Afterburn: A Kenzie Gilmore Thriller Read online

  Not anymore, no.

  Snake stood in the middle of the luxurious room and looked around. “I remember it like it was yesterday,” he said. “My heart stopped when I got back and discovered she was gone.”

  “What did you do then?” Reid followed him into the suite. The lounge was spacious and classy with pale leather sofas, a granite-topped bar and recessed lighting. Glass doors opened onto a massive private patio surrounded by palm trees and other lush vegetation.

  “I ran back to the party and rounded up a couple of dudes to help me look for her.”

  Reid opened one of the doors and stepped onto the vast patio. “She could have gone out this way,” he said. “Are there cameras out here?”

  “Only in the main pool area,” Luis confirmed. “These luxury suites are secluded. The guests value their privacy.”

  Reid peered through the tropical vegetation. “Where does it lead to?”

  “If you go straight ahead you get to the beach, but if you angle to the right, it leads to the pool area.”

  “She could have walked out of the hotel to the beach and no one would have known.”

  Luis glanced nervously at Snake. “I guess so.”

  “When did you notice her suitcase was gone?” Kenzie took the DJ’s arm and steered him back inside.

  “Early the next morning. We’d searched the whole hotel by that stage,” he said, his voice coarse. “It was only when we got back to the room that I thought to check the wardrobe. Then I noticed her case was gone.”

  “And her clothes?” asked Kenzie.

  “Yeah, some of them,” he nodded.

  “What was she wearing when she disappeared?” Reid studied Snake, looking for signs he was lying.

  He didn’t hesitate. “When I left her, she was wearing her yellow cocktail dress. She said she was going to run a bath and get into bed.”

  “Did she?” asked Reid.

  “What?”

  “Run a bath?”

  “Crap.” He blinked several times in rapid succession. “I didn’t think to look. I don’t think so, but when I came back later, I’d already had a few. I’m not sure I would have noticed if the bathtub was wet.”

  Reid ground his jaw. This guy was useless.

  They went back downstairs and viewed the security footage. Roberto, the hotel’s security expert, brought up the feed from the camera in the VIP suites’ corridor. He’d located the relevant date and time period.

  “That’s us going downstairs,” pointed out Snake. They watched the couple walk hand in hand along the corridor. Snake said something and Natalia smiled up at him. It was clear she was besotted with him. She certainly didn’t look like a woman about to run out on her marriage.

  “There’s a camera near the Sandbar, where the event took place,” said Roberto helpfully.

  “Can we see it?” Reid asked.

  He pulled it up. There were beautiful people everywhere. Long dresses, smart suits, leather trousers, even pink hair. Champagne bubbled as the guests smiled and mingled.

  “There’s Bella.” Kenzie pointed to a slim figure in emerald green. Her strawberry blond hair was styled in a high bun. She appeared perfectly behaved.

  “Can you fast forward a few hours?” asked Reid.

  They watched as a clearly inebriated Bella lurched around the pool, often veering dangerously close to the edge.

  “I’m surprised she didn’t fall in,” sneered Snake.

  “Did you talk to her?” asked Kenzie.

  “Yes, briefly. Earlier on. She congratulated me and hoped I didn’t mind her coming. What could I say?” He shrugged.

  “Who’s that with Natalia?” asked Kenzie as a woman in a sleeveless black dress with a severe bob could be seen waving her hands in the air.

  “That’s Natalia’s PR agent, Gabriella Vincent.”

  They watched as the two women argued. Eventually, Natalia swiveled on her heel and stormed off towards the bar.

  “That didn’t look too friendly,” Kenzie murmured.

  “Whoa!” Reid watched as Bella stumbled up, gripped Natalia’s arm, and hissed something in her ear. They couldn’t see Bella’s face, but her body language screamed anger and resentment.

  “I should have kicked her out as soon as I saw her,” hissed Snake, his eyes glued to the screen.

