Page 104 of Sunset Beach
The microwave dinged. Drue transferred the hot plate onto the kitchen table. She took a bottle of Cholula sauce from a cabinet and doused the burrito in it.
“To start with, what’s the official police file doing in a box in my grandfather’s cottage, more than forty years after this woman vanished? Who put it up there? I’ve read through it. There’s no mention of Dad’s name in any of the reports.”
She tasted a forkful of her dinner, paused, then sprinkled more hot sauce atop her burrito.
“But I’ll tell you whose name is in the file—and that’s Jimmy Zilowicz, who everybody calls Jimmy Zee and who is not only my dad’s oldest friend but a former St. Pete police detective, and currently case investigator at the law firm.”
“Coincidence?” Corey asked.
“I asked Zee if he had a theory about the Colleen Hicks case. He said his role was minor, that he just did some legwork.”
“And did he have a theory?”
“He said that Colleen Hicks and her husband were into some kind of kinky stuff. And that right before she vanished, she cleaned out their joint savings account. Allen Hicks, that was the husband, was a control freak, according to Zee. He says she probably disappeared on purpose.”
Corey leafed through the binder, pausing at the black-and-white photos in their clear plastic envelopes. “Do you believe him? Do you believe it’s possible that she’s alive?”
She poked at the burrito with her fork, took a bite, chewed and swallowed. “If she’s still alive, she’d be around my dad’s age now. Why would she stay hidden all these years?”
“Suppose she did start a new life? Remarried, maybe had kids, now she’d have grandkids. Whatever happened to her husband?” Corey asked.
Drue reached for her cell phone and typed the name Allen Hicks into the search engine. The search yielded more than three dozen citations. She pulled up the first two and read them.
“Three years after his wife disappeared, Allen Hicks got a Mexican divorce. He remarried, got divorced again and then married a third time.” She looked up at Corey. “Clearly the guy wasn’t exactly distraught over losing his wife.”
She clicked on the next story link and skimmed it quickly. “Allen Hicks retired to North Carolina and died in 2009.”
“Which still leaves the question of whatever happened to Colleen,” Corey said. “Is she dead or alive?”
“And what, if any, is the connection to my dad?”
“Why don’t you just ask him?”
“I did. He denied that there was any real connection.”
“Just level with him,” Corey said, shaking his head impatiently. “Tell him you found the old police files up in the attic—in a box of his stuff.”
“I can’t,” Drue insisted. “He’s not just my dad, he’s also my boss. It would be like I was accusing him of something dishonest at best and criminal at worst. I can’t say anything to him. Not until I have some kind of proof.”
“Proof of what? That he had something to do with this Colleen Hicks person?”
“Both that and whatever was going on at the Gulf Vista,” Drue said. “Look, we know that the female housekeepers at that hotel were the victims of sexual harassment. We’re pretty sure that whoever killed Jazmin was someone who knew her. If we could just figure out who killed her, then maybe we’d be able to get to the bottom of this whole thing. I can’t help but wonder if my dad or somebody at the law firm took a payoff or something.”
“And what happens if you discover your dad, and the law firm, is completely innocent? No cover-up, no bribe, but also no money for Jazmin’s mom?”
“Then I’ll let it go,” Drue vowed.
Corey cocked a dubious eyebrow.
“I will. I swear it.”
When she was alone again, Drue considered the flip side of the question Corey had asked.
What if she actually uncovered evidence that her father or somebody at the law firm had betrayed their client? Or worse—that Brice was involved in Colleen Hicks’ disappearance. What would she do then? How far was she prepared to take this quest for justice? She had no answer.
42
After Corey left, Drue took a glass of wine and walked down to the beach to watch the sunset. The damp sand felt cool beneath her feet, and the breeze off the water ruffled the sea oats on the dune that separated her backyard from the abbreviated seawall. At the last minute, deep-purple-tinged clouds drifted across the horizon, obscuring her view. She glanced up and down the beach, looking for “her” blue heron, but the only birds in sight were a group of sanderlings, skimming in and out of the shallow wavelets lapping at the shore.
