list of transaction dates. Her MasterCard had been used multiple times every day for the past two weeks or so.
My emotions bounced around like a ping-pong ball. One part of me wanted to be joyous. To exalt. Another part warned me not to get ahead of myself. All it meant was that somebody had used the card. That’s all it meant. I kept telling myself that.
I stopped at the house for long enough to pack an overnight bag and use the computer to read the rest of the information Marty had sent me. It was all there in black and white. For the past week, Rebecca had been charging food, drink,and sundries at the Alderbrook Resort and Spa. Same thing with the phone. All of her phone calls had originated from that same out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere area code. Most of them to a Seattle number I didn’t recognize.
An hour after I’d arrived back at the family manse, I was on the road again, heading downtown toward the Pier 56 Ferry Terminal where I could catch a ride over to Bremerton from whence I could drive to the bottom of the Hood Canal, which really wasn’t a canal at all, at least not in the man-made sense, but rather was a long, thin fjord within a fjord whose sole claim to fame was that it separated the Kitsap Peninsula from the Olympic Peninsula and thus required a bridge.
Forty minutes on the ferry followed by an hour and a half’s driving would get me down to Union, where the Alderbrook Resort squatted by the dark shores of Puget Sound. The place had been there forever, since 1913 or something. Started out as one of those resorts where, as was the fashion of the day, outdoorsy city people in bowler hats and high button shoes abandoned their privileged lives in favor of sleeping in tents, and otherwise communing with nature. Same people you saw in the old photographs, climbing Mount Rainier dressed for a garden party. Hardy souls those.
I googled the Alderbrook website while waiting for the ferry. Nearly a hundred years and half as many owners later, the Alderbrook had moved upscale with Irish linens, four-star restaurant, world-class spa, eighteen-hole golf course, and all. Your year-round getaway destination. I took the virtual tour and then booked myself a room.
By the time I rolled through Belfair, it was mostly dark and I had a plan pretty much worked out. I opted fordiscretion. I needed to satisfy myself that Rebecca was okay without invading her privacy or looking like a complete fool if maybe she and Brett were reconciling and making wild whoopee in the woods.
If I started showing photos around the lobby and asking questions, I was bound to attract whatever passed for security, at which point all hope of anonymity would be out the window, so I’d decided to fly under the radar, which, my brain noted, wasn’t going to be easy if the place was deserted. In the past hour I’d passed maybe a dozen cars, the majority of which were headed in the other direction.
I needn’t have worried. The parking lot was jam-packed with luxury vehicles. The rich rumble of laughter and voices spilled from the front of the main building as I gave the kid my bag and started up the wide front stairs. In between the two sets of double doors, a reader board welcomed the twenty-third annual Pacific Northwest Cosmetic Dentistry Association to its annual get-together. SmileFest, I guessed.
Place looked like some Hollywood set designer’s conception of a wilderness experience. The Pasadena Ponderosa. Giant fireplace crackling at the far end of the room, urban art on rustic walls, lots of thick, rich-looking furniture arranged this way and that, at least a dozen separate seating areas where guests could commune in bucolic luxury.
I registered as Tom Van Dyne, one of several borrowed identities I’d used back when I’d worked as a PI. The real Tom Van Dyne was serving life without the possibility of parole down in Pelican Bay, so I didn’t figure he’d mind me co-opting his identity. He might be doing forever for offing and then
My emotions bounced around like a ping-pong ball. One part of me wanted to be joyous. To exalt. Another part warned me not to get ahead of myself. All it meant was that somebody had used the card. That’s all it meant. I kept telling myself that.
I stopped at the house for long enough to pack an overnight bag and use the computer to read the rest of the information Marty had sent me. It was all there in black and white. For the past week, Rebecca had been charging food, drink,and sundries at the Alderbrook Resort and Spa. Same thing with the phone. All of her phone calls had originated from that same out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere area code. Most of them to a Seattle number I didn’t recognize.
An hour after I’d arrived back at the family manse, I was on the road again, heading downtown toward the Pier 56 Ferry Terminal where I could catch a ride over to Bremerton from whence I could drive to the bottom of the Hood Canal, which really wasn’t a canal at all, at least not in the man-made sense, but rather was a long, thin fjord within a fjord whose sole claim to fame was that it separated the Kitsap Peninsula from the Olympic Peninsula and thus required a bridge.
Forty minutes on the ferry followed by an hour and a half’s driving would get me down to Union, where the Alderbrook Resort squatted by the dark shores of Puget Sound. The place had been there forever, since 1913 or something. Started out as one of those resorts where, as was the fashion of the day, outdoorsy city people in bowler hats and high button shoes abandoned their privileged lives in favor of sleeping in tents, and otherwise communing with nature. Same people you saw in the old photographs, climbing Mount Rainier dressed for a garden party. Hardy souls those.
I googled the Alderbrook website while waiting for the ferry. Nearly a hundred years and half as many owners later, the Alderbrook had moved upscale with Irish linens, four-star restaurant, world-class spa, eighteen-hole golf course, and all. Your year-round getaway destination. I took the virtual tour and then booked myself a room.
By the time I rolled through Belfair, it was mostly dark and I had a plan pretty much worked out. I opted fordiscretion. I needed to satisfy myself that Rebecca was okay without invading her privacy or looking like a complete fool if maybe she and Brett were reconciling and making wild whoopee in the woods.
If I started showing photos around the lobby and asking questions, I was bound to attract whatever passed for security, at which point all hope of anonymity would be out the window, so I’d decided to fly under the radar, which, my brain noted, wasn’t going to be easy if the place was deserted. In the past hour I’d passed maybe a dozen cars, the majority of which were headed in the other direction.
I needn’t have worried. The parking lot was jam-packed with luxury vehicles. The rich rumble of laughter and voices spilled from the front of the main building as I gave the kid my bag and started up the wide front stairs. In between the two sets of double doors, a reader board welcomed the twenty-third annual Pacific Northwest Cosmetic Dentistry Association to its annual get-together. SmileFest, I guessed.
Place looked like some Hollywood set designer’s conception of a wilderness experience. The Pasadena Ponderosa. Giant fireplace crackling at the far end of the room, urban art on rustic walls, lots of thick, rich-looking furniture arranged this way and that, at least a dozen separate seating areas where guests could commune in bucolic luxury.
I registered as Tom Van Dyne, one of several borrowed identities I’d used back when I’d worked as a PI. The real Tom Van Dyne was serving life without the possibility of parole down in Pelican Bay, so I didn’t figure he’d mind me co-opting his identity. He might be doing forever for offing and then
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