  Natalia jerked away as if she were stung and fled to Snake’s side. He put an arm around her waist and said something to Bella’s date who’d now appeared. He seemed embarrassed by the whole debacle. A short time later, he took Bella firmly by the arm and led her back into the hotel.

  “That was the last we saw of them,” said Snake.

  The time stamp read ten forty-seven.

  “Can we go back to the corridor?” asked Reid.

  Roberto pulled up the camera by the VIP suites.

  “Same time,” said Reid.

  They watched as Snake could be seen leading a weary Natalia back to the room. He had his arm around her waist, and she was leaning against him.

  “Was she drunk?” asked Kenzie.

  “A little woozy,” he said, “but she was complaining about the headache here.”

  Reid frowned. He hadn’t seen her drink much at the Sand Club. In fact, in nearly all the shots, she didn’t have a drink in her hand. It was only after the fight with the PR agent that she went to the bar, where Bella confronted her.

  Snake opened the door and led Natalia inside. The time stamp read ten fifty-eight. At ten past eleven, Snake reappeared in the corridor. He said something before he closed the door. Reid wasn’t the best lip reader in the world, but it looked like, “I’ll see you later.” Then he closed the door and walked back to the pool bar.

  Kenzie met his gaze. She was thinking the same thing he was. There was no way Snake could have been involved in his wife’s disappearance. He was in the clear.

  6

  “It did look like she’d packed up and left,” said Kenzie as they left the hotel. “If she was abducted, she wouldn’t have taken a suitcase.”

  “Unless someone wanted to make it look like she’d walked out on her own accord.” Reid stepped back to avoid a cyclist.

  Kenzie gnawed on her lip. “Do you think someone would go through all that trouble? I mean, if you’re going to make it look like she ran out on her husband, why dump her body in the swamp for someone to find? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Unless the killer didn’t expect her to be found,” Reid finished.

  “How could he not? Two other bodies have surfaced in the last four months in the same area. He must be stupid if he thought this one would simply disappear. Even if the gators got her, there’d still be evidence.”

  Reid was silent. Kenzie wished she knew what he was thinking.

  “I don’t know,” he eventually said. “I agree, it doesn’t make sense. Despite what her husband claims, it does look like she left the hotel on her own. If that’s the case, then her killer must have targeted her after she left.”

  “That’s incredibly unlucky, if it’s true,” mused Kenzie. “But bad things happen to runaways all the time. They’re vulnerable, desperate, easy prey.”

  “Except, Natalia was none of those things,” Reid pointed out. “She had money. Tons of it. She wouldn’t have ended up on the street or even in a seedy motel. She’d have stayed in five-star luxury.”

  “Not easy prey, then,” corrected Kenzie. “But that doesn’t mean the Swamp Strangler didn’t intercept her.”

  “The only way she could have left that hotel room unseen is if she went out the patio door. She can’t have gone to the pool area, or she would have been picked up by the cameras, which leaves the beach.”

  Kenzie frowned. “With her suitcase? At eleven o’clock at night?”

  “She was obviously keeping a low profile.” Reid was thinking out loud. “Why else go that way? It’s difficult, she’d have had to carry her suitcase over the sand, and where did she get picked up? She’d have had to backtrack around the hotel to the road.”
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br />   “She may have had someone waiting for her,” suggested Kenzie. Then her face lit up. “Can we check the CCTV cameras in the street outside the hotel? Maybe one of them caught her getting into a vehicle?”

  “I don’t have the resources for that.”

  “But you could,” she pressed. “If you agreed to lead the task force, you’d be able to access all the case files.”

  “To feed them back to you, you mean?”

  Kenzie grinned. “Why not? I like to think we’re a team. After all, I got you into this.”

  “I was involved long before you knocked on my door,” he gritted out. No way was he teaming up with her. “I discovered the body, remember? Besides, if I’m back on the force, I can’t work with you. My lieutenant would go nuts if he knew I was collaborating with a reporter.”

  She grinned cheekily. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

  He had the grace to smile.

  “Okay,” she sighed. “What do you suggest? Without that camera footage we won’t know whether someone picked her up or not.”

