Read Online Head to Head by Linda Ladd - Free Book Online

and I’ll bet a Double Whopper with cheese, Buckeye’ll tell us Black was with her within the window of opportunity. Question number two—how long before Black pulls out in his fancy car?”
    I said nothing as the motion-activated tape kicked on again. Black’s Porsche appeared driving up from the bungalow, but the driver didn’t face the camera this time. In fact, the face was averted when the car hit the main road and accelerated toward the lodge. Other cameras along the way picked up the car until it sped through the stone entrance gate and out of sight.
    “He left at 12:30 A.M . That’s a pretty long time to visit a patient at night, don’t you think, Claire? Especially when they’re not romantically involved.”
    I leaned against the desk, staring at the cameras and frowning. I thought about it. “Rewind it, Bud. Let’s see if anybody else’s in the car with him.”
    Bud walked around the console and worked a couple of buttons. The tape reversed, and the car rolled into view again, but it was too dark to see anyone in the passenger’s seat. “He’s got a cap on now.” Bud pointed to the screen. “He wasn’t wearin’ one when he drove in.”
    “If it’s him coming out. Could be somebody else.”
    “Could be a her. Or it could be Sylvie herself.”
    “Maybe. But unlikely.”
    “Yeah.”
    “Guess we better take a look at all the tapes, Bud. It wouldn’t hurt to go back to the day Sylvie Border arrived at Cedar Bend and see if we can find anybody else paying a call on her. Might even pay to check out her previous visits, if Black keeps his tapes that long.”
    “Okay, I’ll confiscate as many as I can. We can go halves on watchin’ them. I like to share the fun with you, podna.”
    Oh, these Southerners.
    “Miki gave us the okay, so have somebody get them together for us to review while we take statements from the staff.”
    The individual questioning took the rest of the day. I talked to countless maids, kitchen and room service people, and Bud rounded up everyone else who worked at the lodge. After a forty-minute session with an eighteen-year-old maid so scared she stuttered everything she said, I called it a day and checked out Sylvie’s bungalow. I wanted it secure and guarded from press vultures. Bud had gone back downtown to fill in Charlie, who was supposed to be back from Jeff City by five o’clock.
    At eight minutes after six o’clock, I climbed into the Explorer and finally left the grounds of Cedar Bend. Tired, fighting one of the killer headaches I’d had for the last couple of years, I admitted things didn’t look so good for Nicholas Black. So far, he was the only person seen going in or out of the victim’s bungalow that day or the day before. And he’d visited her on five separate occasions during her two-week stay, not counting their therapy sessions up in the private quarters of his luxury digs. No one else had been seen anywhere close to the dead woman’s bungalow. Sylvie hadn’t shown up on the tapes, either, but I had a whole stack of videocassettes for homework.
    Traffic was heavy as I drove across Bagnell Dam. Boats dotted the glittering lake, many trailing water-skiers in creamy wakes. Jet Skis zipped everywhere like pesky little gnats. July was the busiest month at the lake, and Cedar Bend’s Regatta and Black’s special Fourth of July fireworks display shot from barges out on the water brought visitors in droves. That wasn’t counting the conventions at the big resorts. Cedar Bend’s concierge told me four conventions were going on there this week, with fifty more slated before the huge New Year’s Eve gala that Black threw for his friends and clients, with more fireworks, lots of champagne, and invited media.
    Today I’d bumped shoulders with about a zillion guests all decked out in shorts and conventioneer badges and black straw Panama hats, but they’d have to have 007 infiltration skills to crash the exclusive bungalows on the point. Still, the