had started with the desperate move of seeking help from an outside professional had somehow brought her to this point of realization: The only one who could help her was her. On the spot she made a series of promises to herself. No more excuses. No more self-pity. No more wallowing in the past.

She straightened, squared her shoulders and turned to Kent. “Dr. Mattson, we have to find my sister as soon as possible.”

SOMETHING IN Melanie’s voice made Kent look closely at her. Gone was the vulnerable patient who had bolted from his office. Gone, too, was the bewildered woman who had just suffered through the discovery of her best friend’s corpse, the official identification of the body and nearly two hours of police questioning.

Instead, he had the distinct impression he was seeing the real Melanie Harris for the first time, and he marveled at the change. Kent would have predicted months, if not years of intensive therapy to put back together the broken woman he had met that morning. He raised an eyebrow.

“Do you know where she was planning to go?”

“No, I don’t, but at least we know she’s all right. This letter was dated two days ago. She knew she was going away and must have been planning to have Victor give me that letter,” Melanie said. “Victor might know where she’s gone.”

“Who’s this Victor you keep mentioning?”

“Victor Korchin. He owns this estate. He’s my boss, and a good friend.”

“Why is that name so familiar?”

“Victor’s a film director.”

“Ah, yes. Korchin Studios.” Murphy had mentioned that name to him earlier. This time, Kent did curse aloud. “No doubt Victor has close ties to your sister, who happens to be a successful actress,” he prodded.

Melanie hesitated. “Yes. Victor’s been like a father to her.”

“But somehow you just forgot to mention to us this little connection between the two of them?”

Melanie dropped her eyes from his accusing stare. “I’m sorry.”

“I hope he knows something about your sister’s whereabouts, since she didn’t leave many clues in that letter and the only other person we might have questioned is dead. I’ll have a couple of detectives dispatched here immediately to question him and search this place properly, now that we’ve messed up any potential evidence.” He reached for the cell phone clipped to a holder on his hip, but before he could make his call, it rang.

“Mattson here,” he said.

Melanie could tell that Kent was on the receiving end of a call from his boss.

“Hold on a sec,” Kent was saying as he fished a notepad out of his pocket and leaned over the desk, pen in hand. “Okay, what do you have?” He listened, scribbling furiously. “Got it. Thanks. And Murph? You might want to send a team out to Victor Korchin’s estate. Ariel Moore and her baby might have been living at the guest cottage here. We found a letter that she wrote two days ago to her sister, and she could still be somewhere on the premises. We haven’t approached the main house yet.” He gave her the address before ending the call and turning back to Melanie.

“Do they have any leads?” she asked.

“No, but they’ve made a positive ID of the other victim found earlier this morning.”

“There was another victim? Who?”

Kent paused. “What the hell. You’ll probably hear it on the evening news.” He flipped through the pages of his notepad. “Her name was Rachel Fisher, age thirty-seven, and she lived at…”

“Sixty-five East Corinth, right on the beach,” Melanie said, her mouth going dry as her heart skipped several beats.

Kent appeared stunned. “Don’t tell me you’re psychic.”

Melanie shook her head, trying unsuccessfully to rid herself of an all-too-familiar feeling triggered by one of her earliest childhood memories. When she was a little girl and Ariel just a newborn, their parents had taken them to a family gathering at an aunt and uncle’s farm in the country. It had been a day of picnics, games, cousins and, to a young Melanie, seemingly endless fussing over “baby Ari.” By midafternoon she had grown resentful of the fawning over her new sister. Determined to recapture some of the attention, Melanie was drawn to the huge and ancient apple tree behind the barn. She knew Uncle Tukey loved red apples and set out to prove her worth by scaling the tree and fetching the biggest, reddest apple she could find. As it happened, the biggest, reddest apple was hanging from the tree’s uppermost branches. With scarcely a thought to her mother’s standing admonishment to remain in sight of the grown-ups at all times, she skipped around the back of the barn and clambered up the tree.

Melanie had climbed higher and higher, until she was a full fifteen feet off the ground. She looked down only once, and that was enough. She was an accomplished tree climber, but this was certainly higher than she had ever gone before. Smiling in anticipation of the look of happy surprise on Uncle Tukey’s face when she presented him the trophy apple, she shinnied out onto the branch, which was swaying a bit under her weight. Clinging to the rough bark with one hand, she extended the other and, just as her fingers brushed the red fruit, the branch gave one last mighty sway and snapped.

She remembered feeling not as if she were falling, rather as if she were suspended in midair and the ground was rushing up to meet her. Everything was pretty hazy after that. She must have screamed because there was a knot of adults and cousins around when she came to, all with the same concerned look on their faces. Melanie’s plan to divert their attention from Ariel had worked, but the price had been a costly one—a broken arm and a month-long grounding. All of that was a dim recollection, however. What had stayed with Melanie was that feeling of inertia while inevitable events rushed toward her. It was one that had followed her all her life and, as she looked at Kent, she felt it again for the second time that day.

“Dr. Mattson, I know Rachel. I know her address because mine use to be Sixty-seven East Corinth. We were next-door neighbors until I moved closer to the studio. She’s one of Victor’s best screenwriters, and I’ve known her for years.”