  “I’ll speak to Jonny. He was on my old team. He might be able to get us access to the CCTV footage.”

  “See?” She beamed at him. “I knew having you as a partner would pay off.”

  “I haven’t done anything yet,” he grunted. “And we’re not partners.”

  They crossed the street and walked to the next block where their cars were parked. The sun was directly overhead, and the temperature and humidity were increasing by the minute. Kenzie blew a strand of hair off her face.

  “Where would she go?” Reid asked thoughtfully. “Once she left the hotel.”

  “You mean assuming she was trying to get away from her husband?”

  “Yeah. Where would be the first place she’d go?”

  “If she couldn’t go home… To her father’s perhaps? I heard they were close.”

  Reid’s Ford Ranger pickup beeped as he pressed the button to unlock it. “Then let's go talk to him.”

  Rhys Arnold lived in a waterfront mansion in what was known as Millionaires’ Row. Kenzie knew that the properties along the Fort Lauderdale Intracoastal Waterway sold for exorbitant prices, but seeing them sprawled out over leafy lawns, next to palm trees stabbing the sky, was something else. “Did you know Bugsy Siegel and Al Capone also owned properties here?” she told Reid.

  “I didn’t, no.”

  She’d gone with Reid in his pickup truck, since it was pointless for both of them to make the 45-minute drive in bumper-to-bumper traffic. He was warming to her. He still didn’t trust her—and he probably never would—but he was definitely thawing.

  “Properties start around the eight-million-dollar mark,” she said as they drove down a palm-lined avenue towards the water. “And that’s conservative.”

  “How did Rhys Arnold make his money?” asked Reid. “I know he’s retired now, but wasn’t he in waste management or something?”

  “That’s right,” Kenzie said. She’d spent the evening reading up on him. “He founded Environ Waste Services back in the sixties. They’re one of the largest waste management providers in the country. They do residential, commercial, industrial—you name it. I read they have landfill disposal sites, recycling plants, gas and power production plants. It’s a massive enterprise.”

  “Smart guy.”

  “That’s not all,” she continued. “He also started Auto Retailer, based here in Fort Lauderdale, which sells new and used vehicles and associated services. They have more than 350 outlets nationwide.”

  Reid let out a low whistle.

  They pulled into a short, paved driveway flanked by a showy display of red, pink, and lavender flowers. The house was designed in the Spanish Colonial style, with stuccoed walls, a red-tiled roof, and windows in the shapes of arches with wrought iron balconies.

  Reid gestured to the security cameras, one above the garage and another hidden in the gables, but she’d already seen them.

  “He’s security conscious,” muttered Reid as they climbed out of the car.

  “I think everyone along here is.” Kenzie gazed up at the enormous arched front door with carved detail. Alongside was a buzzer and an intercom system.

  She pressed the buzzer.

  A female voice with a Hispanic accent said, “Who’s there?”

  “It’s Kenzie Gilmore. I’m an investigative reporter from the Miami Herald,” she replied. “I’m here to talk to Mr. Arnold about his daughter’s murder.”

  There was a pause.

  Footsteps sounded on the tiled hallway, and then the door was flung open.

  “What do you want?”

  Mr. Arnold was a bald, stocky man in his early sixties. He had a hard face and suspicious eyes that roamed over both Kenzie and Reid. “I don’t speak to the press.” He sneered the last word.

  “I’m trying to find out what happened to Natalia.” Kenzie aimed for the soft, sympathetic approach. “This is Reid Garrett, formerly with the Miami PD. He’s assisting me in my inquiries.”

  She felt Reid stiffen beside her.

  “I told what I knew to the cops.”

  “I’m sure you did,” Kenzie said with a smile. “But we’re dedicating a lot of time to this investigation, time the police force doesn’t have. Could we ask you a few questions about the night she disappeared?”

  “I thought the police were putting a task force together to deal with this.” He opened the door a little further.

  “Yes, they are now, and they’ve asked Detective Garrett here to lead it,” said Kenzie.

  Reid cleared his throat.

