“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “I was wondering if you could provide me with the emergency number for Irina Cunningham. She’s not answering her cell phone and I know all Strand residents are required to keep an emergency beacon on their person in case the HOA needs to quickly disseminate information to the community.”
After another pause, this one longer than the last, he thanked her and hung up.
“Well?” Ryan demanded.
“Nancy said she’d happily contact Mrs. Cunningham but that it wouldn’t do much good right now as Irina is currently on a red-eye flight to Paris, where she’ll be vacationing for the next few weeks. Apparently they go every year at this time and Irina decided not to cancel and let a little divorce ruin her summer. So we’ll have to wait a few hours to get hold of her.”
“No we won’t,” Jessie said excitedly as she stood up.
“Why not?” Jamil asked.
“Irina left today for a weeks’ long vacation, a vacation Pierce knew was happening. Her house, the house he used to live in, is empty. I think we can guess where he might be squatting tonight. What’s his address?”
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
Pierce Cunningham knew he should leave.
He’d been sloppy with the second woman. Even though he was always careful to wipe down his prints when he stayed somewhere, he was sure that he’d made some mistake in his mad dash from Carl Landingham’s place.
Even if the cops didn’t nail him with DNA or something, they eventually would because of the stocking. Of course, he used one for the first murder of the nosy neighbor because he had it on him. He always carried the memento of his time as the celebrated designer of a beloved garment.
It just so happened that it was in his hand at the exact time the neighbor discovered him hiding in the corner of the living room. If he’d had a glass vase at his disposal, he might have used that after he chased her into the foyer. At least that’s what he told himself. But there was a poetic justice to taking a life with something he’d created. Birth, death, rebirth—something like that.
Using the stocking for the second murder had just been a crazy coincidence. The girl who fell down the stairs happened to be wearing them. Using it as a weapon of death had worked out well for him once before. It only made sense to use it again. Part of him thought it was meant to be. It couldn’t have just been an accident of luck that she was wearing the same brand of hose that had snuffed out the nosy neighbor’s life, the same brand that he designed with his own blood and sweat. It was a sign and he couldn’t ignore it.
All the same, those beautiful coincidences were sure to blow back on him when someone eventually figured out that the man who designed the stockings used to kill two women had been institutionalized not long after an incident involving violence toward another attractive young woman. He had little confidence that the details of the settlement he’d reached with that whiny bitch, Annie Cole, would stay secret forever. Even if it was in the interest of the jackals at OTB who’d forced him out to keep things quiet, tongues always wagged eventually.
But he couldn’t bring himself to leave. After all this was his house. Technically it now belonged exclusively to his cold shrew of an ex-wife, who’d had gotten it in the divorce after basically threatening to publicly reveal his drunken moment of poor judgment on New Year’s Eve and ruin what was left of his reputation.
But he had originally found the place. He had supervised the renovations that turned it from merely a large, two-story Spanish-style house into a full-on Mediterranean mansion with a third floor, a rooftop pool, and views that, on clear winter days, included snow-capped Mount Baldy over sixty miles to the northeast.
He wandered from room to room, aware that every minute he stayed here put him at risk. Still, he couldn’t help but let the memories wash over him: the first night he and Irina had slept here, the rainy morning when she’d told him she had no interest in children. He recalled the first time he’d slept here with someone other than Irina, not long after discovering the credit card statement, the one she thought he didn’t know about. It showed she’d spent a weekend at a Malibu bed & breakfast, not alone, when he was working