A DOZEN THOUGHTS were competing for Kent’s attention, but rising fast among them were these: two young women had died mysteriously, mere miles and hours apart. Both were affiliated with the movie industry, and both knew the missing Ariel Moore and her sister, Melanie. It was obvious from the expression on her face that Melanie had made the same sinister connection.

“What’s going on?” Her eyes reflected her confusion and fear. “Dear God, do you think Ariel and the baby might be in some kind of danger?”

“I honestly don’t know,” Kent said, putting his hands on her shoulders as he looked at her. “But I can promise you this. We’ll find your sister and her baby as quickly as we can. In the meantime, I’m not about to let you out of my sight.”

CHAPTER FOUR

MELANIE TURNED AWAY from Kent and gathered her wits. “Was Rachel killed at home?” she asked. “Do you think the same person killed them both?”

“Rachel’s body was discovered on the beach below her apartment by a jogger early this morning,” Kent said. “This early in the investigation we can’t be sure, of course, but there’s a strong possibility the two deaths are connected.”

“But who would want to kill either of them?” Melanie bit her lower lip, damning the quiver in her voice.

Before Kent could respond, they heard the throb of an approaching engine and the crunch of tires on the gravel drive. A green-and-yellow John Deere garden tractor puttered into view, a spry-looking elderly man perched on the seat, dressed in drab workingman’s clothing and wearing a straw hat. “The gardener?” Kent asked.

Melanie shook her head. “Victor Korchin,” she said. “I’m hoping he can tell us where Ariel is.” She turned from the window and hurried for the door, but Kent reached for her arm to hold her back.

“Wait,” he cautioned. “Until Captain Murphy gets here, the less said about anything that’s happened, the better. You’d better let me talk to him.”

“That’s ridiculous. I just want to ask him about Ariel.” Melanie pulled out of his grasp and backed up a step. “Victor has a right to know about Rachel and Stephanie. You can’t possibly think he’s involved in any way.”

“This is a murder investigation. I’m talking about police procedure here and we’ve already violated a number of important protocols. I’d like to keep my job, if you don’t mind.”

“I won’t mention them,” she promised, inwardly seething at the way he was treating her. She wheeled around and exited the little nursery, dashing down the stairs in angry haste. As she rushed forward to meet Victor, she heard the faint sound of sirens approaching from the main road. Victor stopped the tractor and cut the ignition.

“Melanie,” he said, climbing off the seat. He seemed surprised and pleased to see her. “Have you come to see Ari? This is good, so good, but I don’t think she is here.” Victor’s eyes focused over her shoulder. “Come up to the house, bring your gentleman friend, we’ll share a glass of wine and talk….” His expression changed as he heard the approaching sirens. “What’s wrong, Melly? What is it?”

“Oh, Victor,” Melanie said, crumbling at his use of her pet name. “We were hoping you’d know where Ariel was. It’s very important that we find her.” Melanie turned as Kent stepped up beside her. “This is Dr. Kent Mattson, and he’s…”

“Is Ariel sick? Is the baby all right?” Victor interrupted, his face becoming pale. “Something terrible has happened. What is it? Dear God, tell me.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” Kent said. “I’m afraid you’ll have to wait for the police to arrive. Maybe you’d better sit down.” He guided Victor toward the passenger side of the unmarked car before walking away to meet the police cars, and Melanie’s heart broke at how old Victor looked as he half collapsed onto the seat with a dazed, apprehensive expression.

“Melanie?”

“I’m here, Vic.” She knelt beside him. “I’m right here.”

“What has happened? Why can’t you tell me? Is Ariel all right? And her baby?”

Melanie closed her hands around his, feeling their cold tremble. “I don’t know, Victor. I honestly don’t know. Do you have any idea where she might be?”

“At her apartment, maybe? She spends most of her time there, now that Mitch is dead.”

“She isn’t there. We’ve checked.”

“I just cast her as the lead in our next production, Celtic Runes. Did she tell you? We were going to begin filming shortly…. Is she sick? Is she in some kind of danger?”

Victor was so distraught that Melanie was on the verge of telling him everything she knew when she felt Kent’s hand on her arm, drawing her to her feet as the police cars, a seeming platoon of them, careened around the corner and skidded to a stop, blue lights flashing, sirens cutting out one after another. Kent propelled Melanie along with him as he approached Captain Murphy’s car. She fixed Kent with a steely expression as she exited her vehicle. “Well?”

“The man over there is Victor Korchin,” Kent said. “According to Melanie, he was like a father to Ariel. All he knows is that she’s missing, and he learned that from us not five minutes ago. We told him nothing about the two murders, and we didn’t touch anything inside the cottage except for the letter in the nursery, and I wore gloves when I took it out of the envelope.” Kent glanced at Melanie, then ran his fingers through his hair. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to get Melanie out of here. It’s been a helluva long day for her.”

Murphy gave Kent a curt nod of dismissal as she moved toward the unmarked car, signaling two other officers to accompany her. The three of them assisted the visibly shaken Victor to the captain’s vehicle. Halfway there he paused.

“Where are you taking me?” he asked, removing his straw hat. “I will need to leave a note for my wife that I am going.” He reached into his trouser pocket and drew forth a large handkerchief to dab the sweat from his forehead.

Melanie took a step forward, but before she could voice a single word, Kent pulled her back. He escorted her firmly to the car and planted her in the passenger seat. “But, Dr. Mattson, I can’t just leave Victor like this….”