  “Hmm…” Arnold scrutinized Reid for a long moment, then nodded. “Alright then. Come in. I don’t have long, but I’m willing to do whatever it takes to find out what happened to my daughter.”

  Kenzie shot Reid a triumphant look as they stepped inside.

  Arnold led the way through the terracotta-tiled entrance hall, down a wide flight of stairs and out onto the terrace. The house was cool, although having the doors open was dissipating much of the cold air. Not that the billionaire worried about such things.

  “You have a beautiful home,” complimented Kenzie, gazing over the lush green lawn to the water’s edge.

  He grunted. A woman came out to see if they wanted anything, but Arnold waved her away. This wasn’t a social call.

  “When did you last see your daughter?” Reid asked, diving straight in.

  The billionaire sat slightly forward, his head stiff and unyielding. Kenzie could see the pain in his eyes, the grief he hadn’t fully dealt with but was trying to hide.

  “Two weeks ago. She came to see me. We had lunch together.”

  “That would have been a week before the launch party at the Sand Club,” said Kenzie.

  Her father nodded. “She mentioned it, but only briefly. She was proud of her husband’s achievements.” There was something in his tone.

  “DJ Snake has done very well for himself.” Kenzie watched his face. His lips pressed together, his eyes hard. Rhys Arnold was not a fan of his daughter’s husband.

  “Why he calls himself that ridiculous name, I have no idea.”

  “It’s to do with the tattoo on his chest.” Arnold’s dark eyes narrowed even more.

  “Did you get along with your son in law?” asked Reid, who’d also picked up on Arnold’s stiff demeanor.

  “Not really. I don’t consider hanging out in clubs and bars to be a suitable career choice, but that hardly matters now.”

  “Have you had any contact with Eric?” Reid wanted to know.

  “Not since they discovered Natalia’s body.” His voice cracked as he said her name.

  Reid nodded, letting the silence drag out. Partly out of respect, and partly to give the billionaire time to compose himself.

  Kenzie took over. “Mr. Arnold, was Natalia her normal self when you last saw her?”

  “Yes, of course. Why do you ask?”

  “All the signs point to her leaving the Sand Club t
he night of her disappearance. Her suitcase was missing, as were some of her clothes.”

  He shook his head. “I may have disapproved of Eric, but Natalia was crazy about him. She didn’t have a bad word to say about him. I can’t see her walking out on her marriage. I just can’t see it.”

  That’s what Snake had said too.

  “And she didn’t come here or speak to you that night?” Kenzie asked. At the color that rose into his cheeks, she added, “I just want to make sure we’re not missing anything.”

  “No, I would have told you if she’d come here. It wasn’t like her to run away. If she was unhappy, she’d have told me.”

  “Were you close?”

  “I thought so,” he said. “Since her mother died, it’d only been us. I know I worked too hard when she was growing up and didn’t dedicate enough time to her, but we’d reconnected in recent years.”

  The lonely little rich girl, Kenzie thought.

  “Listen, I thought the task force was supposed to be looking into this.” Arnold rested his hands on the table. “What’s being done about it? Have you investigated her phone records, her last-known position? What about her car? CCTV footage? There must be something that can point you in the right direction.”

  “We’re working on all that, sir,” Reid muttered.

  “Well, pick up the pace, won’t you? It’s been days since you pulled her out of that swamp. Christ, what a place to end up.” He swiped at his eyes.

  “We’re sorry for your loss,” Kenzie soothed.

  He gave a terse nod.

  They got to their feet. “If there’s anything else you can think of, anything that was worrying her or that she might have mentioned when you last saw her, please let us know.” Kenzie handed him her business card. He pocketed it without a word.

  “What do you think?” Kenzie asked Reid once they got outside, and the heavy wooden door had shut behind them.

  “I think that’s a man in mourning,” Reid said.

  “I agree. I believed him when he said he hadn’t heard from her.”

  Reid sighed. “No help there. He’s as much in the dark as the rest of us.”

  They got into the car when both their phones beeped.